Mod to Suedehead

Originally Posted by browniecj

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I would like to ask all the Original Skinheads to dig out your old Photos etc(this is not a dig at the later Mob).We have a bonafida Skin who is willing to write a proper Account of went happened-as from the insider "Point of View".Step forward M-o-M.This Book will hopefully dispel all the Garbage,that has been put out by the Media or other Writers(who were not there).Please make any Suggestions of how we can collect all the Info etc.I propose a P/O Box Number,that is available for the Author to get to.I cannot write!Maybe if the first is popular,then a second Volume of the 70s/80 Skins could follow. Thank-you.
Brownie although I don't mind doing the bulk of the putting-together/editing, I would like the end product to have the name of everyone who provides decent material displayed with equal prominence on the title page. I want as much of the book as possible to be the words of other people who were around at the time, not just mine. I don't mind being credited as editor (underneath all the other names, one of which I will be). People need not worry if they "can't write" either. This can be got round, believe me. I have some knowledge of the publishing industry (I now run a small literary agency) which will help. AND I already have a P O Box number we can use!

Originally Posted by Man-of-Mystery

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Brownie although I don't mind doing the bulk of the putting-together/editing, I would like the end product to have the name of everyone who provides decent material displayed with equal prominence on the title page. I want as much of the book as possible to be the words of other people who were around at the time, not just mine. I don't mind being credited as editor (underneath all the other names, one of which I will be).

People need not worry if they "can't write" either. This can be got round, believe me.

I have some knowledge of the publishing industry (I now run a small literary agency) which will help. AND I already have a P O Box number we can use!
I thought it would be better coming from you,M-o-M.Otherwise People might think I am taking over.

Originally Posted by browniecj

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I thought it would be better coming from you,M-o-M.Otherwise People might think I am taking over.

No sweat, mate. The first action I'm going to take is to trawl through 170-odd pages of this thread and see what anyone has come up with so far.

You never know - we might never get enough material for a book, but it's worth trying.

As for photos, I don't think it will matter too much if they are old, b/w, fuzzy, etc. so long as they are authentic.

By the way, the working title of the project is Walking Proud. We could re-think this later, as 'pride' has been a bit overdone in titles, but brownie had the idea from a reggae track, so it's pretty appropriate.

I will start asking my Sisters for any Photos(Weddings etc.)My Mum threw a lot away,I wonder why?

Great news, well done chaps

Originally Posted by bunty

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"chaps"

Thank you, bunters, old bean!

Originally Posted by Man-of-Mystery

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Thank you, bunters, old bean!

Bloody good, what, what!

Happy to help as best I can. Photos may not be too plentiful.

Here is the FT article (not very exciting):


Puritan Pleasure - Shining happy people
By James Ferguson

Published: August 25 2007 03:00 | Last updated: August 25 2007 03:00

Polishing shoes sits comfortably within the parameters of such low- level drudgery as washing up, vacuum cleaning, ironing and mixing cocktails. These activities define the term "household chores", and, if done in the spirit of "if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well", can supply a surprising amount of satisfaction, not to mention intra-familial brownie points.

The pleasure of polishing started for me in the late-1960s, when what passed for teenage peacockery involved clip-on braces, rolled- up Levi's and a pair of furiously buffed, cherry red Dr Martens boots.

Old-fashioned men's leather shoes can be transformed with brushes, dusters, a tin of Kiwi polish and elbow grease into a pair of shimmering snarlers.

Apply the polish with a brush, taking special care not to miss the welts, as shoeshine advisors never fail to remind, before concentrating on the toecaps. The routine here incorporates small circular applications of polish with a damp cloth, supplemented by, yes, occasional flecks of saliva. (Extremists advocate champagne, but that's silly.) All this is akin to French polishing leather. For a while all is dreary and smeary, suddenly, magically, like driving out of fog into crystal clarity, a quite astonishing mirror-like shine appears. You really can see your boat race in your Oxford.

Such meticulous upkeep has fallen into abeyance since fatherhood; but no matter, one of my parental duties is the school-shoe- cleaning detail. Children's shoes are a tough proposition. The areas of a once black and shiny shoe that haven't yet been worn down to matt grey are hidden beneath a carapace of dried mud, paint, cement - you name it. Anything more elaborate than plastering polish directly over these encrustations is futile, as within hours they will be battered back to their customary state of schoolyard decrepitude.

For those of you into the This Is England series of shows/movies.....

a 2 hour movie will supposedly be released around Xmas time this year called This is England 88, which is supposed to be a bridge between the 86 mini series and the upcoming TiE 90 that is coming out in 2012

\t
"The missing link between the massive success of This is England '86 and next years This is England '90. The 2hr feature length drama should answer some questions and throw up plenty more.

Christmas '88 saw Roy Orbisons death, Scott and Charlene getting married in Neighbours, the Lockerbie bombing, The Four Tops were going Loco down in Acapulco and Cliff Richard was getting stuck into his Mistletoe and Wine."

I have no interest in This is England, All it did was carry on the Damage that peoples idea of Skinheads is,
I suppose its interesting for the Punks, 80s Skinheads, Rockabillys, Mods and every other Revivalist.

The book. Working title: "˜Walk Proud'.

I ought to get the ball rolling, seeing as browniecj has put the steering wheel into my hands because I know a little bit about the publishing world. I have been re-reading this thread (so far I have only got to page 20!) trying to pick up bits of information, identify photos etc., and I've come up with some ideas for topics we ought to deal with, if we can. A lot of it has already been mentioned on the thread, but it needs re-assmbling.

This message is addressed firstly to the handful of us who were "˜there' in the late 60s, but also to anyone whose parents, older brothers and sisters, friends might have been there too, in fact anyone with any memory at all of that era. You can get hold of me at bookseeker{a}blueyonder.co.uk or by snail mail to Bookseeker Agency, P O Box 7535, Perth, PH2 1AF.

What material already exists?
It's not as though the skins of the late 60s haven't been dealt with before. We might be intending to give our "˜original' view, but the era has been featured in books - I even contributed a short essay to one which is soon to be published, it was either that or leave our era without much of a voice in it. To give a good example, there's Jim Ferguson's drawings; I know we've really ripped into JF in this thread, but his work is a place to start. What other books etc have featured 60s skins? I've got access to "˜Yell' of course and a handful of newspaper articles.

Who else can we get in touch with?
Jim Cox, "˜original' and current DJ, for example. I'm also thinking maybe even Chris Welch formerly of Melody Maker, who regularly used to slam skinheads, for the simple reason that he might have some material. It's worth a try. Anyone think of anyone else we can contact? How about the guy from that street style TV documentary - can't remember his name - is he worth getting in touch with?

Where did we come from?
By this I mean what were our origins and our reasons for being? Were we the tail end of the mods? Did working class pride have anything to do with it? Were we something totally new?

Photos.
It doesn't matter if the photos are fuzzy, torn, over-exposed, or whatever. If we're looking to tell the truth then old snapshots will boost the authenticity. What have you got? What can we get hold of? There is a handful of really good photos on the web, but in order to use them we have to find out who owns the copyright. There's a well-known shot of four skinheads walking past a group of hippie-ish people who are sitting on some steps; I think one of the skins is called Gerry Rayner. Does anyone know someone called Gerry Rayner? It's worth a try.

Clothes.
I think we need a kind of time-line from about 1967 to 1970 showing what clothes we remember coming in and going out. I'm not thinking of putting the time-line in the book, but of using it as a kind of tool as the research is being done. To outsiders skinheads are all about boots and braces, but we know different, so we need detail about styles and brands and how they were worn. How did we find out when something new was in? Was the old idea of the "˜face' (from the mod era) relevant? Where did we buy our clothes?

Where did we hang out?
In my case it was the bowling alley in Lewisham and the Savoy Rooms in Catford. How about you?

Music.
What music was played in our clubs? Who was the DJ? Was there anything except Motown and Reggae? What records would get blokes rather than girls dancing? At the Savoy it was "˜Return of Django' by the Upsetters. What records did we buy and where did we buy them?

Girls.
They're almost invisible! We need a time-line for their clothes too. What was their attitude, how did they behave?

Aggro.
We can't leave this out. Was it part of the package or just something that happened? One-on-one or gang? Did the media blow it up out of all proportion?

Football.
What's the connection? (Anyone referring to it as "˜soccer' will get sent to the naughty corner.)

Politics and race.
We're going to be asked this so we might as well come clean about it. Did politics mean that much to us at the time?

Regional differences.
Were northerners really "˜the denim boys', and so on?

Where did we go?
By this I mean how did it all end? Did we ever call ourselves "˜suedeheads'? What was our attitude to all the younger kids coming in.

What's our message to the revival skins?
Do we even have one?

Anything else you can think of?
Really, I mean it - what have I missed?

@M-o-M

Who else can we get in touch with?

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I could ask a few reggae DJ's who where original skinheads. Chris Lane, Steve Rice, and a guy I only know as Port-o-Jam.

Then there's even younger ones like Marcus (Downbeat) and Michael de Koning, who followed early 70s, and seem to be in it very very late 71-72. If you want to include such in the book.

I've seen 2 guys on UKS that say they started in 1965 (2 different non-connected people, although in the case of bird it's more of implied). That might be interesting I think, I don't know them but they can be contacted through ukskinheads website.

Looked up those posts, hope they don't mind:

Originalskin:

I thought that was a very good article the only thing I would correct is when it talks about 1969 and says skinheads had started months before it started a long time befor that , we was wearing the beginings of the style in 64-65 the scene was about long before the name , we were called different things in different areas till the press started calling us skinheads in the late 60s. still a change to read something good.

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tuff boots were worn early on as were old army boots, I have a pic somewhere of me in about 1965 in army boots, greens and a white grandad shirt with inch thick white braces there was another make of boot about then with screw on soles and metal toe caps, I remember a pal of mine had some and picked the leather covering off so the metal showed , in the part off London I lived in then the first name I can remember being called was peanuts skinhead came allong alot later.

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Same from me exept I'd say it was a couple of years earlier I was 12 when I got me first pair of the old army boots greens and grandad shirt so that would have been 65 me brother is 2 years older than me and him and his mates were wearing that sort of stuff before that . and all the thing about when does a hard mod become a skinhead we never thought of ourselfs as any type of mod some of the old mods might have come along for the ride cause they did'nt like what was happening with thier mates going hippy but the majority of kids that got involved in what were later to be called skinheads did,nt even realise that they were creating a life style that would be still going all these years later, it was just us living our lives we did'nt become skinheads we were born skinheads we just had to wait a few years to get a name that stuck.

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Bird:

So its 1965 and this eleven year old kid , searching for his indentity , is hanging around his elder brother and his mates.
Now eleven year old kids worship their elder brother anyway right? But my brother and his mates look different , they look confident and smart , non of that long haired hippy stuff with old army coats and kaftans . One of Danny's mates has a package from home (Jamaica) some records, one goes on the record player :- Da Da Da Dah Da Da Dah Da Dah
This carry go bring come my dear, brings misery ( Justin Hinds annd the Dominoes Carry Go Bring Come ) . The eleven year old kid doesn't know whats happening but his legs start moving , he's dancing ---he doesn't know it but he's Ska dancing , in the street . He can hear the older boys laughing " Look at his legs ---he's like a bird"

I got a name that has stuck with me all my life 'Bird' and I got my indentity ---I'm a skin .
Pleased to meet you all ----keep the faith.

Bird.

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Originally Posted by loempiavreter

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@M-o-M

I could ask a few reggae DJ's who where original skinheads. Chris Lane, Steve Rice, and a guy I only know as Port-o-Jam.

Then there's even younger ones like Marcus (Downbeat) and Michael de Koning, who followed early 70s, and seem to be in it very very late 71-72. If you want to include such in your book.

Please go ahead! It would be great to hear from Chris Lane, Steve Rice, and Port-o-Jam.

The younger ones too may have some valuable information - after all, even if they were kids during the late 60s they would have seen blokes from our era and maybe would have been influenced by them. Better to have too much information than too little.

By the way, it's our book.

Thanks!

Thanks MoM for grasping the steering wheel so assuredly

A very comprehensive list to start. I like the idea of where did we come from - that may explode some myths about a working class preserve.

A couple of points - what timescale are we focusing on?

Girls - how to include them? It may have been largely a male thing but they need a big mention. Not just how did they look etc, but how did they feel about the movement?

Originally Posted by Brideshead

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I like the idea of where did we come from - that may explode some myths about a working class preserve.

Well it may and it may not. Certainly most kids were working class. However I'm sure I remember one of the music weeklies printing a letter from a bunch of skinheads who went to a private school. Must have been the NME because Melody Maker was totally anti-skin.

Originally Posted by Brideshead

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A couple of points - what timescale are we focusing on?

The core is 1969, but I reckon if personal stories go from, say, '67 to '71, we can work within that bracket.

Originally Posted by Brideshead

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Girls - how to include them? It may have been largely a male thing but they need a big mention. Not just how did they look etc, but how did they feel about the movement?

Well if you can find any girls to give their views I'm sure we'd all be very grateful!