Scooters remained popular with skinheads, just as they had with mods. However, there was little room for Christmas tree lights and fox tails. Skins tended to keep them bog standard or cut them right down to the bare frame, more for go than show. George Marshall, Spirit of ’69: A Skinhead Bible p11
Whether or not the first skinheads came from the East End of London is open to debate, but it’s as good a place as any to claim as a birthplace. In 1972, Penguin published a book called The Paithouse which was about a skinhead gang from Bethnal Green. Skins were on their way out by then of course, but the book wasn’t really aimed at the cult anyway. More your sociology set. Even so, it was one of the few decent records of the original skinheads preserved on paper. ibid. p16
Racist skinheads emerged in Britain in the 1970s and ’80s in the midst of economic and racial tensions. Their culture copied the working-class skinhead movement of the 1960s, identified by shaven heads, steel-toe-capped boots and braces. Some skinheads adopted the ideology of the National Front. American Skinheads, National Geographic 2007
The white supremacy movement is complex and contradictory and made up of many factions. ibid.
Music plays an important role in attracting young people into the racist skinhead culture. ibid.
In the 1980s British band Screwdriver screamed their racist message to crowds of angry white youth. ibid.
The face of Britain’s drug dealers is changing. Kids as young as 8 are now being groomed to traffick drugs up and down the country. These young kids are easy targets. Children being used in drug dealing is far far more common. It’s a dangerous business that’s leading to extreme violence that’s spilling out on to our streets. 8 Years Old & Smuggling Drugs, Channel 5 2018
In 2015 an estimated 181 urban gangs sent more than 800 young people to market towns and coastal areas to deal drugs. ibid.
‘Hepburn Road: They call it Crack Alley.’ Drugsland s1e1: Crack Alley, rozzer, BBC 2017
‘I’ve been around crack and heroin since I was 15.’ ibid. addict
‘2,700 crimes reported in the area.’ ibid. rozzer
Wife: Where have you been these last three weeks? …
Husband: I woke up with a sore head on some waste ground in Wapping. Pit of Darkness 1961 starring William Franklyn & Nigel Green & Moira Redmond & Leonard Sachs & Bruno Barnabe & Antony Booth & Nanette Newman & Bruce Beeby & Humphrey Lestocq & Jacqueline Jones & & Michael Balfour et al, director Lance Comfort, wife to husband
These days the young are used to having plenty of choices and are actual vital members of society. Nothing wrong with that of course ... What was a teenager? Suggs, Teen Spirit: Here Come the Teds, 2012
‘We want something else.’ ibid. Ted
‘We want something different.’ ibid. Nidge
‘We created something for ourselves.’ ibid. Ted
To look great, feel good and have some fun. With any self-respecting movement it’s usually the look that comes first. ibid.
Drape jackets, drainpipe trousers and crepe-soled shoes. ibid.
The hair was a work of art. And no self-respecting Ted would leave the house without getting it right. ibid.
Search Is On For Teddy Boys Who Rocked Cinema-Goers: Rock Around The Clock blamed for youth riots. ibid. Daily News headline
How bad was it in reality? ibid. Suggs
’70s groups like Showaddywaddy and Mud took the original look and totally glammed it up. ibid.
To some the sixties will always be being a Mod or a Rocker. Suggs, Teen Spirit: The Mods and the Rockers
The Mods: clean-cut sharp-looking threads, listening to soul, ska and some of the greatest British pop music ever made, riding about on their Lambrettas and Vespas. The Rockers with their leather jackets, jeans, greased-back hair, tearing around on their powerful motor-bikes to the soundtrack of American rock-n-roll. Needless to say, there wasn’t much love lost between them. ibid.
Unfortunately, a lot of people remember the Mods and Rockers solely for the bank-holiday scuffles at the seaside. ibid.
Being a Mod meant dressing well in fancy clobber. ibid.
Carnaby Street – it was right here in the heart of London that so many came to buy the latest Mod gear. ibid.
The loose-fitting hooded Parka – how did they factor into the neat, sharp look of the Mod? ibid.
Rockers: theirs was a world of leather jackets, jeans and transport cafés. ibid.
The bikes were a noisy powerful symbol of all that rockers stood for. ibid.
Rockers were just as comfortable hanging on the back of a Gold Star. ibid.
For the wider public these coffee-bar cowboys were an intimidating threat to society, which wasn’t always the case. ibid.
The Ace Café on the North Circular road in London. ibid.
The soundtrack to their lives was also poles apart. ibid.
What really revved them up was some good old-fashioned rock-n-roll. ibid.
Courtesy of the British press it soon became Mods versus Rockers. ibid.
Clacton-on-Sea, Easter 1964 ... Mods and Rockers knocked lumps out of each other. ibid.
Guess what – the Mods and the Rockers didn’t destroy British society. ibid.
Flower Power was a long way from the Mods and the Rockers. ibid.
A lot of good memories and lasting influences came out of it. ibid.
46,965. And the two worlds met: with the Mods, a tribe of working class kids, who liked nothing better than a good scrap with the greasy older Rockers. The house band of the Mods were The Who led by art student Pete Townsend. Pop Britannia: A Well Respected Man, BBC 2008
This was Britain's first introduction to the presence of two warring factions: the Mods and the Rockers. It proved just the beginning. Trouble flared again at Whitsun, the late spring bank holiday. This time in Brighton, Margate and Bournemouth. And continued throughout the summers as other towns saw similar skirmishes. Timeshift: Mods, Rockers and Bank Holiday Mayhem, BBC 2014
Style was central to the Mod world ... It was a whole way of life and a departure from the past. ibid.
But at the same time there was another group of working-class youth loudly asserting themselves – the Rockers. ibid.
‘The ton-up boys set off ... to wind and weave, and often to be a menace.’ ibid. public information film
It was British motorbikes that were at the centre of their world. ibid.
Carnaby Street went Mod ... Music went Mod. ibid.
They had much in common. ibid.
‘It was a good time to be young.’ ibid. female rocker
One Mod said, ‘We were trying to get away from the Council estates, the pits and the factories – all that cloth-cap bullshit.’ Richard Weight, author A Very British Style
Mod music, Mod style, and Mod attitude have always fascinated me … I’ve been digging in Mods’ history. Bradley Wiggins on Mods, Sky Arts 2019
Set in the 60s, Quadrophenia is the story of Jimmy’s attempts to escape the monotony of ordinary life by being a Mod. It’s a world of music, clothes and camaraderie. ibid.
‘Well I don’t wanna be the same as everybody else. That’s why I’m a Mod, see.’ ibid. Quadrophenia, Jimmy
In 1974 this tribal consciousness would manifest in a less positive way … The two clans were destined to collide at the British seaside … Most of the original Mods I’ve spoken to reckon it was all exaggerated. ibid.
Mod not only went nationwide but global. ibid.
Carnaby Street: the most famous shopping street in the world. ibid.
By the middle of 1967 edgy urban Mod made way for softer flower power. But Mod wasn’t dead, it was just sleeping, and a decade later it would wake up with a bang: The Jam. ibid.
Children across the UK are being targeted. Gangs are using kids as young as eleven to move and sell drugs in places you least expect it. It’s called County Lines, and once they are hooked in, they are trapped. Many are forced to hide crack and heroin inside their bodies. Dispatches: Britain’s Child Drug Runners, Channel 4 2019