The Teddyboy emerged in the 1950s as Britain was coming to the end of post-war austerity and represented the first face of British youth culture. The consumer boom of the 1950s America did not reach Britain until the 1960s but nevertheless working class teenagers could for the first time afford good clothes, a bicycle or motorcycle and entertainment. The clothing that the Teddyboys wore was designed to shock their parents' generation. It consisted of an Edwardian style drape jacket, much too 'camp' for a working class man, suede Gibson shoes with thick crepe soles, narrow 'drainpipe' trousers, a smart shirt and a loud tie - usually of the 'Slim Jim' or bootlace type. The trademark drape jacket was not as impractical as it seems. Not only did it act as a badge of recognition but, as it was made of woollen cloth with lots of pockets, its kept it's owner warm as he hung around in the street and was also good at concealing weapons and alcohol. The Teddygirls adopted American fashions such as toreador pants and circle skirts, although they tended to wear low cut tops to make themselves look less prissy. Girls wore ponytails and the boys tried a number of experimental hairstyles, the most favourite being the overblown quiff with a DA (ducks arse) at the back.
The Teds fully embraced the American Rock and Roll music that hit Britain and the British bands that adopted the same style. The Teds were, however, shadowy figures at the dancehalls, lurking around the bars, bopping around and drinking. They formed gangs who sometimes had a common uniform like a particular colour of jacket or socks. For the most part, violence and vandalism was not too serious by modern standards, and exaggerated by the media, but there were instances of serious gang warfare with razors and knives. Some Teddyboys had fascist tendencies and were involved with gangs of youths that attacked the West Indians that emigrated to Britain in the mid Fifties. This racism was the most unfortunate of the Teddyboy's tendencies and it closed off much American Rock and Roll to them. This was their loss as a lot of white covers of Afro-American songs were very poor by comparison with the originals
The British pop boom of the 1960s brought new music and new youth culture. The Teddyboys that remained began to devote more attention to Rock and Roll music, which they at first took for granted. The first Rock and Roll pubs appeared as did the Rockers who liked the same music and rode powerful British motorcycles. Teds and Rockers got on well with each other and the leather motorbike jacket became the normal wear for many Teddyboys and Teddygirls for daytime use and for rough pubs. The bike jacket could protect against motorcycle accidents, razor attacks and spilt beer in a way that the drape jacket never could.
The 1970s saw Glam Rock and Rockabilly styled bands appear in Britain and, although the Teds despised most of this music, it brought a resurgence of interest in Rock and Roll and new venues appeared. Many teenagers bought second hand drape jackets, hid the moth holes with badges and became the new generation of Teddyboys and Teddygirls. British Rock and Roll bands developed their own style, using guitar blues and rockabilly to give their music more bite. Rock and Roll pubs would put on bands of this type and also play original 1950s records. This, the dancing and the beer created an unique entertainment experience. The Seventies also saw the appearance of the Rockabilly. Basing their look on poor white boys from the American South, they adopted the Confederate Flag as their emblem, and avoided rock and roll that was based on blues sounds or performed by black artists. Rock and Roll disk jockeys stopped playing music that Rockabillies didn't like and the Teds realised that they had new rivals for their Rock and Roll venues. There were a lot of fights and many Rock and Roll venues closed.
The British pop boom of the 1960s brought new music and new youth culture. The Teddyboys that remained began to devote more attention to Rock and Roll music, which they at first took for granted. The first Rock and Roll pubs appeared as did the Rockers who liked the same music and rode powerful British motorcycles. Teds and Rockers got on well with each other and the leather motorbike jacket became the normal wear for many Teddyboys and Teddygirls for daytime use and for rough pubs. The bike jacket could protect against motorcycle accidents, razor attacks and spilt beer in a way that the drape jacket never could.
The 1970s saw Glam Rock and Rockabilly styled bands appear in Britain and, although the Teds despised most of this music, it brought a resurgence of interest in Rock and Roll and new venues appeared. Many teenagers bought second hand drape jackets, hid the moth holes with badges and became the new generation of Teddyboys and Teddygirls. British Rock and Roll bands developed their own style, using guitar blues and rockabilly to give their music more bite. Rock and Roll pubs would put on bands of this type and also play original 1950s records. This, the dancing and the beer created an unique entertainment experience. The Seventies also saw the appearance of the Rockabilly. Basing their look on poor white boys from the American South, they adopted the Confederate Flag as their emblem, and avoided rock and roll that was based on blues sounds or performed by black artists. Rock and Roll disk jockeys stopped playing music that Rockabillies didn't like and the Teds realised that they had new rivals for their Rock and Roll venues. There were a lot of fights and many Rock and Roll venues closed.
The 1980s were a lean time for Teds, who carried on much as they had in the Seventies. However the difficulty of finding venues led to British bands sharpening up their act and some of the new bands produced the best British Rock and Roll music ever. The Thatcher regime was an enemy of creativity, and youth cults of all types faded in the mid Eighties as low working class employment and wages led to teenage apathy and pointless riots.
In the 1990s the Teds and Rockabillies buried the hatchet, and any remaining racism amongst Teddyboys evaporated, leading to the emergence of Teddyboys in the rest of Europe where Rock and Roll has always been popular. The original Teddyboys were by now too old for violence and those that appeared in the 1980s were not interested in fighting. This led to a new type of safer Rock and Roll event where people could feel comfortable without Rock and Roll clothes or leathers. However, it would be wrong to assume that all modern Rock and Roll venues are glorified dance clubs. Many a night of drunken fun can be still be had dancing to Rock and Roll and the music is better than ever. Records sell on merit rather than star quality, and disk jockeys play CDs and vinyl disks of 1950s piano boogie , 1990s German rockabilly and Elvis back to back. Mention has to be made of 'The Flying Saucers' 'Crazy Cavan and the Rhythm Rockers' 'Lucas and the Dynamos' 'Jive Street', and Pollytone Records who organise the Teddyboy Weekenders.
The sight of children and teenagers in drape jackets and circle skirts suggests that Teddyboys and Teddygirls will still be seen for a long time yet. (By Rocking Pete)
The Story Of The Teddy Boy Movement
All began in the early 1950's in England. Some teenagers gangs appeared in the East End of London; they were called the Cosh boys. It was very easy to recognise them. They wore a very special rig : long jacket with velvet collar and cuffs drain-pipe trousers like under the reign of Edward VII (1901-1910), bright ankle socks and slim Jim tie. There hair were "long" and greased. These Cosh boys terrified the English society : razor attacks, fights between gangs but also against the police, robberies ... After the Second World War England woke up with an headache ! Press needed a new term to describe these gangs which number increased each day? The word chosen was Teddy Boy(s) and Teddy Girl(s), Ted(s)
It seems that the first newspaper that used the term Teddy Boy was the Daily Express on September 23rd 1953. At this epoch, Elvis Presley was just a truck-driver!
And then, came Rock'n'Roll immediately adopted by the young generation and of course by the Teds. Bill Haley, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and British artists like Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard and the Drifters (then the Shadows), Billy Fury, Marty Wilde (and many many others ... ) became the teenagers' idols. It was the beginning of something new, a wind of freedom. In Britain, in September 1956, Bill Haley had 5 records in the 'Top 20' and the film Rock Around The Clock was shown at 300 cinemas, but, in the early 60's, the tastes of the public changed and many Teds, after the military service in the British Army, put away their finger-tip drapes, their tightly fitting trousers and cut their hair. Was it the end of the Teds' culture ? Not at all ladies and gents!
50's R'N'R still had many fans in Great Britain ; many of them, the (Ton-Up) Rockers wore the "uniform" of the "American bad boys" : black leather jackets, T-shirts, jeans and motorcycle boots.
In 1967, Bill Haley's Shake, Rattle and Roll crept into the British charts again. At the end of the 60's, some bands played authentic R'N'R for a new generation of Teds which joined the original ones . Bands like the Wild Angels, the Houseshakers, the R'N'R Gang (in France), Shakin' Stevens & the Sunsets, the R'NR Allstars recreated the true spirit of R'N'R ; they rendered the big success of the 50's (',Johnny B. Goode',' Little Queenie'. 'Tutti Frutti','Peggy Sue', 'Be Bop A Lula, 'C'mon Everybody', 'Summertime Blues', 'Great Balls Of Fire', ...). This return to the traditional R'N'R was called Rock'n'Roll Revival.
In the 70's, the new generation of Teds developed a strong identity : hair lacquer started to replace grease, the drapes were brighter and, sometimes, the drain-pipes were tighter. Gradually , this new generation discovered one of the roots of R'N'R : Rockabilly and Country Music. Remember, Mr. Presley started off on Rockabilly! People like Carl Perkins, Johnny & Dorsey Burnette, Charlie Feathers, Hank Mizell, Warren Smith, Billy Lee Riley, Charlie Rich, George Jones, Carl Mann, Hayden Thomson, Janis Martin, Wanda Jackson, Sleepy Labeef (and many many other artists) became suddenly famous in England then soon after in the rest of Europe. In the same time, in the U.S.A., the great label Rollin' Rock recorded brilliant artists as Ray Campi, Mac Curtis ...
The main adepts of Rockabilly founded a new movement called Rockabilly Rebels (Rockabilly Rebs). Some of them embraced the politics of the British National Front and of racial segregation. They wore the Confederate flag. Teds News do not support this "movement" which is nearly dead ! Artists as Matchbox and Ray Campi, musical leaders of the Rockabilly Rebels were not at all racialist.
In the early 70's, a lot of Teds (particularly, the old generation) didn't care about Rockabilly, they asked for Rock'N'Roll. Nowadays, it's different : Rockabilly (with 50's R'N'R, instrumentals of the early 60's, Jumpin' Jive, Country Music) belongs to the Teds' culture.
The interest for Rockabilly coincided with the internationalisation of the Teddy Boy's tradition. New bands like Crazy Cavan & the Rhythm Rockers,
the Flying Saucers, the Riot Rockers (...) exported all over Europe their own songs, their own music. They created a new sound that we 're still calling British Rockabilly. Some Teds prefer to use the term (Rockabilly) Revival. Teds News would like to promote this European sound also called Teddy Boy Rock'n'Roll, which had many supporters in the 70's and still have many fans in Europe even if a lot of (pseudo) purists hate this style that is not enough 50's for them. British Rockabilly can be played with an electric bass. The purists abhor this instrument, they prefer the double-bass ("slap bass").
Teds News decided to support Teddy Boy R'N'R (even is this music is often underestimated), British R'N'R and bands that try to revive the early 60's instrumentals.
It seems that some Teds today return to the roots of their movement. They give up the 70's style for the 50's one. Nobody knows what the future will be. But we are sure that Rock'n'Roll will never die. (Unknown author)
Coshes, Chains and Razors
Early in the decade, Britain produced the first Teddy Boys, regarded as the urban, unskilled working class boys, looking for an identity through the clothes they wore. They pursued gang warfare and vandalism in both the streets and the dance halls, carrying coshes, bicycle chains, razors and flick-knives beneath their fine Edwardian style clothes. The 50's was the first decade to produce teenage fashions, before this they were expected to dress similar to their parents. Following the war, when prosperity hit Britain, these working class teenagers could afford to buy their own clothes, although most shops only offered 'off the peg' conventional styles and many tailors refused to make up these 'new' fashions. The teenagers were now a marketing target that made 50's fashion a symbol of a whole new lifestyle.
The association between these youths, their dance music, their clothes and crime, had become a major source of concern well before 1954 when a gang of Teds murdered a youth on Clapham Common.
The teddy boy uniform was originally copied from the smart Edwardian gentleman - their 'social superiors'. The style was tailored, and featured long high necked jackets, sometimes of velvet, or velvet trimmed collar and cuffs, and were lined in either floral or bright colours. This was worn with brocade waistcoats, bootlace or slim jim tie, narrow 'drainpipe' trousers, wing-collared shirts and suede shoes, which were originally regarded as 'gay men's shoes' or 'nancy boy shoes'. An essential accessory, along with the cycle chain was the comb. These new 'Edwardians' were not the respectable working class, and as a result the middle class who had pioneered the style, felt that their wardrobe had now become unwearable. Those who now wore the style were described as 'delinquents', 'zoot-suiters' and 'spivs'.
In the States, following Brando in the film 'The Wild One' the teenagers adapted their fashions accordingly, buying leather bomber jackets from War Surplus stores. As this film was banned in most towns in Britain at the time, the British missed out on this style until Gene Vincent, who already had a conviction for Public Lewdness and Obscenity in the States, flew over for a British TV show.
All teddy boys went to great pain to keep their hair in place. Fighting messed up the hair - hence the ever present metal comb. The DA was the main style although there were many variations such as 'the bop', 'the Tony Curtis', 'the be-bop', 'the tevee', 'the panama' or the 'back sweep and crest'. It was greased and usually accompanied by sideboards.
As the fifties went on the urban working class association with the 'Teddy Boy' dress spread further a field and with the commercial success of films like 'Rock Around The Clock' and resultant media attention it became the style of the fifties for not just the working class. Anyone causing trouble of any kind was blamed on Teddy Boys. Just as all health problems today are blamed on 'smokers', it became almost fashionable (and it sold papers) to blame any unsocial crime on 'Teddy Boys'. A youth only had to have a Tony Curtis haircut and he was instantly labelled 'a Teddy Boy'.
(Unknown author)
Young working-class women, often from Irish immigrant families, they had settled in the poorer districts of London – Walthamstow, Poplar, North Kensington. Behind the camera was Ken Russell, then just another photography student, who later went on to become one of Britain’s most famous film directors, making over 80 films, including Women in Love, and Tommy.
Four years after this session, Russell gave up still photography to concentrate on getting into the film industry. “As soon as I’d saved up enough money, I made amateur movies, which is what I?wanted to do in the first place. I showed them to the BBC and got taken on as the arts-programme monitor. That was the beginning of the end!” His pictures, which have only recently been rediscovered, are the only known professional photographs of the teddy girls. Without these images, they might well have been forgotten.
Russell’s work offers a glimpse into the lives of a group of feisty young women who were set on creating an identity of their own. Their choice of clothes wasn’t only for aesthetic effect: these girls were collectively rejecting post-war austerity
Among many people, male “teds” had an intimidating reputation. They were often linked in the public’s mind with violent crime. In July 1953, 17-year-old John Beckley was murdered by teddy boys near Clapham Common, and the Daily Mirror’s headline – Flick Knives, Dance Music and Edwardian Suits – made an explicit connection between clothing and criminality.
Former teddies insist that the connection between thuggery and style only applied to a small number of them. “We weren’t bad girls,” says Rose Shine, then Rose Hendon, who was 15 when she posed for Russell. “We were all right. We got slung out of the picture house for jiving up the aisles once, but we never broke the law. We weren’t drinkers. We’d go to milk bars, have a peach melba and nod to the music, but you weren’t allowed to dance. It was just showing off: ‘Look at us!’ We called the police ‘the bluebottles’ – you’d see them come round in a Black Maria to catch people playing dice on the corner. But we’d just sit on each other’s doorsteps and play music.”
The teddy girls left school at 14 or 15, worked in factories or offices, and spent their free time buying or making their trademark clothes – pencil skirts, rolled-up jeans, flat shoes, tailored jackets with velvet collars, coolie hats and long, elegant clutch bags. It was head-turning, fastidious dressing, taken from the fashion houses of the time, which had launched haute-couture clothing lines recalling the Edwardian era. Soon the fashion had leapt across the class barrier, and young working-class men and women in London picked up the trend.
Only a few of Russell’s pictures of the teddy girls were published at the time – in Picture Post. The rest of them lay unseen until their discovery in 2003 by Judy Westacott, something of a teddy girl herself, who, after months of searching, tracked them down to a photographic archive in Edenbridge, Kent. “I used to pore over the Picture Post article, but to find the rest of the shoot was incredible. They were in a filing cabinet. I don’t think people had pulled them out in a long, long time. Then we approached Ken Russell, and he was absolutely over the moon; he had handed them to his agent in 1955 and he hadn’t seen them since. He thought they had been lost for ever.”
In 1955, Russell was a student at the Southwest Essex Polytechnic and School of Art. “I knew someone in the fashion department who had this friend who dressed in strange clothes,” he remembers. “She told me she was a teddy girl, and I realised that she was a sort of feminine version of a teddy boy.” His friend introduced him to other girls she knew, and Russell took pictures of them “hanging around on Saturday afternoons in Walthamstow market, a rather bombed-out sort of area back then, and round where I lived in Notting Hill Gate”.
The teddy girls didn’t care that their outfits shocked their families, as long as they were noticed among their peers. “We got dressed up because it was always the teddy boys who got the look-in. We weren’t being noticed by them,” says Shine. She is now a 66-year-old grandmother and proud to have been one of the first teddy girls. “It was our fashion that we made up.”
Shine appears in several of Russell’s pictures with her twin sister, Elsie, and two friends who lived near her in Southam Street, northwest London. She laughs, remembering Ken Russell’s photo shoot: “He was just another photographer. He took photos of us and that was the last we knew of it. We didn’t know he was going to do anything with them. We thought it was a laugh. We stood there with our hands on our hips. We felt proud: someone was taking a photo of us.” Rose and her group of West End teddy girls would meet at the Seven Feathers Club in Edenham Street, North Kensington, a youth club popular with both the boys and the girls. “There was a jukebox and dancing,” she says. “Just tea and cakes, because we didn’t go to pubs then. It wasn’t until we were 20 that we might go to the pub. We weren’t bad, not like some of the boys. There was this song called Rip It Up… Well, the boys, they used to go and rip the seats.”
Teddy girls from different parts of London rarely mingled. Grace Curtis (then Grace Living) was one of the girls Russell photographed in the East End. “We hung out down the Docklands Settlement – a club where there was space for dancing and boxing. We were East End. In those days you just stuck to your area. There was a little snack bar in the club where you could buy drinks and we just all got together and danced.”
Both women hoot with excitement when they remember dancing The Creep by Ken Mackintosh – a slow shuffle of a dance so popular with teddy boys that it led to their other nickname of “creepers”. “It’s the best dance,” says Curtis. “You used to dance or jive with your girlfriends, but for The Creep you could choose your partner. You could pick
up a fella and go and dance with him.”
Girls in future generations took up the teddy-girl trend, even when most people thought it had disappeared: there is a ted scene still in existence. Westacott, who became a teddy girl in 1978 when she was 13, explains: “It married two things I really liked – the 1950s music and the style of dress. It was exciting going out in tight skirts, looking elegant – it was very stylish compared to flares. My parents hoped it might be a passing phase but it lasted 25 years.” She was determined “for other people to see these amazing pictures” and to correct a few common misconceptions: “The public perception is that teddy girls all wore circle skirts and bobby socks and listened to Rock around the Clock, and that kind of stuff. But these pictures predate it, and it proves that the cult wasn’t really music-based at the start, that was something that came later. What the teddy boys and girls were listening to was big-band stuff like Ted Heath and Ken Mackintosh.”
Teds from the past and present, fashion students, - people who lived in the East End during the war years and the 1950s, photography and Ken Russell fans, all came to see the long-lost photographs when Westacott and Joe Cushley, a music journalist, put them on show at East London’s Spitz gallery last year. After another long search, Westacott managed to find Mary Toovey and Rose Shine, who feature in the pictures, and invited them to the exhibition. Shine was keen to arrive wearing her whole teddy-girl get-up: “One of my friends wouldn’t dress up like me, but I said, ‘I’m not afraid to. I’m still proud!’” Russell and the teddy girls enjoyed meeting each other again. “They were as unrecognisable as I was, but we remembered the good old days,” says Russell. Westacott describes meeting the original teddy girls as “mind-blowing”. “They were pretty feisty, independent women at 16, and now they’re nearly 70 they are still very strong and very sure of their own identity. It’s easy for us now to choose different styles of dress and mix and match our clothes – but at that time, 50 years ago, you were really seen as a complete outsider.”
Source
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article735924.ece
http://divinedecadencedarling.blogspot.com/2008/07/teddy-girls.html
