Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And there was a very good TV documentary some time ago that explored the
>>>>>>> Rockers/Mods seaside excursions, and found from witness statements and
>>>>>>> police reports that the issue was essentially minor in scale but vastly
>>>>>>> overblown by the newspapers, doubtless to sell more…newspapers.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The coffee bar that I and my fellow Rockers used to frequent was also a
>>>>>>> hangout for Mods. Apart from laughing at their mirror-festooned scooters,
>>>>>>> there was never any trouble between the two groups.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The motorcycle I rode in those days is still on the vehicle register. It’s
>>>>>> taxed and doesn’t need an MoT.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It’s worth £shedloads, these days.
>>>>>
>>>>> Interesting YouTube video on the events.
>>>>>
>>>>> Note the comment “…greatly exaggerated by the press…”, a theme also
>>>>> mentioned later in the vid.
>>>>>
>>>>> (Some slight violence, some great music, some great motorcycles)
>>>>>
>>>>> <https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2GbPUB1VePA>
>>>>
>>>> “…[the media] would publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading
>>>> "Violence", even when the article reported that there was no violence at
>>>> all”
>>>>
>>>> Still rife today in the media
>>>>
>>>> QUOTE
>>>>
>>>> The sociologist Stanley Cohen was led by his retrospective study of the
>>>> mods and rockers conflict to develop the term "moral panic". In his 1972
>>>> study Folk Devils and Moral Panics,[7] he examined media coverage of the
>>>> mod and rocker riots in the 1960s.[9] He concedes that mods and rockers had
>>>> some fights in the mid-1960s, but argues that they were no different from
>>>> the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and
>>>> early 1960s at seaside resorts and after football games. He argues that the
>>>> UK media turned the mod subculture into a symbol of delinquent and deviant
>>>> status.[10]
>>>>
>>>> Cohen argues that as media hysteria about knife-wielding mods increased,
>>>> the image of a fur-collared anorak and scooter would "stimulate hostile and
>>>> punitive reactions".[11] He says the media used possibly faked interviews
>>>> with supposed rockers such as "Mick the Wild One".[12] The media also tried
>>>> to exploit accidents that were unrelated to mod-rocker violence, such as an
>>>> accidental drowning of a youth, which resulted in the headline "Mod Dead in
>>>> Sea".[13]
>>>>
>>>> Eventually, when the media ran out of real fights to report, they would
>>>> publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading "Violence", even
>>>> when the article reported that there was no violence at all.[10] Newspaper
>>>> writers also began to associate mods and rockers with various social
>>>> issues, such as teen pregnancy, contraceptives, amphetamines, and
>>>> violence.[7]
>>>>
>>>> ENDQUOTE
>>>>
>>>> from
>>>>
>>>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mods_and_rockers>
>>>
>>> QUOTE
>>>
>>> Fifty years ago this month, on the Whitsun weekend of the 16-18 May 1964,
>>> the youth of Britain went mad. If you believed the newspapers, that is, who
>>> went with screaming headlines like ‘Battle of Brighton’, and ‘Wild Ones
>>> 'Beat Up' Margate’ . Editorials fulminated with predictions of national
>>> collapse, referring to the youths as 'those vermin' and 'mutated locusts
>>> wreaking untold havoc on the land'.
>>
>>> Whitsun 1964 has become famous as the peak of the Mods and Rockers riots,
>>> as large groups of teenagers committed mayhem on the rain-swept streets of
>>> southern resorts like Margate, Brighton, Clacton and Bournemouth.
>>> Extensively photographed and publicised at the time, these disturbances
>>> have entered pop folklore: proudly emblazoned on sites about Mod culture
>>> and expensively recreated in the 1979 film Quadrophenia.
>>
>>> Yet, as ever when you're dealing with tabloid newspapers, things are not
>>> quite what they seemed. What was trumpeted as a vicious exercise in
>>> national degeneration was to some extent, pre-hyped by the press. It was
>>> also not as all-encompassing as the headlines suggested: although an
>>> estimated 1,000 youths were involved in the Brighton disturbances, there
>>> were only 76 arrests. In Margate, there were an estimated 400 youths
>>> involved, with 64 arrests. While unpleasant and oppressive, this was hardly
>>> a teen take-over.
>>
>>> ENDQUOTE
>>
>>> <https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140515-when-two-tribes-went-to-war>
>>
>> QUOTE
>>
>> MODS AND ROCKERS ROOTS
>>
>> Any discussion of Mods and Rockers must also include discussion of the
>> Teddy Boys and Teddy Girls. This segment of the British youth subculture
>> developed after World War II — it predates the Mods and Rockers. Curiously,
>> the Teddy Boys (and Girls) are seen as the spiritual ancestors of both Mods
>> and Rockers.
>>
>> The curious and somewhat confusing mix of various gang-like youth
>> subcultures in the late 1950s in Britain plays a role in the
>> youth-exploitation film Beat Girl. In this 1960 movie — which starred
>> Christopher Lee, Oliver Reed, Gillian Hills, Adam Faith, and Noëlle Adam —
>> one can see elements of the developing Mod culture (the jazz-loving,
>> coffee-bar teen group represented by Faith’s, Hills’s, and Reed’s
>> characters) and a touch of the developing Rocker culture (in the form of a
>> large, American-style car that is used in one sequence from the film, and
>> hair styles worn by some of the minor young male characters). Near the end
>> of the film, a group of Teddy Boys destroy Faith’s sports car. It is
>> interesting to note that the nascent Mods and Rockers of the film seem not
>> to be in conflict with each other, or at least not nearly as much as the
>> “Teds” (as Faith’s character, Dave, calls them) are in conflict with these
>> newer groups.
>>
>> ENDQUOTE
>>
>> <http://subcultureslist.com/mods-and-rockers/>
>
> QUOTE
>
> MODS AND ROCKERS AS WORKING CLASS YOUTH SUBCULTURE
>
> While not detailed the Mods and Rockers per se — they are being used
> primarily as a metaphor for the changing aesthetics in British youth
> culture from the 1950s to the early 1960s — it is important to note that
> sociologists have determined that despite their outward differences (hair,
> dress, mode of transportation, and so on) the groups share several crucial
> links. For one thing, members of the youth gangs of the 1950s and early
> 1960s tended to be working class. And, although some members of the gangs
> described themselves as middle class, very rarely were Britain’s upper
> social and economic classes represented in the Mods or Rockers. Likewise,
> we shall see that skiffle and rock musicians that sprang up within British
> youth culture in the 1950s and early 1960s also tended to come from the
> working class.
>
> ENDQUOTE
>
> <http://subcultureslist.com/mods-and-rockers/>

QUOTE MODS VS ROCKERS AT THE BEACH IN BRIGHTON 1964

It was the ultimate clashes: the mods vs the rockers, two youth movements
in the 60’s that represented a big divide in society, broke into
pandemonium at the beach by Palace Pier in Brighton on May 18, 1964. Gangs
from each group threw deck chairs, threatened pedestrians in the resort
town with knives, created bonfires, and angrily lashed out at one another
on the beach. When the police arrived, the teenagers tossed stones at them
and staged a mass sit-in on the shore – over 600 of them had to be
controlled and approximately 50 were arrested. This now-infamous brawl in
Brighton and other seaside resorts over each group’s claim to fame was even
documented in the film Quadrophenia, which came out in 1979.

ENDQUOTE

<http://subcultureslist.com/mods-and-rockers/>

--
Spike