Bit of a mystery here. A video clip of an unprovenanced 1950s daylight neighbourhood dance, somewhere in England, sometime between 1957 and 1960. It is barely 1 minute and a half on the YouTube video (running from 0:05 up to 0:49, and 1:00 to 1:19) but the quality of the film is amazing and really […]
The Golden Era
1958 Lancashire Teds
‘Morning in the Streets’ a 35-minute poetic depiction in film giving an “impression of life and opinion in the back streets of a Northern City in the morning”was directed by Denis Mitchell & Roy Harris in 1958 by the BBC’s Northern Film Unit (although not broadcast until 25 of March 1959). The city in question […]
1958 Notting Hill Riots, London
Lasting less than a week at the end of the summer of 1958, the riots that erupted between Friday the 29th of August and Friday the 5th of September in London’s Notting Hill district proved to be a turning point not only in race relations but in perceptions of the teddy boys. Here’s a nice […]
1965 Lyon’s rockin’ ‘delinquents’
The 1950s seemed to have lingered longer in some places than others. Away from metropolitan capitals like Paris and London, the long-haired revolution had not yet started for some. 13:45ff One explains why he doesn’t like students. INT 26:00ff “la plupart préfere le rock” *Inusa “Les ” délinquants ” de l’époque qui s’habillent mieux et […]
1950s rock’n’roll in Finland
Here’s a treasure trove of film and newsreel clips showing how rock’n’roll made its presence felt in Finland between 1957 and 1961. Uploaded on YouTube in 2016, I don’t know its provenance although I assume it was made for tv and seems to contain some running commentary. Need I say ? I hardly know more […]
Were the 1950s teds colourful or not?
Perennial debate in teddy boy circles: are teddy boys supposed to wear colourful drapes or not? No doubt they were more colourful in the 1970s revival than in the 1950s but did the 1950s teds wear colourful drapes or not? Difficult question to answer seeing that just about 99% of photos taken in 1950s Britain […]
