Old Mod and Skinhead Go Shopping (Tighten Up)

Derek, was a Mod in the 1960s who became a Skinhead in the same decade. He shopped at a lot of the same places, wore the same kind of gear and rode the same kind of scooter. The music changed along with the hair and class attitude, but the Mods had been around for too long by 1968. They'd appeared at a time when a Tory government told the people that they'd never had it so good, and really got going before Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies did for the Conservatives in 1962.

"I became a Skin partly because the nob-end of the hippy scene started taking over our look, and partly because I really didn't like the hippies. Being a Skin meant not having to buy new suits all the time, just shirts, trousers, shoes and braces. Suits were for the middle-class, I were from the working class and proud of it. Mind you, I didn't like Labour neither. They were too soft on the hippies and commies."

"By the end of the 1960s I couldn't be bothered too much with shopping. I knew what I wanted, where to get it and how much it cost. So I'd always go to the places I knew best. And after I got married, me misses bought stuff for me and being a Skin started to come second to everything else. Know what I mean?"

play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtEpqzPuck4

a baby's brain and an old man's heart (I'm 18…)

The son of a very good friend turned eighteen the other day, and he had a party for the old folks, the guest list hand written by him. Somehow I got through the velvet rope, and found myself enjoying food, champagne and embarrassing stores told by his mom about how l'il Abe used to hate birthday parties when he was a (young) kid. Me too, I thought. Then I thought some more; about my 18th birthday and the non-party I enjoyed. Just me, the love of my life, a turntable, some music, recreational aids and dreams of what might be. I'd left home the year before,  splitting from my 'family' as they spit after me, yelling "don't come back!" The ill feeling was mutual, Ma.

When I got home I recalled the year that I was 18, and tried to piece together what happened. All I could remember were some gigs, learning how to protest, trying new drugs, dancing, driving, traveling, reading and acting. There was a lot if it, too. The world in 1980 was a frightening, inspiring, fascinating and dull place. It was everything and yet little remains to me. Rather than writing too many words, which would struggle to tell a fraction of the story of my 18th year, I thought I'd do it with pictures instead. What follows is in a random order of imperfect recollection. It's incomplete, of course. If you want any words to go with any of the images, just ask.