RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30795, 6 July 1965, Page 26

RANDOM REMINDER

SPECIALISTS

We don’t know whether the decorations for the Beatles have had any effect, but it does look to us as if the fire is going out of the teenage rebels. Once, you may recall, they were going to (a) turn society upside down; (b) inside out; <c> limb from limb; and (d) back to front They were going to show us. But they’re a divided lot these days and their energy is dissipating. The trouble is, they have over-specialised. Our evidence? Well, once upon a time they were just boys and girls, or, in official documents, adolescents. But the war had its effects and by the time it was all over they had become teenagers. But the kids were not satisfied with that for long. Soon the papers were talking about Bodgies and, of all things, Widgies. The Teds appeared to hive off from

that subdivision and before we knew what had happened another order had been founded—the Milk-Bar Cowboys, and their charming little companions, the Pillion Pussies. Those of us who tried to stay with it were a bit puzzled at the arrival of the Beat generation, but we bravely put the best face we could on the Beatniks and only snarled about Beardies and Wierdies when they began to get into our, mercifully short, hair. But then we heard disturbing news from Brighton and Margate and such places about Mods and Rockers beating each other to a pulp. Soon we had our own pale imitations. And bronzed Surfies. This may have just been natural selection, evolution. But the specialisation is going too far now. We have it on the authority of an inspector

of police at Great Yarmouth that Rockers are no longer Rockers, but Greasers. The Justices hearing the case, poor old things, were just a little confused and suspected some racial Thing was involved. But confusion was worse confounded at Skegness the same day. A youth in court there was said to have told the police: “We are Trogs, sort of Mods who go potholing. We were having a do at the Thunderbirds—they’re a sort of Rockers.’’ Specialisation such as this is bound to have the same effect as it’s having in education. We will have more and more young people dressing and behaving more and more like fewer and fewer others practically all of them will behave and dress less and less like practically all the others. Which is where we came in. Sort of.