Beatniks, mods and rockers.

Nobody knew quite how it started. Perhaps with the Aldermaston March. Suddenly England had a new sub-culture (see previous post.... ‘It’s Trad Dad’). Then came the spillover from places like Ken Colyer’s Club and Eel Pie Island…scruffy hairy young people with bedrolls would find their way down to Brighton either by hitching or on the infamous Milk Train from Victoria. It usually happened at weekends. They’d sleep on the beach under the pier or in upturned fishing boats on the hard pebbles and meet up in the fish market to share bottles of stolen milk and Mars Bars. Young Dick Headley was strongly attracted to some of the beatnik chicks. He tried to entice them into his sleeping bag. Sometimes quite successfully.
Drugs? There weren’t many around. You could get a buzz off Dr. Collis Browne’s Mixture but speed and pot were hard to find. Acid was still some way in the future.

The music was quite primitive. Some people, like Davy Graham and Wiz Jones and Martin Wyndham, would have guitars. Perhaps there would even be enough instruments to make an impromptu skiffle group or even a Trad Jazz Band! Bemused old folk and other passersby on the sea front above would gather to watch this curious cultural phenomenon. Teddy Boys would shout rude things at them like ‘Do you ever wash?’ or ‘Get a bleedin’ ’aircut!!!’ and ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ Ha-ha.

Teds wore drape jackets, drainpipe trousers and suede shoes with big crepe soles. They liked Gene Vincent and Bill Haley. Then along came the Mods, who liked the Kinks, Small Faces and early Reggae. They showed up in their Fred Perry Polo shirts and parkas on Lambrettas and noisy little Vespas covered with extra headlights. This was too much for the Teds, who had somehow metamorphosed into Rockers while nobody was watching. They bought motorbikes and rode around shouting rude things at the Mods.

It may have been youthful high-spirits, or excess testosterone. Historians are still puzzling over it. Or maybe the various fashion styles and musical tastes just didn’t mix well. Anyway fights broke out which quickly became running battles, and it wasn’t long before the Great British Press was all over it. Old Bill got in some weekend overtime with his truncheon.

The Beatniks, being peaceful folk for the most part, stayed out of it. Some simply went home to read ‘On The Road’. Others decided to hitch hike to India. More about that later. Most of these young people eventually got jobs, started families and settled down in front of the telly. Some have since joined the old folk on the seafront where they sit in Regency shelters, feed sliced bread to gulls and discuss the youth of today.