"Where do you reckon the next battle of that kind is going to be?" "Well, it's hard to say, isn't it?" "Whitsun it would be, wouldn't it?" " It will be Whitsun, will it?" " Mm." "Be down Brighton more or less." "The first generation of adolescents to be swiftly mobile doesn't have to travel to find trouble." "But when they do ride out, the machine they use marks their faith." "For the mods, it's a scooter." "In the rain they cover up their elegant clothing." "Their rivals, the rockers, look the same in any weather - a black uniform for all seasons." "A rocker needs a motorbike, which can do a ton to a scooter's 50." "The difference in power is a matter of masculine pride." "# As I was laying in a hospital bed" "# A dumb, old nurse went to my head" "# She said, "Hold out your arm..." #" "The beat they dance to is another difference between mods and rockers." "At this mod club, the Chez Don, in the East End of London, the rhythm is blue and almost strong enough to lean against." "The mod girls dance with each other and no-one bothers to talk, since you can't hear yourself speak." "Rockers don't show their faces here - it would only lead to trouble." "Mods pride themselves on cleanliness and elegance." "Why, then, are they prone to violence in more than their music?" "I asked some if they'd been at Clacton." " Yes." " Yes." " What do you think of what happened down there?" "Oh, it was good." "It was a laugh." "How do you mean, it's a laugh?" "Well, cos everyone else was laughing and everyone was happy." "And just everyone got together and when they see them, they just jumped on them so everyone else just joined in." "How do these fights actually start," "I mean, if you're in the middle of one?" "Oh, well, say, me and my friends, we went to a dance hall once and there was a load of rockers there." "We started dancing, they started taking the mick out of us." "You can't just stand there and let a load of kids take the mick out of you, can you?" " So, what do you do?" " Well, you go and have a punch-up about it." " What do you fight with?" " My fists." "If you can get hold of a bottle, you get hold of a bottle." "Because when you're at a fair or something, they go "Poo, mods."" "So you say, "What's the matter?" So they say, "Poo, mods."" "So they turn their nose up about it and then it starts like that." "Of course, they're better equipped than you, aren't they?" " These big boots, for example." " Yeah, that's what they go out for - that's why they wear all that stuff." " What, to fight?" " Yeah, to fight." "That's why they wear all them chains and hobnail boots, so they can get in a fight and use them." "It's the rockers that start it, you know?" "They screw you and if you..." "What does "screw" mean?" "You know, look you up and down and think, "Funny way of dressing,"" "think you're a poof or something like that." "They think you're a poof?" "Well, that's the way they look at you, as if to say it, you know." "So, you look at them back and they come over and start trouble." "If you don't want bother, they keep on at you so you have to have the bother." "Well, some people got hurt, got thrown off the promenade trying to stop the fight." "Do you think that's funny?" "They shouldn't have jumped in, should they?" "Do you think you've got the right to conduct these private wars in public?" "Course we have, yeah." "Well, you've just got to have it off with somebody, and who's there, you have it off with, don't you?" "You've got to have a fight, have you?" "Well, what do you do if you don't have a fight?" "What do you think of the police?" "Well, they nick you for nothing, don't they?" "They do, they nick you for nothing." "You don't think the police have got a duty to stop the kind of brawling" " that was going on?" " Oh, they've got the duty, but they was picking on kids who never done nothing at all, just anybody who was walking along, cos I see them." "They brought me in, didn't they?" "Cos they nicked a couple of my mates for it and they wasn't doing nothing, they was just walking along the street." "Could I ask you, what would be your moral standards?" "I mean, what would you regard as being right and wrong?" "What about stealing or lying?" "Well, there's nothing wrong with that, is there?" " It's a living, isn't it?" " SPARSE LAUGHTER" "I mean, take these blokes, for instance, who are out of work - they've got to steal, haven't they, to live?" " Yeah, but you're not out of work." " No, I'm not out of work, but if I was out of work, I probably would steal." "Are purple hearts taken generally here?" "Do you take them, for example?" "Well, I don't take them myself." " No point in it, is there?" " What would you say?" "Well, I mean, when you go down the West End of a Saturday night and you stay up all night," "I mean, you've just got to take them to keep awake." "How many purple hearts do you need to stay up all night?" "20 to 30." "Keep you awake till about..." "Well, keep you lively till about nine o'clock in the morning, ten o'clock in the morning, then you just become normal again." " Well, some people do strong it, don't they?" " They what it?" "They do strong it, don't they?" "Go walking down the street and they're stuck to the wall, half of them, don't they?" "They just fall on the floor, they're out, they overdo it, don't they?" "What do you do with your time apart from dancing and going up the West End?" "Are you interested in anything else?" "No." "No, I..." "All I think of is the West End and dance halls, and girls." "Are you interested in reading or in politics or anything like that?" "No, well, you couldn't see me looking at a book." " I read the Beano, though, I do." " LAUGHTER" "But is there any age at which you think you'll stop fighting and chasing around?" "Yeah, when I get married, I suppose." "Settle down and then I'll stop being a mod, stop being everything, just live a clean life, as they say." "But until..." "Do you think it'll be difficult to live this clean life," " as you describe it?" " Yes..." "No, no." "It shouldn't be difficult once I get married, I don't think, cos you've got no time to do nothing." "Mod boys say they are sometimes sexually inert when they're blocked, as they put it, with purple hearts." "Mod girls, it seems, are rather straight-laced." "Both often have dead-end jobs that bring in £10 to £20 a week." "I asked mod girls who'd left school at 15 if they wished they'd stay there longer." " ALL:" " Yes." " You all do?" " Yes." " Yeah." "Why didn't you, then?" "I got fed up with school and just didn't want to stay." "I wanted to go to work." "But, you know, afterwards you realise that you should have stayed at school - you'd have been better off." " Did you learn a lot at school?" " No." " Well, I went to two schools." "I went to a girls' school, where I did learn something, but when I went to another school, I didn't learn anything at all." " Whose fault was that, do you think?" " The school." " Yes." " Whose fault was it you didn't...?" "We went to the same school and I'd say it was the school." "The classes were too big, the teachers were only about 19, 20 and they couldn't do nothing with us, control us." "We just used to walk out when we wanted to." "Yeah, but, I mean, you can't blame the school, can you?" " Yes, you can blame the school." " Oh, you can't, it's up to yourselves." "There was nobody to keep us under control." "I mean, we didn't realise then." "If we'd realise then, I would have learned something." "I wish I had." " Didn't your parents tell you it was important to stay in school?" " Yeah." "Well, they wanted me to go out and get money, really." "No, my mum and dad wanted me to stay on, but I didn't want to." "Would you say that life down here is getting rougher?" "It's getting rough, except our parents are all right." "It's the papers that make it sound bad for us." "I mean, they just try and get people to buy their papers, you know, all the wild ones and everything." "I mean, it's all lies, really." "Yeah, yeah." "It never used to be so bad, but now it is." " Why do you think it's getting worse?" " Mods and rockers." " Cos I think they're all going a bit mad." " I don't know, really." "Where do you think the next big battle is going to be?" " Clacton." " Clacton." " When?" " Whitsun." " Whitsun." "Are you looking forward to it?" "Well, not to all the trouble and that, but I'm looking forward to going down there just to enjoy myself, but not to the trouble." "Mind you..." "You're afraid there might be trouble?" " Yeah, probably will be." " I ain't afraid." "A new booming outfitting business both meets and creates the mod demand for elegance in a young man." "This shop now has 18 branches in London and a turnover of half a million pounds a year." " Try that suede jumper you tried on yesterday." " That was great." " That was really great." " I still reckon it's better than that." " Does the colour suit me?" " I don't like red on you anyway." " SALESMAN:" " It's a very nice neck on this one, actually." "But are they going out Saturday?" "Your rollnecks are a bit played out, aren't they?" "No, not with the suede front." "Some mods spend, say, £6 a week on clothes." "It's said that an obsession with superficial fripperies in art reflects the death of ideas, which could be true of some adolescent life." "That's a very mod neck." " No?" " No, rollnecks are all right." "It's got a suede front, hasn't it?" "It's different." "Yeah." "That's true, yes." " This is great." "I like this." " Oh, it's fabulous." "If I left a deposit for that, John, can I come back next week?" " Yes, yes." " Is that OK?" " Yeah." "Get a pair like this - they're fabulous." "Look, they've got flies or shoelaces." " Have you got those in brown, John?" " Yes, I've got some brown, yeah." "I'd have had them in brown too if I'd known." "Never had them before." "Would go fabulous with that, anyway." "The rockers I met in the rain in Essex." "When they came off their bikes," "I asked them first how they saw the mods." "Well... ..by the way they dress, the make-up and that they have on them and the eyeshadow and high-heeled boots and that, sometimes I fancy them myself." "I'll tell you what they say." "They say that you boys go up to them and stare them in the eye, screw them, as they say." "Oh, yeah, well, we think they're girls sometimes..." "THEY CHUCKLE" "What else is there about rockers that makes you think they're superior to mods?" "Well, they look like men, they don't look like women." "Fancy going out with a mod, when everybody, sort of, looks at you." "You wouldn't know if you was looking at the girl or the bloke, would you?" "Is the difference just a matter of dress?" "Would you say that?" "Would you say that you're better off or richer or more intelligent or what?" "Well, I wouldn't say that we're richer." "I think the mentality is completely different." "I mean, you've seen, most of these mods, they leave school at 15, straight into some unskilled job and they never get anywhere in it, just so they've got a bit of money to spend on clothes," "on a hairdryer, and a few other things like that." "Oh, and their make up, of course, and all that lipstick and that." "And, well, of course, when you get..." "You're better educated?" "Well, I've done my A levels." "Do many people here, would you say, take purple hearts?" "No, I don't think so." "None of my mates here do, anyway." "I think it's because they're bored quite a lot of the time and they just want to get a kick." "So these purple heart, sort of, tablets, they give them a kick." "And they take those and once they start, they don't stop." "Why should they be more bored than you are?" "Well, they've got nothing to do, have they?" "I mean, if anything goes wrong with our bikes or our machines, they just don't do it themselves, they put it to someone else, one of the garages, and get it done there." "But if anything goes wrong with one of our bikes, we do it ourselves." "Apart from motorbikes and boys, which go together, what else are you interested in?" "Well, we go bowling, pictures, dance halls, motorcycle meetings when they're on." "If you saw a fight starting between rocks and mods, what would you do about it?" "Wouldn't be much I COULD do as a girl, would there?" " Have you ever seen a fight?" " Yeah." "Who started it the time you saw it?" "Well, it looked like the mods started it." "They say that one of the reasons why you people wear boots is because it helps you put the boot in." "No, I've never yet seen a rocker put a boot in." "It's mainly protection." "If you get into a fight with a mod, you've got to watch it all the time, you know?" "They use..." "They'll pull your hair, they'll claw at you." "Why is it that there is this bad feeling between the two groups, do you think?" "Well, because they..." "They, sort of, take the rise out of us, and it's our way of getting back at them." "Because they seem to class themselves as the superior beings, whereas we're supposed to be inferior because of the way we dress and things." "If you were, say, in Clacton or Brighton at Whitsun and a fight started, what would you do?" "Just walk away or stand and watch it." "Would you deplore it, would you think it was a bad thing?" "Well, it's all according on what they were fighting over." "Some fights are justifiable, are they?" "Oh, yes." "In some cases, well... ..there's just no other way out except fighting." "How would you describe yourself - as a rocker or a mod?" " Well, actually..." " THEY CHUCKLE" "Actually, I'm a teddy boy really, the old-fashioned type." "As a teddy boy, with perhaps, you know, the ability to look back over the last few years, would you say present situation is rougher, more violent than it was in your day?" "Oh, no, not as rough, no." "Very few of the rockers or the mods, it seemed to me, ride out looking for trouble." "These two groups were particularly civilised, but in many, there is usually a leader, a boy or even a girl of strong personality, often a disturbed and restless personality who provokes violence." "The others, out of team loyalty, follow the leader, if reluctantly." "Whether Whitsun will see pitched battles or casual vandalism seems to depend partly on whether there's sunshine at the end of the road and partly on whether the seaside towns can offer enough entertainment to engage the lively, if occasionally perverted, energies" "of mods and rockers."