"East of Barking, in the Summer of Fifty-four, on a late-night train from Southend to London, someone pulled the communication cord. The train ground to a halt. Light bulbs were smashed. When the train eventually reached Barking, police arrested a gang dressed in Edwardian suits.
In March of that year, a sixteen-year-old youth had been convicted at Dartford Magistrate's Court of robbing a woman 'by putting her in fear'. Said the Chairman of the Magistrates:
'There are a lot of things and so-called pleasures of the world which demand a lot of money. You tried to get hold of money to pay for ridiculous things like Edwardian suits. They are ridiculous in the eyes of ordinary people. They are flashy, cheap and nasty, and stamp the wearer as a particularly undesirable type.'
In April, two gangs, dressed Edwardian-style, met after a dance, at St. Mary Cray, Kent, Railway Station. They were ready for action: bricks and sand-filled socks were used. Fifty-five youths were taken in for questioning.
The Teddy Boy myth was born. The first 'Best Dressed Ted Contest' was held at Canvey Island, Essex, during August Bank Holiday 1954. The winner was a twentyyear-old greengrocer's assistant.
In the fifties, youth throughout the West rebelled. America, the cultural centre, had the outlaw motorcycle gangs, as depicted in the film The Wild One. Brando played the mean, moody, and brutal Wild One. The British Censor found this film so subversive that he banned it for nineteen years.
Late in the decade, Australia had the Bodgies and their female counterparts, the Widgies. Bodgies wore the leather jacket - the aggressive symbol of teenage revolt - and drainpipe trousers; rode motorbikes and stolen cars. The Widgies had their hair piled high in beehives; wore stilleto-heeled shoes and tight, slit, pencil skirts or ski-slacks. Bleached blonde hair and pink lipstick. The Japanese Tayozoku - the 'Sun Cult' - wore drainpipes, sunglasses, and Hawaiian shirts. Their hair was chopped in a crew-cut mop: the Shintaro. They drank, brawled, screwed and, for a while, attracted the interest of mass media. The British Teddy Boy reflected this trend.
In London, after the War, a style developed in homosexual circles, half-collars of velvet on long Edwardian jackets. It was soon adopted by young upper-class Guards Officers, a last nostalgic wince for the era of Edward VII, 'Teddy', the grandeur that was gone for ever.
After considerable Press, the style moved down market and out into the workingclass suburbs. It lost its twee associations and became the high-fashion of a new breed. It took on more menacing connotations and the Guards Officers dropped it fast. By the beginning of 1954, it was purely working class.
This style developed. Now widely called 'Ted' or 'Teddy Boy', it owed less allegiance to Edward VII: more to the western gunfighter. The jacket, the drape, showed clear similarities to the frock-coat of the saloon shoot-out. At first Teds adopted the narrow tie but soon the gambler's bootstring became the convention. Urban cowboys came to prominence in the Ted culture. The bootstring was held together with a medallion: death's heads, cross-bones skulls, eagles, dollars and...."
Originally published in 1979, The Teds is a classic of British documentary photography. A vivid and absorbing book it combines image and text to tell a fascinating story that spans some three decades. It comes shrinkwrapped in 'hardback' format.
"East of Barking, in the Summer of Fifty-four, on a late-night train from Southend to London, someone pulled the communication cord. The train ground to a halt. Light bulbs were smashed. When the train eventually reached Barking, police arrested a gang dressed in Edwardian suits.
In the fifties, youth throughout the West rebelled. America, the cultural centre, had the outlaw motorcycle gangs, as depicted in the film The Wild One. Brando played the mean, moody, and brutal Wild One. The British Censor found this film so subversive that he banned it for nineteen years.