Spirit of '69: A Skinhead Bible

SPIRIT OF '69 A Skinhead Bible George Marshall

"Skinhead, skinhead, over there, What's it like to have no haïr? ls it hot or is it cold? What's it like to - BE BALD!'' Playground chant from the early Seventies.

S. T. Publishing · Scotland The original skinhead publisher - accept no substitutes

This book is dedicated to the Glasgow Spy Kids skinhead crew

SPIRIT OF '69

Sptnt Of '69 - A Skinhead Bible (pbk)

A Skinhead Bible

Jo~ refunded if not .atistied with the caps already painted. National Coal Board miners boots, army boots and their ilk TREND SUPPLIES (MM! were also in wide circulation. Eight or ten ..~ ~ · .!· • . · ~ '"~ ~-· · · ac~" , w.• , hole boots were standard and there was ·- ' -~ ~.. ~ · .-.. : ~~,.--.:.­ ( AUfl1'i IYHCOME none of this boots up to your armpits nonsense that caught on after punk. And having a decent make of boots that nobody else had was guaranteed to win you quite a few Brownie points off your mates too. , . . The now virtually universal Doctor Marten boot drdn t really come mto r~s own until after steelies were classed as an offensive weapon by the Old Brll and banned at football matches. Docs had the added advantage of polishing up better than most other makes and were really comfortable to wear, making them the number one choice ever since. Trousers ranged from army greens to corduroys, but as with ali kids, jeans were by far the most popular in skinhead circles. They were erther turned up or shortened to show off a gleaming pair of boots that had taken the best part of two hours to polish (so you told your mates anyway). Sometimes the whole boot would be exposed, but more often than not the trouser bottom came to just above the ankle. . The jeans to be seen in were Levi's red tags. They had bee~ popular wrth mods earlier in the decade because they were more expensrve than your average pair of jeans and therefore more exclusive . Skinh~ads. like~ them for much the same reason . Button flies were in vogue at the trme, JUSt hke today, but genuine original 501 s were made from a far heavier denim th an what's on offer in the High Street twenty odd years on. 17

75/

The heavier denim made the jeans last for ages. More often than not the ·.rn· or two too big, jumped in the bath and they would shrink to be a perfect tag 501s came in a shrink to fit format. The idea was that you bought a pair a 111 11 sounds a good laugh, but sometimes they'd shrink again when you put ~~~~~~~~~~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~l ll tc•rll tn for a wash, leaving you to wriggle about on your bed t~ing to pull lltPill on . Not only that, the blue dye that came off a new pair of jeans was a '"" ' hasta rd to get off your legs and the sides of the bath at times. No wonder 1nvr·s eventually had the sense to sell pre-shrunk 501s. 1olher thing about Levi's was that they were meant to be worn on the hip, luri cve~one pulled them up to the waist - hence the need for something to holtt of rotting the stitches and so a bleached pair of jeans would never give a llll'lime of service. Still, not that anyone cared if it saved them from a ·,howing up. •.turts added the final touch to the emerging skinhead uniform come 1969. 1 l owe~ patterns were definitely a no-no, but otherwise any shirt would do in llw early days. !.oon however two styles had emerged as definite favourites. One was the c ollarless union shirt in plain colours or occasionally in stripes. And the other was the classic American button-down, as championed by the mods in the mtd-Sixties. 1he most popular make of button-down shirt was Ben Sherman. They were ~rwde originally from a ve~ comfortable Oxford woven cloth, and with a llullon at the back of the collar, a back pleat and a back hoop for hanging the •,luri up (usually on the floor as it happens). You couldn't beat them for style. Collars were up to four inches wide and they came in a wide range of stripes 1111d plain colours, with. checked Ben nies not appearing until early 1970. ln lnr.t Ben Sherman followed other shirt manufacturers into checked designs und sorne of its earliest efforts were nothing short of awful. One point that certainly needs clearing up is this business about white Ben !>hermans. Most research into the original skinheads goes no further than a quick flick through a copy of The Painthouse, a book about a smali gang of young skinheads from London's East End. Now it just so happened that they drcln't wear white Bennies and this has now been. translated by ali and sund~ 1

1

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to mean that skinheads full stop never wore them. The truth is that white Be Shermans were popular with skinheads throughout the country at variou times and were as smart as any other shirt, particularly with tonies. End story. Ben Sherman might have been the most popular brand of shirt, but the certainly w~ren't the only ones worn by the skinhead faithful. Brutus fo example made a decent range of shirts and for tartan you couldn't buy bette Jaytex were another favourite and arguably offered the best checked shirts o the market. Permanent Press made sorne decent shirts too and their butto down blouses were cherished by the fairer sex. Even Arnold Palmer, th golfer, added his name to a range of excellent button downs. ln fact, suc was the demand for decent shirts that local tailors often produced their ow version to sell to their skinhead customers. The other type of shirt sported by skinheads was the good old Fred Per short-sleeved tennis shirt. The advertising boards used to read, "Shirt b Fred. 'Nuff Said.", and that was your guarantee that you were getting a to quality garment. The Fred of old was a heavier, three and sometimes fou button affair, and the most popular ones had piping on the collar and sleeve and seemed to follow football colours. White and navy blue for Spurs, clare and blue for West Ham and so on . And that was you. Dressed in the height of working class fashion and ready t take on the world. Ali you had to do then was to tap the old man for a few bo and it was off down the road to meet your mates. Most skinheads thoug were in their teens and so only the older ones could enjoy the full benefits of night on the town. Every area had at least one boozer where skinheads would knock back a fe pints and play billiards, before either calling it a night or moving on to th local dancehall or cinema. As the juke box belted out the latest and greates in reggae and soul, tall tales about women and aggro would be traded, wit each additional pint bringing forth even greater stories of courage an stamina. This was usually a time for wearing your best gear, when the crea of the crop could give any mod or city gent a run for their money in the smartness stakes. While the tabloïd headlines were full of boots and braces, they were totally oblivious to the fact that skinheads represented sorne of the most style conscious kids ever. Jeans and boots were put away for the football and out came the Levi's sta-press, the mohair suits, highly polished brogues and equally impressive gear. And ali topped off with a meticulous attention to detail that was once described as being aggressively mod neat. Blokes mouthing off in three button suits, bottom button always left undone. The number of ticket pockets and sleeve buttons, and the size of a vent, representing the difference between the envied and the also-rans. The perfectly folded pocket hanky, held in place by a gold pocket stud. The decorated tobacco tin. And the girls, with their feathercuts, looking absolutely stunning with skirts and stockings instead of trousers, and their jackets that much longer. Or failing that,

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Above: At the beginning of 1970, what was billed as "The Biggest Hoggae Package Tour ln The World" began a four week tour of the UK. On the bill were The Upsetters, The Pioneers (both pictured arriving in 1 ondon), Jimmy Cliff, Harry J Ali Stars, Desmond Dekker, Max Romeo nnd other Jamaican stars. kt~yho l e backed mohair mini-dresses or something equally appealing. We are

tnlkmg skinhead heaven here! Ali dressed up and somewhere to go. The local Mecca Ballroom, the Palais, ttu' Loca rno, or wherever you could be guaranteed a good time, drinking and tluncing the night away. The dancehalls were packed with skinheads, ali lilore to hear the boss sounds of reggae, soul and ska. l~oggae in particular was beginning to make its mark on the British music ·.1.one and this can be directly attributed to the skinheads' love of the music. 1llo music press and the radio stations certainly gave it very little support, clr-;missing it as "crude" and simple". lt was even called "yobbo music" tu•cause of its ties with the skinhead cult. 11 was a vicious circle because without press coverage and radio airplay , most rt•cord shops wouldn't stock it and so it didn't chart. And since radio stations, und particularly Radio One, have always placed far too much emphasis on Lhflrt placings to reflect popular taste, it rarely turned up on the playlists. BBC l~ndio London's Reggae Time and Radio Birmingham's Reggae Reggae were tho only two shows dedicated to the music. Minority programming they called 11. and at a time when reggae singles were regularly selling tens of thousands or copies without so much as a whiff of a chart place. 1tus made dances and the specialist reggae stockist (often no more than a rnarket stail) ali the more important for hearing the latest sounds. Even those rPcords that did make the charts, including Dekker's number one smash 21

Israelites, only did so after months of exposure in the clubs and pubs. such was the underground support for the music by 1969, that small venu were no longer sufficient to hold the swelling numbers who would turn out a reggae dance. lt wasn't long before town halls and public baths were turned into shrines to reggae at the weekends, and top night clubs 1 London's Flamingo and The Roaring Twenties were catering for its fans. The big name in skinhead reggae was Trojan, a record label started by Isla Records and the Beat & Commercial Company in 1968. Island had long be involved in promoting Jamaican music in the U.K. and had had a number hit with Millie's My Boy Lollipop back in 1964. But by 1968, label owner Ch Blackwell was more interested in making Island big as a rock label with raster of bands like Free , Fairport Convention and King Crimson. To do th Island had to shake off its image as a specialist minority label and so dro ali of its reggae artists with the exception of Jimmy Cliff. The Beat Commercial Company was owned by Lee Gopthal, an accountant by trade

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