 |
Teddy Boys date back to the late forties when, following the war, a
generation of youngsters with money to burn appropriated Edwardian
(Teddy) clothing style currently in fashion on Saville Row and cranked
it up a notch. In the beginning there were drapes and drainpipe
trousers. Then that look was customised; the drapes with collar, cuff
and pocket trimmings, even narrower trousers, crepe soled shoes or
beetle crushers and hairstyle heavily greased into a quiff and shaped
into a DA, or as it was popularly called, a ‘ducks arse’ as it resembled
one! |
They were the first real high profile rebel teenagers, who flaunted
their clothes and attitude like a badge. It comes as no surprise then
that the media was quick to paint them as a menace and violent based on
a single incident. When teenager John Beckley was murdered in July 1953
by Teddy Boys, the Daily Mirror’s headline ‘Flick Knives,
Dance Music and Edwardian Suits’ linked criminality to
clothes.
More tales of teenage violence followed, luridly reported and no doubt
exaggerated in the press.
Cinemas, dance
halls and other places of entertainment in South east London are
closing their doors to youths in ‘Edwardian’ suits because of gang
hooliganism…The ban, which week by week is becoming more generally
applied, is believed by the police to be one of the main reasons for
the extension of the area in which fights with knuckle dusters,
coshes, and similar weapons between bands of teenagers can now be
anticipated…In cinemas, seats have been slashed with razors and had
dozens of meat skewers stuck into them. Daily Mail, 27.4.54
In June 1955 the Sunday Dispatch headline was a typically
sensationalist tabloid style with the following headline.
War on teddy boys.
Menace In The
Streets Of Britain’s Cities Is being Cleaned Up At Last
In essence, the Teds were never more than a minority in
their age group but they were the first to see themselves and to be seen
by society as ‘teenagers’, the ‘bad guys’, and so a group apart. They
also pre-dated, but came to be associated with rock ’n’ roll which of
course itself became fresh fodder for the media offering more sex, drugs
and violence stories. They were the Punks of the day and as startling
and controversial. Twenty five years down the line in 1977 Teddy Boys
had never quite died out and there was a
revival due to a resurgence of interest in rock ‘n’ roll. In the main,
Teddy Boys were rigidly conservative and traditional and being a Ted
often ran in the family.
Johnny Rotten (Sex Pistols)
The Teds were different from the Punks in that there was so many
ages - there was the older lot, all the dads, along with younger
kids. The Punk thing was very young. It was like going out and
fighting old men, kind of ridiculous really.
John Lydon,
No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, 1993
Big
John. “My old man
was a Ted... I’ve been brought up with nothing else.
Chris Welch, Fighting In the Streets, Melody Maker,
30.7.77
The important difference though between the 50’s and 70’s was, though
the clothes and music may have stayed fundamentally the same, violence
was more prevalent.
The second generation Teds’ obstinate fidelity to the
traditional ‘bad-guy’ stereotypes appeared by contrast obvious and
reactionary. To the sounds of records long since deleted, in clothes
which qualified as virtual museum pieces, these latter day Teds
resurrected a set of sexual mores (gallantry, courtship) and a
swaggering machismo - that ‘quaint’ combination of chauvinism,
Brylcreem and sudden violence - which was already enshrined in
the parent culture as the model of masculine behaviour.
Dick Hebdige, Subculture:
The Meaning Of Style, 1979
While indeed Teds in the seventies were in a time warp it should be
noted that there were new traditional rock ’n’ roll bands coming through
like Crazy Caven and the Rhythm Rockers, the Flying Saucers and the Riot
Rockers and new younger bands with a new style of rock ‘n’ roll, like
Whirlwind, came up against these more traditional styles.
Nigel Dixon (Whirlwind)
That’s the main trouble with them [the Teds]. Some of them think that
all rock ’n’ roll stopped after 1959…and they still look now like they
did twenty years ago. Some of them are still in their hillbilly gear.
Zigzag, May 1978
How did they come to clash with Punks? Its origins are debatable but
when you look at the two youth tribes you’ll see it was inevitable.
In 1977 these new Teddy Boys were younger and out to make a name for
themselves. What better way to prove their youth credentials and the
fact they were still around than the age old one of finding a more high
profile enemy and beating it to a pulp? First Mods and Rockers; now Teds
and Punks.
Then you have the points of contention.
 |
First off Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop at 430 Kings
Road, Chelsea opened in 1971 as ‘Let it Rock.’ To begin with it sold
original fifties clothing, but they soon started to create their own
brighter and more extravagant copies to sell.
By 1974 the name of the shop had been changed to ‘Sex’ and while still
selling some Teddy Boy gear it came to predominantly sell fetish, PVC,
leather and rubber gear and introducing what later became part of Punk
fashion before changing the name in 1977 to ‘Seditionaries’. As
such you had Punks appropriate, adapt, mix ‘n’ match and disfigure Teddy
Boy clothes like the lurex socks, brothel creepers, drapes and drainpipes
with fetish gear with bricolage like the safety pin.
|
 |
This didn’t go down with the conservative Teds who saw their clothes as
sacrosanct and the mutilation an insult. Titch the Ted, a character in
Tony Parson’s ‘Stories We Could Tell’ sums it up.
‘We’ve been around a lot longer than anyone. They look like they’re not
men. Just weird. Strange. Very odd. They nick our clobber – they’ll wear
a drape – but they’ll rip it up. What’s that all about? Or they copy
bits of our music – it’s rock and roll – but it’s not done right. They
say they’re going to wipe Teds out. And we’re not having it. It’s out of
order.’ Tony Parsons, Stories We Could Tell,
2005
And they did react violently.
Boy George.
Punks bastardized drapes with safety pins and wore paint splashed
brothel creepers to annoy the Teds. I was punched in the face and booted
several times for wearing brothel creepers…They filled me with terror.
Boy George, Take It Like A Man, 1995
Simone
Stenfors (Roxygoer)
I was coming back from a gig with a girlfriend. I really liked the look
of the Teds and I mixed it and Punk all together in a mish mash. I was
wearing a 50’s skirt with tights, lurex socks and black patent high
heeled shoes with spikes and studs, a dog collar and a fluorescent pink
drape. We got off the tube at Hammersmith and this Teddy Boy and Girl
got off as well behind us. I heard ‘Oi slag!’ and the next thing one of
them grabbed me by the hair, smashed my head against the wall and
between them ripped a whole pocket off my drape.
And lastly plain old jealousy; you have the publicity given to Punk Rock
as the new gang in town.
Brian
Young (Rudi)
Remember, at the time the Teds had been undergoing a huge revival
amongst younger folks yet never got any press and very little radio
exposure (hence the famous march in London when thousands of Teds
marched on the BBC from all over the country demanding the BBC play some
REAL rock ’n’ roll). In contrast if a Punk as much as farted in the
outer Hebrides it was front page news - so I reckon the Teds were
rightly jealous of these weirdo upstarts muscling in on their patch and
challenging their position as the wildest cats in town.
 |
Violence meant more publicity and a higher Ted profile, which meant more
teenagers became attracted to becoming Teds.
Big John.
The younger Teds have got more feeling about it than we have because
they are out to build the image up again. It’s due to the younger ones
we’re hearing more about the Teds these days.
Chris Welch, Fighting In the Streets, Melody Maker, 30.7.77
And fight they did in pitched battles on a Saturday up the Kings Road,
Chelsea while the newspapers and cameras would there to be catch it all.
And if there was no story then the newspapers would sometimes fake it.
Anon.
I mean I know people who were actually offered money by photographers to
throw bricks at the Teddy boys, but it was arranged with the Teddy boys
too, of course, just for the press. Peter Everett, You’ll Never Be 16
Again, 1986 |
However, don’t underestimate the situation; this was real violence with
people getting hurt for no real reason. Joe Strummer, Tim Smith, geezer
out of the boys and countless punks and teds encountered viloiemce. Often it was organised, as Ted,
Rebel Eddie, explained about being asked to make an announcement at his
disco.
I’ve got an announcement to make tonight ‘Punk bashing: Sloane Square
this Saturday… All Teds. No weapons. Chris
Welch, Fighting In the Streets, Melody Maker, 30.7.77
At any one time on the Kings Road you could have Punks, Teds and rival
football factions in action.
Vicious street fighting broke out for the third week-end
running in the Kings Road area on Saturday afternoon. The clashes were
between rival gangs of Teddy Boys and Punk Rockers…The main trouble
erupted when police moved in to try and arrest some of the crowd of over
100 Punks assembled in Sloane Square…the whole road was blocked by
fighting…At about 3.30 p.m., the mob moved off, but the fighting went on
till early evening. West London Observer, A Day
Of Violence, 4.8.77
|
However
not everyone fell for the violence Shtick. Leee Black Childers himself
beaten up by punks while being mistaken for a Ted tried to organise a
joint gig
The proposed Punk and Teds concert,
planned for London Charing Cross Global Village on Tuesday of this week,
was called off just three days after the initial announcement was made.
The gig was to
have co-headlined Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers and Shakin’ Stevens &
The Sunsets, and was an attempt to reconcile the two opposing musical
factions. But it seems the management got cold feet, when they heard
rumours of a threatened punch-up on the night. NME, 1.10.77
Johnny Rotten
famously posed
in Teddy Boy clothes, went to the Roxy and almost got beaten up by
punks who didn't recognise him and claimed to attend Teddy Boy gigs
unmolested. |
 |
To confuse things even more, love even got a look in around early 1978
when there was a temporary craze for hooking up with the opposite sex
and the opposite youth group; Ted and Punkette and Punk and Teddy Girl!
Journalist Steve Walsh explained this strange state of affairs in an NME
feature.
Time
was, when blood used to flow between Punk and Ted with far greater
regularity than it does now…I seem to remember that the first
members of either tribe, to proffer any kind of olive branch were
the ‘dear little Punkettes’, prostrating themselves with an uneasy
mixture of diplomacy and coy masochism before the creepers of
whichever burly, drape-coated ruffian had just sent their ‘wimp’
boyfriends packing, tails between their strides. It got to the point
where a Ted on yer arm was as ‘de rigueur’ as yer ‘Boy’ bondage
pants. NME ,1.3.78
|
In books and records Teds and Punks slugged it out and loved it up - the
potential Romeo and Juliet aspect not lost on authors and songwriters.
In the novel ‘The Punk’ by Gideon Sams, its doomed lovers Thelma and
Adolph both come to a bloody end on the Kings Road after being attacked
and stabbed by Teds.
…the Ted slapped Thelma round the face. She fell back in
surprise. Adolph furiously punched the Ted in the mouth, but before he
could blink again, all the Teds set onto him. The five Teddy girls
started beating up Thelma. Gideon Sams,
The Punk, 1977
In music you had Wayne County’s tale of love caught on the single
‘Eddie & Sheena’. Eddie is a Teddy Boy and Sheena is a Punk.
Eddie &
Sheena...starts off as a tongue in cheek 50's rock'n'roll ballad
after we learn that Eddie and Sheena have married and 'named the
little brat Elvis...Rottennnnnnnnn!' It explodes into a mad race as
they pogoed the night away. Summer Salt
Fanzine, 1978
And
lastly Don E Sibley’s strange rockabilly indie smash 'Punk Bashin' Boogie.'
Nice! |
Sounds Letter Page 19.11.77 |
And just as
suddenly it all died out. The press moved on and found more tits and
arse and shock horror stories to shock titillate the nation, Punk moved on and soon it
would be time for a Skinhead/Mod/Rocker reprise and back in the papers
again. |
