Trimfit shirts seem pretty nifty....I tried to get in touch with them fairly recently about getting some shirts made but never got a response.

Lewis any original stories you have to share would be perfect for this thread.

I find this thread more inspiring than anything else at the Mo.

The Block with the Green Harringtons and sideburns is Leader of the shed but his name escapes me.
Here are some stuff i've go off the web ages ago






SHOW 'EM YOUR BRACES -YOUNG PRETENDERS

  My name is Stuart Entwistle and I am making this statement of my own free will from the recollections of being a young "Bastard" an active Skinhead in 1969. At the mean age of thirteen, yes that's correct thirteen years old I was "Young gifted and such a Twat" my own parents would not have recognised me when being described by the local bobby at Green Bank Playing Fields in Levenshulme Manchester 19. It's the summer of 69.

   The local bobby would chase us all over the park on his 50cc Ducati motorcycle. He would instantly recognise me because my Wrangler jeanswere cut down to show a size 7 Dr Marten Boots (cherry red of course!!), worn with the obligatory bright red socks. The Levenshulme and Gorton "Crombie Boys" all dressed very similarly to other Skins and Suedeheads across the country, but just to be slightly different we all wore white V neck sweaters (us being virgins 'n all!!!!).

     Grennbank Park was the place where we all met after tea during the week, also lunch times and always at the weekends. I mentioned Gorton because most of my mates came down on the 169 and 170  bus from Cross St, Gorton, Manchester. After eating egg butties at Marcias Cafe none of us were that interested in going to watch football, but we cheered Manchester United on throughout the season.    We got our kicks elswhere!!!!!!!.

    Every Saturday night we would all pile into Splinters disco on Stockport Road it used to be above the tyre shop where a couple or greasers worked, one of them happened to be a brother of mine known as "Big toe". Tony was about five years older tan me and rode a BSA bantom motorcycle, showing off his scruffy leathers and his chromed highly polished German helmet!!.

   He looked menacing riding his bike along with five or six bikers in tow. I tried my hardest to stay away from him until I wanted 50p, he was always obliging and would also give me a couple of fags that he had pinched from our dad. " Bloody Woodbines"! There was no street having them so I would slip them back into the old fellows packet. One time he caught me and I had to stand in front of all my brothers and sisters and eat one! I felt sick for days after and couldn't leave the house, I had a gob like an ashtray and I didn't want my mates to hear what he'd done. Every opportunity "Big Toe" would tease me about it and ask if I had taken up smoking, I can honestly say I haven't smoked seriously since.

   Booze never came around for us Skins because we didn't stand still long enough. If it wasn't "Ducati" chasing us across Greenbank we were running after others outside Harrogate Road Youth Club in nearby Reddish. Most week nights gangs of us used to participate in the clubs disco, listening to sounds such as :- Double Barrel, Montigo Bay and Monkey Man. Desmond Dekker and Laurel Aitken were particular favorites of mine.

    1969 soon rolled into the 70's. 1970 saw the publications of "Skinhead"and "Suedehead" written by Richard Allen, he could have been writing about the Levenshulme/ Gorton "Crombie Boys", or any other Skin group.For us they were the new testament, wrote for the cause, a reason to continue wearing my Harrington jacket and "Plain Royals". Red socks were the youth of the day and I got a couple of black eyes for hanging around on street corners shouting obscenities at whoever passed by.       I think about it now and laugh it seems so foolish.

    The music was more important to me than hanging round, but that's what we did!. The Youth Clubs and discos were the place to show off your tonics and blazer displayind a large Lancashire Rose on the top pocket. This was "a way of life" for most of us, you were either a Greaser or a Skin, it was simple, you either washed or you didn't. I was lucky I could afford a bar of soap. I don't have to spell it out to you or do I !!!       You danced with your bird, both of you showing off your braces, her with her monkey Boots and you a shiny pair of Dr Martens. you did the reggae or you stuck your thumbs in the pockets or your recently pissed on dirty jeans and looked like a fucking chiken1. Sorry about that "Big Toe" but that's what it looked like to me peering through the windows of the Ten Ten club/cafe bar in Levenshulme. " HELLS ANGELS 5TH CHAPTER"

    That was a long time ago now but the 70s were the time to be someone, just like the 60s flower power, smoking weed and growing a beard.                                                                                                                 I  didn't say but to put things into prospective for you, I am one of thirteen. This consisted of eight brothers and four of the other sort. My sister Sharon was also into the Skinhead Movement, we used to swap shirts and trousers, between us we had some excellent chequered shirts either Brutus or Bennies, sorry but that's all we could swap!!!

    1972 was the year my old fella bought me a scooter, Lambretta125, I think it was a GP but not to sure, it wasn't that important. £225 from a bike shop on Liverpool Rd, Deansgate. " Big Toe" just had to ride it home didn't he!. Before I got there he had the engine on the floor, what a bloody mess! bits of metal, oil and cables lying on the grass. he'd killed my Scooter before I could even sit on it. "Big Toe" had other ideas, he told my mother that she could use it for spares on her washing machine (a twin tub hoover). After finishing school the next day I walked to the back of our house where "Big Toe" had just finished putting it all back together and cleaning  off  the side panels with an old Ben Sherman shirt!!

    The next couple of days he showed me how to ride my chariot and bird puller, the "L" plates soon fell off!. By this time several other mates had scooters, some were mods , a couple chopped up ("Bid Toe" liked them). Mine just plain, my old fella reminded me that it wasn't a Christmas tree to put loads of lights and mirrors on but that soon changed.

    One late Friday night in June 1972 we all decided to ride up to Southport the next morning, for a "nose and pose" (like you do). We agreed to meet at eight thirty at the Bluebell pub car park on Barlow Road. Word soon got round the club we were going for a fight, all five of us were going to take on "Big Toe" and the Hells Angels. (First I heard!) We were going for a ride out nothing more. Saturday just didn't arrive fast enough, as planned  we all met up and rode up into Southport. We got a few strange looks from people but ignored them and sat proudly riding our "Italian Chariots". The weather wasn't too bad rain, sun , rain it's never changed!

    As we arrived on the sea front I could just make out the chrome in the distance, sitting proud on a couple of motorbikes, Oh Shit! "Big Toe" is here where should we hide? "Bollocks to 'em" Wet Bag my fellow scooterist said "Lets park up next to 'em" (not a good idea I thought) but I followed him onto the pavement to park up. "Yoey" another friend wanted to put his bike in between "Big Toes" BSA Bantom with its polished exhaust and engine, he wanted to make a statement but he pushed it next to mine.

    Walking along the front looking into shop windows we came across a Cafe/ Coffee bar and decided we should go in and have a brew and an egg butty. Making sure my "Docs" were still clean we walked into the Cafe and took the first few seats that were empty, not paying attention to anyone else in there. Big mistake "Big Toe" and his pal Sob (Phil) saw us enter and approached us. Being a Skinhead and riding a scooter created its own trouble but not the sort we were about to be subjected to from "Bid Toe" and company. "You got here on your washing machine?" Big Toe said to me, that was enough, I went for him and fell over a chair "Big Toe" stuck his even even bigger boot into my ribs "Wet Bag" went for Sob (Phil), the others ran onto the street shouting and taunting "Bid Toes" other monkeys. Well that's just what  they wanted , all three ended up on the floor. We ball got a beating that morning , it wasn't like that for Joe Hawkins (Skinhead Fiction) he always got the better of his rivals!!

    On returning to our scoots there was another surprise they were all sat on the sea wall, laughing and smoking just waiting for us. I thought if we just get on our scooters and ride away quietly then it would be all right. Not on your life! "Big Toe" made a beeline for me, I was stood next to my pride and joy, up came a heavy duty boot from the right side straight into my side panel, like dominoes all five scooters went down, it sounded like nothing I had ever heard. I couldn't see "Big Toe" the tears just came and my eyes were bright red. The sound of motorbikes pulling away was all I could take in, I had lost all other sensory feelings. "Wet Bag" stood next to me mouth wide open shaking with disbelief. That was it, they all looked like a pile of broken mirrors and lights that had been involved in a multiple pile up on a motorway. I remember saying to my mates " I'll tell my dad what he's done and make sure he gets a hiding of the old fella, laughter followed then more tears.

    Back to the street corner for us until the bikes were looking better. I never told the old fella but got "BidToe" back in other ways over a short period of time.

    The dancing continued "Skinhead Moonstomp" and "Monkey Spanner".

    Defending our street was still important, being me was more important and sticking by your mates throughout any rucks and scraps. Getting older and mature hasn't helped though.




SINGING IN THE RAIN.

            Being a scooterist in the 70's hasn't changed. You still get soaked and pissed off, all your chrome looks ugly and starts to show signs of rust.

           Well for the Levenshulme/ Gorton Crombie boys it was no different, but we had a solution or I had anyway.

           Late one August night, me, wet bag bumma (don't ask) and Joey decided on a raid of the cloakroom at the local working men's club on Mount Road, Levenshulme.

            Hiding in the car park until the bingo started we helped ourselves to several brollies and a couple of decent trilby hats and lagged it into the toilet block across the road in Greenbank Park, We promptly put on a fashion show, you could hear screams of laughter over the sound of two stroke engines racing across the park followed by the local bobby on his Ducati motorbike. I acquired a smart gentleman's brolly, but decided the trilby wasn't for me.

            The weekend arrived slowly, the rain continued to pour , the brolly became an accessory on my scooter, it stood proud up against the rear carrier strapped securely with a boot lace. At every opportunity we would untie them and hold them high over the scooters in a vain effort to keep them dry. people in cars would laugh and point, but we didn't care because once we were off our scooters we looked so smart and gentleman like!!! And they could be used for all sorts of genuine reasons, to lean on, to indicate (it's rude to point), to lengthen the arm during a good right hand punch! and to keep old ladies dry whilst crossing the road.

            Brollies here had become fashionable  way before with the suedeheads down south. Who cared about them, they lived on another planet, anyway we needed them to keep protected (I mean Dry!!).

            Friday night was "Splinters" on the A6 "Big Toe" and his bigger bile would have left, so I would be alright and he wouldn't be kicking me tonight, instead he would be kicking "Fat Sheila" into those tight leather trousers. The rain just kept pouring onto the ground so I decided that i would leave my scooter underneath the Tarpaulin cover out of the rain at the back of the house protected by "Roscoe" the family mutt. Some of us would walk to "Splinters" aided by our newly acquired brollies singing and chanting, on the way others went by on scooters. In all we must have grouped into more than fifteen all dressed the same, not forgetting the red socks and join in the long line of others to get inside out of the rain.

            The music was fantastic, everyone enjoyed themselves that night no hassle from "Big Toe" and his mates, we all managed to have a dance and went home without any trouble (still in the rain). The brollies became more popular as the winter months came and the odd bit of Aggro from our neighbouring skins in Reddish.

        Keep on "Keeping it on" Stuart (Chairperson Manchester Lyons).










MY FIRST TRIP TO THE SHED
by Ian "The Liquidator" Huxley

Before I changed my habits on a Saturday I used to go to Chelsea, the Heart is still there but my passion for the club has died since it went corporate. The sad old grey bearded megalomaniac has ruined my love of the club and now Millwall are my preferred Saturday entertainment.
In that Spammers book 'Want some Aggro' Mickey Smith mentions this game in his summing up of his 1972 season and says it was a Wednesday night game and West Ham won - Bullshit! This was my story of the events on the terrace on Saturday 25th March 1972 Mr Smith and there are other mistakes in the book but as we all say memories fade so I won't go down that road.

In my opinion The Spammers were a top mob and Millwall on the occasions they visited Chelsea also had the upper hand. But this is about that first trip into the Shed. As the train pulled into Fulham Broadway the previously concealed away supporters came to life, "UNI.-TED. West ham United are the team for me" echoed around the station. A moment of panic and then a fierce surge of Chelsea fans into the invading Mile End crew saw a flurry of fists and boots that lasted just seconds before the police flooded the platform and separated the two warring mobs. That little moment of excitement was just the start of my first trip into 'The Shed' with my mates.

March 25th 1972, my 14th birthday and my first football match without any adult supervision, a trip into the unknown. This was the day that a seat was to be swapped for a spot on the fearsome terrace area behind the South End goal - THE SHED END - STAMFORD BRIDGE.
Five of us from school had caught the train up from Crawley. We spent the journey in the company of a skinhead called Jez, a fully suited and very much booted aggro merchant. He wore the uniform of the day, Ben Sherman, Sta-Prest and Dockers, and over this a much admired butchers coat decorated with a huge Rampant Lion drawing - I still only perceive this to be the proper Chelsea badge. This seasoned warrior was sitting on the seat opposite and told how his current 'in fashion' garment had travelled to Wembley and Old Trafford in 1970 and Athens in 71. From his intimate knowledge of both venues and the exciting stories he told of the events we had no reason to doubt him, so we listened in awe as he related each minute detail to five eager listeners.

Boys amongst men has never seemed so apt as he warned us of the mighty Mile End mob and the Simba crew that would carve us up just for pre match entertainment if we weren't careful. He left us with one final warning as the train pulled in at Victoria - stand firm and don't run when West Ham try to take the Shed. We didn't understood what he meant but assured him that we wouldn't and before he had a chance to dispute it he was off and away moving with ease and confidence as he swaggered across the station. Next stop Fulham Broadway and Chelsea Football Club. I got a nervous feeling when the train came out of the tunnel behind the North Stand and began to slow down as it pulled into the station and on that day my legs were shaking. Maybe it was just a feeling of fear after Jez had warned us of West Ham's notorious fighting crews. Whatever it was it didn't last long as the station erupted with mayhem all around us. WELCOME TO THE BIG LEAGUE. We managed to get out safely and just in time to see Jez with a mob that didn't look like they wanted to smile sweetly and hand out flowers to the visitors from Bethnal Green and Bow. More police arrived and we were pushed out into the sunshine, away from the chaotic scene and heading for the promised land.

The short trip from the Broadway to the Shed was alive with rather tough looking street vendors pedalling the sought after wares of the day, in comparison to the Mega Store that now occupies the Shed the rather limited design silk scarves, rosettes, pennants and badges on offer in 1972 pale in comparison. Back then it was an Aladdin's cave to be pored over with every scarf examined to seek out the most original, every badge examined for uniqueness and every stall visited to get the best deal. As we searched for the best items we were oblivious to all the pre match activity around us and we entered the turnstiles behind two young West Ham fans with woollen scarves tied to their wrists. We weren't brave enough to question them or knowledgeable enough to realise what was going on.

That first sight of the pitch and the old East Stand at the top of the Bovril entrance held me captive on that day as I struggled to take it all in. Sucked in by the colour and history and lost in another world where the gods wore blue and the prizes would always be silver. A dream rudely awakened from as the others all shook me and pointed to the middle of the terrace. At least 1000 West ham fans were bouncing up and down in the sacred Chelsea End singing: " We took the Shed, We took the Shed, Ey Ay Addio we took the Shed." All around us were shell shocked teeny fans like us not knowing what to do next and a small army of very fierce and determined looking Skinheads.



More to follow
Lewis

Last edited by Suitedbooted2000 (2007-12-06 05:41:46)

^ What he said. All this stuff is so under-valued and yet so important. The real story of Skinhead needs to be preserved. The media idea of bonehead racists is f*** all to do with 1969 as far as I can see.

Best -

awesome posts Lewis!

the first tales of Mr S Entwhistle inspires me to look thru my Richard Allen books and see if there are any good passages that would be relevant and of interest to this thread.  Mr Joe Hawkins was definitely the "king of the skins"

Last edited by Suitedbooted2000 (2007-12-06 09:18:08)

I remember that thread, it's very long, and there are some interesting points among all the usual drivel

I had a link to Jeff's mod and skin pics in one of these threads (maybe this one?) but it's no longer functional since yahoo photos switched to Flickr.   Interestingly I thought Jeff's style was far superior and smarter as a skinhead than a mod.

He did have a great point in his first post in that MR thread about how the revival mods were more "skinhead" than "mod", which I agree with.  All those bands (Chords, Long Tall Shorty, Merton Parkas, etc etc) had a very obvious punk foundation to their sound.  The choppy guitar chords that helped define the "mod sound" were very punk in its simple stripped down style.  When I listen to revival bands on my iPod nowadays I can't help but think that there's a very distinct similarity to a lot of classic Oi music, before Oi got tangled up in hardcore and metal.  The only (post) revival band that is pure "mod" without any punk influence was Makin Time, imho.

But I'd guess that there are more skinheads that are more mod than they think, than vice versa.  Most skins I've known thru the years all listen to "mod music" like 60s Beat, Motown and NSoul...in addition to ska/skinhead reggae/oi/rac.  But very few mods seem to know much about the skinhead scene and their bands.

Lewis-I thought the come dancing post was superb - thankyou

This is taken from a Website called Orignal Skinhead Heaven which i think is now no longer around
it shows the good and bad side of the cult



No Whites; No Rudies:
No Blacks; No Skins.
The contradictory nature of the history of the skinhead culture - its black roots and its synonymous link with racism, both from the very early days to the present, is a matter of confusion to all. Just what was the nature of these conflicting ideals. Much has been made of them by sociologists and the truth seems to be tainted by the politics and vested interests of those involved in writing about it. This is my own personal view of events based upon what I have read and heard about. I wasn't a skin back in 1969, if there are any original skins out there reading this who can shed a little more light on the matter I'd welcome the input.



Above: Dobby Dobson with skinheads and rude boys/girls This Is Reggae PSP1003

In the early to mid sixties, the mods had begun to appreciate soul music that was coming out of the Tamla Motown stable, as well as jazz, r'n'b and ska which was becoming more readily available by 1962 through the Island label and the Blue Beat label. Clubs such as The Ram Jam played soul and ska but there were few clubs frequented by mods that were specifically ska or sound system based. 1967 saw the arrival of the rock steady and the popularity of the rude boys. The mods that mingled with the black rude boys in the dance halls to listen to the soul music also had a taste for the ska and rock steady. They weren't fully aware of the growth of the sound systems which were mainly confined to the black areas.

'By the latter half of 1968 when 'Neville the Musical Enchanter' could claim to be the boss (Top) system, he was playing almost anywhere around London regardless of travelling distance. and his supporters grew in numbers and were most keen and awesome. Most areas he played were predominantly white and not surprisingly many whites came along to hear the sounds. The Ska Bar was a very dimly-lit stone-walled basement bar without much ventilation. or much space for the keen fans it attracted. When it opened in the beginning of 1968 It seemed that Neville's most ardent supporters numbered not more than 20, but as his popularity grew so quickly more and more blacks were attracted to the Ska Bar. Neville's followers soon grew in confidence even on this foreign 'white soil'. The black lifestyle soon became apparent. It Included smoking spliff or weed, drinking barley wine, dancing In a totally ethnic manner- a sensuous sexual movement which became more obvious when dancing with a chick. It included wearing trousers too short, sometimes with boots- either for fighting or for making the effect of boots against trousers which was more striking and it Included hair cut very short, so short that the skull was evident and a comb was not needed. This haircut was known as a 'skiffle'.

Reggae Soul of Jamaica, Carl Gayle, Story of Pop,1973)

This style that emerged was what the 'Hard mods' began to copy. The style became known by many names so for the sake of clarity they shall be referred to as 'Peanuts'. The peanuts were the predecessors of the skinheads. As the mod scene began to fragment the 'Hard mods' as they are often called, standardised their image and began to copy many elements of the style of the blacks. The style that evolved was often termed 'The peanut' because of the sound of their motor scooters which was like 'Peanuts rattling in a tin'. Other names were coined such as The Spy Kids, The Lemons, The No-heads, Spikeys and Brushcuts. This is one peanut's side of the story:

'We'd just been through the mod era, which we'd all appreciated. I mean we sat around with our scooters In the early days. We an went down to Brighton and Southend, Bank Holiday and we all had a fight with the greasers like the mods did. But then we went to the extreme, I mean we took our hair right down to the limit, you know half-inch or whatever. I had it done at a barbers called Grey's down the East India Dock Road. It wasn't much of an haircut, he just gets those old trimmers out and goes zing, zing, zing and that's it your hair's gone'

(You'll Never Be 16 Again, BBC books)

The style began to diversify and move out of the dance hall and on to the streets. It soon become a trademark of the terraces as football hooliganism became a widespread problem. Arsenal's 'North Bank' was one of the first mobs to become overtly skinhead/peanut but it wasn't long before it was the norm at nearly every London ground. In 1968 the peanuts gate crashed a hippy gathering in Grosvenor square. The hippies were chanting 'Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh' and the peanuts were shouting 'Students, Students, ha ha ha'. Nobody knew them as skinheads but they hadn't gone unnoticed. The month before they had invaded Margate for a weekend of mayhem. Originally, the peanuts didn't seem to be for anything but they were very clear what they were against- 'Long hair, pop, hippy sit-ins, live-ins and the long haired cult of non-violence' was how one sixteen year old peanut put it to the Daily Mail. The skinheads despised the hippies as they were seen to be drop-outs while the skinheads were very much working class and could not afford the privilege of 'taking time out'. They'd gone straight from school to work and this seemed to be a big sticking point. The rude boys not averse to a spot of 'bovver' and they too were opposed to a lot of the hippy ideals.

In late 1968 the term skinhead was becoming used more often to describe what was previously the peanut. The style was basically the same but was becoming more elaborate. The music was becoming a more prominent feature, reggae was the order of the day. Access to the music was a lot easier than it had been five years before. In 1963 there were only three sound systems working the London area but by 1967 there were at least three reputable sound systems in every area where blacks resided. The following passage tells of the early days of the skinheads.

'White kids had been associating with blacks in clubs like the Ram Jam since black music first became popular In England, but It wasn't until 1967 that the whites had begun to appreciate the reggae music and to mimic the black lifestyle. They fell in love with the first wave of of reggae music that Pama records issued like the instrumentals - 'Spoogy', 'Reggae on Broadway' and '1000 tons of Megaton' by Lester Sterling. They stomped to the frantic dance records like 'Work it' by the Viceroys and 'Children Get Ready' by the Versatiles. They sang along to Pat Kelly's 'How Long will it Take' and Slim Smith's 'Everybody Needs Loves' and laughed at rude items like Max Romeo's 'Wet Dream' or Lloyd Tyrell's 'Bang Bang Lulu'.

Pretty soon you couldn't go to a black house party without finding a gang of skinheads but amazingly there was very little black/white violence and hardly any resentment. Black and white youth have never been as close as they were in the skinhead era despite the 'mixing' in the trendier soul scenes nowadays The skinheads copied the way we dressed, spoke, walked, the way we danced. They danced with our chicks, smoked our spliff and ate our food and bought our records '

Reggae Underground, Carl Gayle, Black Music magazine 1974)

The early skinheads prided themselves on their knowledge of the latest sounds that were being released. A skinhead who had the white label pre-release records was the skinhead that knew his music. The slang used in the songs also appealed to the skins. By using Jamaican slang words a mod peanut or skinhead could exclude any outsider from their conversation. According to Dick Hebdige the phrase 'Ya Raas' was picked up by every self-respecting skinhead. The skinheads dress manner became more meticulous by the minute. During the day they might be seen in boots and jeans but by night they wore suits to the dance halls. Places such as the Top Rank network played regular reggae and soul nights and the dress restrictions meant that you either had to look smart or miss out. The early skinhead was much more boots and braces orientated, the shoes and trousers look superseded this with the need to look smarter.

The emergence of the skinhead phenomena did not have a great effect on the evolution of the Rude Boy and not to the extent of losing their identity amongst the skinhead culture. It was a good time for reggae music because the skinhead purchasing power at its peak increased sales of reggae enough to get it into the charts and the music became much more widely available. The Rude Boy culture greeted the skinhead culture with more friendliness than would be granted had the roles had been reversed. The last main migration from Jamaica to Britain was in 1962 and many resident Jamaicans brought their wives and children here during that period. This would probably have made the kids of '67 the first large group of West Indian youths in British cities - large enough to make an impression on youth culture. As a relatively new group they still had to fit in somehow and the skinhead culture gave them every opportunity to spread their wings across the city. They were present in numbers in skinhead gangs but wether they were necessarily skinhead, rude boys or afro boys is difficult to say but given the nature of youth culture then - even people who considered themselves skinheads used the term very loosely. It was not down to the crop but was used as a catch-all term for anyone who associated themselves with the skinheads.



The skinheads were very territorial and the existence of blacks in skinhead gangs would have varied from area to area. The total percentage of Afro-Caribbeans in the UK is around the 10% mark so the numbers could on average have been 1 in 10 but the geography of the working class areas would have meant some areas with a very high percentage of West Indians and there were some totally black skinhead gangs in London. The country as a whole however, with its uneven distribution of immigrants was not as familiar with this phenomena as London.

Different groups with different grievances led to the press sensationalising reports of grease-bashing, squaddie-bashing, queer-bashing, hippy-bashing and student bashing. Person of Pakistani heritage-bashing was also a very common pastime. The main influx of Asian immigrants came to Britain around the late 60s and some areas felt particularly threatened by their new neighbours. The blacks and whites in the skinhead gangs pointed their sights at this new type of immigrant. This victimisation coincided with the Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of blood' speech and the white hysteria he stirred up. Powell was against the mass influx of Asians to Britain and called for repatriation of all immigrants. By sympathising with him the skinheads were alienating themselves from their West Indian brothers. It was only a matter of time before the time bomb exploded.

The phenomena of Person of Pakistani heritage-bashing by both white skinheads and blacks alike is explained as 'A displacement manoeuvre whereby the fear and anxiety produced by limited identification with one black group is transformed into aggression against another'

( P 58. Subculture-The Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdige. Methuen 1979)

There seems to be a more simple reasoning for these actions. I would say that racial victimisation by a group is inexcusable whether they are black or white but those involved have to live with that. Like the monologue in the last scene of Trainspotting when he says that he could make excuses but the real reason was that he was a bad person.

On racism towards Asians in the Joe Hawkins books and on the streets of London when he was a boy Dotun Adebayo has the following to say:

"I hate to say this today but I think, in fact, because a lot of racismwas focussed on people of Asian origin, as a twelve year old Afro-Caribbean in London, I didn't feel as uncomfortable with it - as unpolitically correct as that sounds today - as if it was perhaps an NF book and straight out against blacks from Africa & Caribbean. I don't think all skinheads were like Joe Hawkins in the book".

Dotun Adebayo - Publisher X-Press Books on the Joe Hawkins books

The Jamaican music scene was becoming more involved with the Rastafarian beliefs. The few records that mentioned skinheads were by the more traditional musicians who were more sympathetic to the dance element than to the rootsy rasta element. Derrick Morgan and Laurel Aitken were reactionaries to the new rasta ethos and they latched onto the theme of the skinheads, releasing such skinhead classics as 'Skinhead Train', 'Return of Jack Slade' and 'Night at the Hop'. The younger artists like Bob Marley and Peter Tosh were devoting themselves to creating a music that was more African and in keeping with their rasta ideology. Many artists flirted with the rasta themes but were not devout rastas. Desmond Dekker's 'Israelites' reached number one spot in the charts in 1969. The 'Israelites' has a strong Rastafarian theme yet he rarely followed up this theme in later records. The rasta themes were an emphasis of their African identity but there were many records that merely raised black consciousness such as 'Young, Gifted and Black' by Bob and Marcia. These songs became more and more popular from 1970 onwards and the rude boy trend became more of a rasta trend or natty dread. 'Young, Gifted and Black' signified a rise in black consciousness but the whites didn't like this as it excluded them from what until then had been one great long party. Skinheads began pulling the wires from amps during the track and sang "Young, Gifted and White'. It wasn't long before the skinheads stopped attending the dances, thus ending the link that was beginning to form between black and white youth cultures.

The relationship between blacks and whites was never clear cut. As one skinhead remembers:

"Yes, we did have trouble with the blacks. I mean, there was a club that started up at Mile End that was called 'The A-Train' and yeah, sure, every Friday night, every Saturday night, whenever we chose to go up there, we'd have a battle with the blacks. But we had black guys on our side as well, a few coloured guys who'd stand behind you and fight for you as a brother, no problem".

(anonymous quote - You'll Never Be 16 Again - BBC books)

As the seventies wore on, the skinheads were beginning to find themselves more and more in opposition to the blacks and judging by the following account from a black Liverpudlian, it was more due to the skinheads' change in attitudes and to territory rather than racial hatred.

"Oh yeah, we used to fight against the skinheads, and it'd be like territorial. you'd have to stay within your territory. like you wouldn't get one man coming out of his territory, going into say Lodge Lane, because you'd just get attacked. So we used to meet them at certain times, and we'd throw bricks and people would have catapults y'know? And of a Saturday, people would go into town, the city centre, and they'd go in the precinct there, in a café called the Brass Rail. The black guys would meet in there and the skinheads would come in shouting all kinds of things, 'Niggers' and 'Wogs', and then you'd get the kind of situation where you'd have ten black guys and say fifty skinheads, and if the ten black guys made a dash for the skinheads, the fifty of them would run, you know, because they'd see plenty of black faces and they'd see ten as like fifty of them.

And then people started getting into karate and ju-jitsu. There were the Bruce Lee films and they appealed to the black guys and they started learning kung fu. Then after a while, the Bruce Lee thing died out and people started to leave it, and there wasn't the need to fight the skinheads. As people grew up and got more mature and got more sense, and that type of thing stopped".

As Dotun Adebayo - Publisher X-Press Books - remarked in the Joe Hawkins bookmark program, Richard Allen (Jim Moffat) would not have got away with some of the language used in the Joe Hawkins book but it was the backdrop of its day. People were much more uninhibited about using terms such as 'nucca' and 'wog' and tended to use them in everyday speech whereas there was a time between then and now when the use of these terms became unacceptable and that time would have been the mid Seventies when the previous account was set.

The skinheads identified with the themes of the reggae music as the themes of another working class culture. Dick Hebdige agrees with Phil Cohen that the skinhead was a meta statement about the whole process of social mobility. This social mobility aspect is probably the reason for the Person of Pakistani heritage-bashing. The blacks were downwardly mobile as were the skinheads but the Asians were more upwardly mobile. The Asian emphasis on education and profit-making abilities were opposed to the nonchalant attitudes of the skinheads and rude boys. The co-existence of hippy-bashing and student-bashing with the Person of Pakistani heritage-bashing signifies the fact that the gang violence was of a class nature: a protest against the changes that were occurring in the lower classes. The West Indians were more in line with the downwardly mobile outlook of the skinheads and weren't going to rock the boat too much. The Asians were seen as different, obviously due to their entirely different culture. They were seen as a threat to the fabric of the old vanishing communities by more reactionary skinheads. Change on such a large scale was unacceptable in their eyes.

The seventies saw the skinheads on the wane and there was a time preceding punk when long hair was so much the norm that skinheads would be unheard of. Early footage of the National Front shows that they basically consisted of long haired seventies football thugs and not the skinhead contingent that would later be the case.

I believe that it wasn't just the material style that was borrowed from the rude boys but some of the rude boy ethic. The three main factors I mean are:

1) Social mobility
2) Territoriality
3) Aggressiveness

"Aggressively proletarian, puritanical and chauvinist. the skinheads dressed down in sharp contrast to their mod antecedents in a uniform which Phil Cohen describes as a kind of caricature of the model worker"

(P. 55 Subculture-The meaning of style, Dick Hebdige, Methuen 1979)

In white skins black masks, Hebdige tells us that the skinheads were trying to revive the fading working class chauvinisms and that the resurrection occurred not in the dance halls with the rude boys but on the all white football terraces.

This is true. The skinheads lived on through the terraces long after their split with the Rude Boys, emphasising another aspect of their style. The style by this time however had changed and what Hebdige refers to as skinhead consists of the groups that followed the skinheads - the suedeheads and boot boys. Football hooliganism was still prevalent well after the skinhead phase and the offical uniform was still the boots and jeans. Some blacks were, and still are, big players in the hooligan league. In the book 'Guvnors' by Mickey Francis which is the biography of a Manchester City hooligan of mixed parentage, the author recalls his first outing at Leeds. Dressed in skinners, Man City scarf and DMs he was told by an older lad that he'd get his arse kicked and his naive youthful outlook dismissed this idea. On the train home, a bust nose and a booting later, he bumped into the same lad that had given him the advice who gave him a knowing smile. He'd learnt a valuable lesson about the way of things and spent his later years with a little more respect and a little more hatred than he had before. He describes in the book the mid-70s and the style of the football hooligan - crombies or doctor's coats, cropped hair and DMs.

When the skinhead revival of 78 occurred, the punks' fetish for fascist imagery and the NF's recruitment of young whites led to the skinheads becoming seen as a neo-nazi group. Only the following Two Tone movement adopted the original style of the early skinheads but this was modified with a totally anti-racist nature that was different to the early skinheads who had been known for victimisation of Asians. The Asians now had a sizeable youth population that was at a similar stage of the West Indians in 1967 and assimilation of Asians into the Two Tone culture was common as was their assimilation into punk culture. Although the Two Tone bands had no Asian contingent UB40 had a cross section of Birmingham society with members of the white, West Indian and Asian communities in their ranks. The Two Tone flagship actively opposed the NF and gave young British youth another option. You couldn't be interested in Two Tone music and not be affected by the message they were giving out. They associated themselves with as many anti-racist events and groups as they could playing large outdoor free concerts in direct opposition to what the National Front were trying to do.

The Asian contribution to the second wave of skinhead was possibly more significant than the black contribution and certainly a new phenomena in skinhead terms. Riki Hussein has described himself as a mod, a skinhead and a Glasgow Spy Kid. One thing is certain, he is definitely a scooterist and owns/owned Glasgow's only scooter shop.

"An evening's worth of restraint is given vent as a transit van of skinhead vengeance speeds through Edinburgh looking for anybody with a bald head, boots and an Harrington jacket that doesn't belong to them. Stopping at a set of traffic lights, someone spots them over the road and Riki jumps out with a wooden baton followed by the rest of the van. A car load of casuals in the next lane panic and reverses at high speed, an instinctive manouevre when confronted by a pack of baton-wielding skinheads, and the Edinburgh boneheads freeze. "We bought it from a bloke at the gig" they claim, keeping half an eye on an approaching police car and trying to work out whether it's a baseball bat or a cosh that is being thrust in their faces. In the end, they surrender the jacket and no blows are exchanged. "We're not into mindless violence," grins Riki later, "and the place was crawling with coppers anyway".

Before the Oi movement were Sham and Skrewdriver. Both bands had very vocal followings of neo-nazis but dealt with it in different ways. Jimmy Pursey was far too left-wing to bless the association and tried in vain to stop the violence and extremism at Sham gigs. In the end he decided it would be better to wind up the Sham rather than continue. Skrewdriver started life as just another punk/new wave band, heavily influenced by heavier 60s bands such as The Who and The Stones. The NF/BM had stirred up so much of a following but had neglected the most important point - they had no bands as Two Tone had. The right wing craze carried on regardless and there were some very odd mixes of political statements - white NF rude boys, BM Two Tone skinheads and such like. Skrewdriver were eventually to go underground and become the voice of British Nationalism.

After the death of SHAM 69, disillusioned punks/skins were conscious that the rest of the scene was becoming commercialised at a rate of knots and were drawn to the new Oi movement. This consisted of streetpunk bands (very few to begin with) championed by Sounds columnist Gary Bushell. While not necessarily racist, the followers of the Oi bands were more likely to be NF/BM as Skrewdriver weren't as big as they were to become at this stage. Completely innocent bands were labelled with the tag of fascists because of their following. Oi had many bands that were actively anti-fascist and others that were non-political. When the Southall riot occurred, the whole Oi movement was blamed and it would be foolish to say that it was totally innocent. Staging a major gig in the middle of an Asian community was either totally naive or was intended as a red rag to a bull.

It was at this moment in time (early eighties) when the style began to be exported overseas through the punk element. Laz gives a rundown on the black and latino role in the US skinhead movement.

"In the USA, the the punk movement was getting old - it was becoming too mainstream. Britain was pushing the yank punk scene off the market - then came Hardcore - the US speeded up and more aggro version of punk. It was street music - what the British called Oi. As "Strength Thru Oi" was released "Let them Eat Jelly Beans" came storming in and out sold it. It also introduced Skinheads to the US in a wider market. It brought Blacks and Latinos back into the underground rock scene, again (The Bad Brains, DK's, Black Flag). This was actually helped by the New York Funk scene but in this case the Blacks started to play in HC bands and reintroduce Reggae (Bad Brains). This time the music wasn't coming from NYC. The Westcoast takes over with this new music (HC). The battle began between the US and the UK scene. The UK scene started going NF and new wave - all that eyeliner rock stuff. The US punk bands and HC bands find the UK bands rude and disappointing. The US can't get into the neo-nazi stuff either. The scene was escaping from all the suburban trappings and, like what happened to the Oi scene, jocks (yobs) started getting the wrong idea and started getting off on the aggro only. The bands disband rather than encourage this behavior. Enter the Aryan Resistance to collect the trash.

Speedcore, Thrash, Speedmetal then Thrashmetal came out and ripped the scene to shreds - faster, louder, harder. Maximum Rock 'n' Roll, Flipside, Hard as Nails still hold up the Skinhead culture as not part of mainstream politics but as a youth movement fuelled by music. The DK's manage to put out Nazi punks Fuck Off" before disbanding."



Today, the scene has spread across the entire globe and as well as the spread of the extreme right-wing element, there are also skins of every colour and creed imaginable. Skinhead isn't specifically about white boys and it never was - it's more than that and anyone who thinks this isn't the case doesn't know enough about the history and the soul of skinhead. As one West Indian told me -

The skins when we were at school (late 70s/early eighties) weren't just white kids, there were black skins as well but it wasn't about race - they kicked anybody who wasn't a skinhead

Thanks to everone comments it good to find a place where i can chat for ages  about a scene i love
the one thing the Skinhead scene has over the mod scene at the moment (in the UK and Italy i'm not sure about any way eles) is that it has a lot on young people whcih keep it fresh i just hope the mod scene go the same way but i dosen't look like it (don't get me worng i love the mod scene too)
The thing i find about a lot of the Skinhead round the rest of the world (and this has been on many forums before) is SOME TIMES there get it SO WRONG

The Internet does have it plus
it mean that (as i've just said) it can tech people the Roots on the scene and MAYBE but also it a look into the past
and get idea of what it was like but i agree with getsmart that the internet has killed the scene but i think it more to do with the Mod scene.
As the no real site out there for Skinheads (apart from this one) and that why skins spend so many times on mod sites as there the close thing your going to get to people in the scene.
it hack me off that Mods make so much fuss about all these forum of Boots,Skinhead,Suedeheads on there forum when there should be in bracing it as part of the same cult.
it go like this if the wasn't no modernism the would be no Mod and no mod would mean no Hard mods which ment no Skinhead and that would mean no Suedeheads ect (you get the picture)
anyway sorry i'm going on

Lewis

Last edited by Suitedbooted2000 (2007-12-12 04:42:52)