0:00:04 > 0:00:06What do you think when you hear the word "skinhead"?
0:00:06 > 0:00:08Violence? Intolerance?
0:00:08 > 0:00:12Hatred? This image was born in the 1970s,
0:00:12 > 0:00:15when this youth driven subculture earned a reputation for trouble on
0:00:15 > 0:00:20the streets and terraces and a toxic association with racism.
0:00:20 > 0:00:22But that's not how it started,
0:00:22 > 0:00:24and it's certainly not what it meant to me.
0:00:26 > 0:00:34This programme contains strong language
0:00:36 > 0:00:40There was a time we were united on the dance floor, dressed to kill
0:00:40 > 0:00:43and, if only for a moment, it felt like colour didn't matter.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54'Skinhead was always, always a multicultural thing,
0:00:54 > 0:00:59'skinhead was born of a mixed marriage between Jamaican culture
0:00:59 > 0:01:02'and white working-class London culture, Cockney culture.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04'That's what it always was.'
0:01:04 > 0:01:07So, for any of these idiots to come along later and say, "No, it's a racist thing,"
0:01:07 > 0:01:12how can it be racist? How can you be so ignorant of the roots of the thing you're trying to be?
0:01:15 > 0:01:16'Subcultures are interesting.
0:01:16 > 0:01:21'Skinheads are one of the most enduring, one of the most striking,'
0:01:21 > 0:01:25and, for me, interesting,
0:01:25 > 0:01:29because they contain that contradiction of
0:01:29 > 0:01:35liking one thing but sometimes having differing views.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40This is a story of kids trying to find a voice and a place in society.
0:01:40 > 0:01:44It's a very British tale that reflects our national culture, good and bad,
0:01:44 > 0:01:47and it seems that, throughout its troubled life,
0:01:47 > 0:01:50there's been an ongoing struggle for the soul of skinhead.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06I was born in 1956 and reached my teens on this
0:02:06 > 0:02:08very estate in Stockwell,
0:02:08 > 0:02:11south London. Back then, like most working class kids,
0:02:11 > 0:02:15I used the only two things at my disposal to create my identity,
0:02:15 > 0:02:16music and clothes.
0:02:16 > 0:02:21And in those days, round these parts, it was all about skinhead.
0:02:27 > 0:02:29'I moved to London, '64.
0:02:29 > 0:02:33'Ten, 11. All the suburban kids, they all had short hair,
0:02:33 > 0:02:36'so I used to just watch them and stare at them, see what they were wearing.
0:02:36 > 0:02:38'Fascinated, loved it.'
0:02:38 > 0:02:41And after a day or two, I realised it was subversive,
0:02:41 > 0:02:46the whole thing was just fucking wild, like really short hair,
0:02:46 > 0:02:50and these great big, awkward looking shoes, and, you know,
0:02:50 > 0:02:52this is the swinging 60s!
0:02:54 > 0:02:58'We weren't behaving or speaking or dancing
0:02:58 > 0:03:00'or dressing like the hippies'
0:03:00 > 0:03:05wanted us to do or our parents wanted us to do or the police or our
0:03:05 > 0:03:08teachers or anybody else, or the media.
0:03:08 > 0:03:10We were doing our thing.
0:03:10 > 0:03:14- Number two.- Number two?- Yeah. And cut partly in as well.- Certainly.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17- INTERVIEWER:- Can you remember when you first decided to be a skinhead?
0:03:17 > 0:03:20I'd say about nine months ago.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22I put on some jeans and stuff.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25See what it's all about.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28You walk down the street, people turn to look at you.
0:03:29 > 0:03:31I sort of feel proud, really.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36'I knew that it was like the mods had theirs, five or six years earlier,
0:03:36 > 0:03:39'the teddy boys had theirs ten years ago. This is it, this is our thing.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43'There wasn't a name for it except peanuts, some people used to say...
0:03:43 > 0:03:46'"You know that peanut from...?" It would be like that.
0:03:46 > 0:03:47'But no-one said "skinhead".'
0:03:47 > 0:03:51One guy I heard saying, "Oi, skinhead!", but jokey.
0:03:53 > 0:03:59'For quite a long time, the term skinhead was rather a casual name.'
0:03:59 > 0:04:04I can remember in 1968, we weren't really calling ourselves anything.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07To an extent, skinhead was what other people called you.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10And gradually, the name just stuck.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15And I don't know if the others recognised it,
0:04:15 > 0:04:18because they didn't speak about it, but I was thinking,
0:04:18 > 0:04:21"Wow, look what's going on here."
0:04:24 > 0:04:28To many people, raised on a certain idea of skinhead,
0:04:28 > 0:04:31the real roots of the movement are surprising.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35As although the basic ingredients of these subcultures had already been
0:04:35 > 0:04:38established by teddy boys, rockers and mods,
0:04:38 > 0:04:40it was the arrival of my parents,
0:04:40 > 0:04:43with the Windrush Generation after the Second World War,
0:04:43 > 0:04:47that would play a crucial part in this particular story.
0:04:48 > 0:04:50Because along with their hopes and dreams,
0:04:50 > 0:04:54they also brought style and some brand-new sounds.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57Both found favour with these white working class kids,
0:04:57 > 0:05:00and seemed to contradict the emerging racism of the times.
0:05:02 > 0:05:04I guess, like previous youth generations,
0:05:04 > 0:05:06it's about people trying to find an identity,
0:05:06 > 0:05:11but these white working class kids seemed to be taking tips from distant lands.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15That was the first wave of Jamaican immigration
0:05:15 > 0:05:16that had come in
0:05:16 > 0:05:19and was then starting working alongside white workers,
0:05:19 > 0:05:21and particularly on the docks.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24And kids, I think, who were starting on their working life,
0:05:24 > 0:05:28trying to look more manly and doing all this kind of business adopted those
0:05:28 > 0:05:32kinds of styles. And that was the same for black youth and white youth.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38'It probably started out like that, which was sort of working-class.
0:05:38 > 0:05:43I even used to wear a donkey jacket with Dr Martens and turned up Levis.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46But then you start looking around and you want to smarten up, and
0:05:46 > 0:05:48other people actually started wearing that sort of thing.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51And you just want to move on from there.
0:05:52 > 0:05:53'We loved our clothes, we loved our music,
0:05:53 > 0:05:57'we wasn't looking for the innovative thing, the guy who had the next thing that came along.'
0:05:57 > 0:06:01We discovered this Ivy Shop in Richmond, it was like a treasure.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05They had all the stuff we liked and wanted to access, but quality,
0:06:05 > 0:06:09quality items. They had the button-down shirts, they had
0:06:09 > 0:06:12the brogues and the smooth loafers that you wanted.
0:06:12 > 0:06:15The really slick cut Crombie coats and so on.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20I'd heard about the legendary Ivy Shop in my early teens,
0:06:20 > 0:06:23but funds and its location in Richmond,
0:06:23 > 0:06:25a distant land for this south London kid,
0:06:25 > 0:06:28meant I never actually got there. Luckily for me,
0:06:28 > 0:06:31its creator was still in business.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34- John, how you doing, man? - Nice to see you.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37- Very nice to see you.- So, Mr Simons, you've got to tell me,
0:06:37 > 0:06:41how did The Ivy Shop become the Holy Grail for skinheads?
0:06:41 > 0:06:45We opened The Ivy Shop in the summer of '64.
0:06:45 > 0:06:50The initial idea was we were crazy about American Ivy League clothes,
0:06:50 > 0:06:54this sort of collegiate kind of look.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57And that's what inspired us to open the shop.
0:06:57 > 0:06:59What did you make of this new clientele you were getting?
0:06:59 > 0:07:03We gradually began to develop a clientele
0:07:03 > 0:07:05that wore a clean cut look,
0:07:05 > 0:07:09that did inform, I think, the skinhead situation later on.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11I've noticed over your shoulder,
0:07:11 > 0:07:14there's something that looks like a Harrington jacket...
0:07:14 > 0:07:17I've heard that you were the one that named the jacket the Harrington jacket.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21- I did indeed.- Can I have a look at this, is that all right?- You can have a look at that.
0:07:21 > 0:07:26This is a casual jacket of ours, which is similar to a Baracuta Harrington,
0:07:26 > 0:07:29which is the jacket that really got this whole thing started.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32We visited Baracuta, I think,
0:07:32 > 0:07:35just a couple of months after we started.
0:07:35 > 0:07:41And then, one was watching the TV and you saw the series Peyton Place.
0:07:41 > 0:07:42Black and white, I remember that.
0:07:42 > 0:07:48In which Rodney Harrington wore the Baracuta Harrington.
0:07:48 > 0:07:53So we were selling it in the shop, and he was wearing it on the TV,
0:07:53 > 0:07:59so we used to put tickets on saying, "The Rodney Harrington jacket."
0:07:59 > 0:08:03And after a while, say a few months, we got a bit lazy and
0:08:03 > 0:08:06then we dropped the Rodney Harrington jacket,
0:08:06 > 0:08:09and we just called it the Harrington jacket.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12And the rest is history, really.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14The skinhead staple was born!
0:08:18 > 0:08:21'This was stuff which would have been recognised
0:08:21 > 0:08:24'in the USA as being, well, rather preppy.'
0:08:24 > 0:08:27We got it, somehow, second-hand, third-hand,
0:08:27 > 0:08:30and we put sort of a cocky, street edge on it.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35A tie for me was always quite slick.
0:08:35 > 0:08:39They took a lot of time and detail into making sure that their appearances
0:08:39 > 0:08:41were spot on.
0:08:41 > 0:08:44One of the jokes around Harrow was,
0:08:44 > 0:08:46"I like your suit." "Thank you."
0:08:46 > 0:08:48"Was it made-to-measure?" "Yeah."
0:08:48 > 0:08:50"Who for?(!)"
0:08:52 > 0:08:53'The girls were gorgeous,
0:08:53 > 0:08:56'most of them were very, very chic and very, very smart.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00'The hairstyle, it was really stylish, very sexy.
0:09:00 > 0:09:02'Yes, it was very short on top and yes,'
0:09:02 > 0:09:05there were long side pieces and pieces at the back,
0:09:05 > 0:09:08but it was layered beautifully.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11# I want all you skinheads to get up on your feet
0:09:11 > 0:09:15# Put your braces together and your boots on your feet... #
0:09:15 > 0:09:17Although we were tapped into American culture,
0:09:17 > 0:09:21it was a little island with a big bassline that really captured the
0:09:21 > 0:09:24imagination of the emerging skinhead scene.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27What was it about Jamaican culture that attracted you white guys?
0:09:27 > 0:09:31It was unique and it was a bond we had with our black friends,
0:09:31 > 0:09:35it was something we could all share in, even what we were wearing,
0:09:35 > 0:09:40the trousers up high, things like that, that all came from Jamaica,
0:09:40 > 0:09:42I would say, rather than the States.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46'Black people just seemed cool in those days.
0:09:46 > 0:09:50'There is no other word to use, really, they seemed cool.'
0:09:50 > 0:09:54It's like Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove. These places that you went
0:09:54 > 0:09:59to if you wanted this kind of slab of otherworldliness.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04'They came with a style, they came with a fashion, they came with a'
0:10:04 > 0:10:07look, which again was embraced, along with the music,
0:10:07 > 0:10:10and skinheads embraced that as well.
0:10:12 > 0:10:17'We listened to reggae exclusively. I can remember, the summer of '69,'
0:10:17 > 0:10:21I would only buy reggae. I remember being really quite pleased about that.
0:10:21 > 0:10:22"I'm only buying reggae!"
0:10:26 > 0:10:30Jamaican recording artists were also pleased by this new-found interest.
0:10:30 > 0:10:35So much so, a whole new genre was born out of ska - skinhead reggae,
0:10:35 > 0:10:37created specifically for the UK market.
0:10:39 > 0:10:44'All of a sudden, they acknowledge us. I just found it was an acceptance on both sides.'
0:10:44 > 0:10:48Those records created great atmosphere in the dance halls.
0:10:53 > 0:10:55'We went to see all these artists, we saw The Pioneers,'
0:10:55 > 0:10:58we saw Desmond Dekker, and we loved them.
0:10:58 > 0:11:01So it was completely multiracial.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07It's pretty amazing that this movement blossomed here in the late '60s,
0:11:07 > 0:11:10because, let's face it, in Britain back then,
0:11:10 > 0:11:13racism was a fact of life.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16'People forget at that time,
0:11:16 > 0:11:18'the National Front were poling quite high,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21'I think Enoch Powell made that speech in '68.
0:11:21 > 0:11:24'And also, I'm guessing that some of the white kids' parents were a'
0:11:24 > 0:11:26little racist, because they were scared...
0:11:26 > 0:11:29Oh, sure. The one thing you've got to remember is that Britain overall
0:11:29 > 0:11:32was a much more racist society back in those days.
0:11:32 > 0:11:36You could get away with Pakistani jokes on the radio.
0:11:37 > 0:11:39'I went to school around the corner, in Willesden,
0:11:39 > 0:11:44'and the teachers were openly racist to the black kids.'
0:11:44 > 0:11:46I mean, that's how England was.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53My black mates, I would take home, and my dad would raise his eyebrows,
0:11:53 > 0:11:55it wasn't done in those days.
0:11:55 > 0:11:57It's like, "Oh."
0:11:59 > 0:12:03As we entered the '70s, the ugly intolerance, common in these years,
0:12:03 > 0:12:05entered the bloodstream of skinhead.
0:12:09 > 0:12:12- INTERVIEWER:- Who's your natural enemy?- Pakis ain't so much your enemy,
0:12:12 > 0:12:15- they're just a pastime, ain't they. - Pakis?
0:12:15 > 0:12:18- What do you mean by Pakis? - Pakistanis.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21- You don't like Pakistanis?- No.- It's not their colour,
0:12:21 > 0:12:24cos the Jamaicans are all right, we mix with the Jamaicans.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27We get on with a lot of Jamaicans.
0:12:27 > 0:12:29You like Jamaicans but you don't like Pakistanis?
0:12:29 > 0:12:34We mix in with a load of Jamaicans, got a lot of Jamaican mates.
0:12:35 > 0:12:38I mean, they don't like Pakistanis, either.
0:12:38 > 0:12:41'A slightly younger generation started to come in,
0:12:41 > 0:12:44'and they did get the idea that
0:12:44 > 0:12:46'they had to buy a package of ideas,
0:12:46 > 0:12:49'they had to buy the Paki-bashing idea.
0:12:49 > 0:12:51- 'Play up to the headlines.- Yeah.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55What you've got to remember is that by late '69 and early 1970,
0:12:55 > 0:12:58those of us who'd been there at the beginning were starting to get old.
0:12:58 > 0:13:02'I remember one time wandering off the estate and bumping into some'
0:13:02 > 0:13:04skinheads that definitely weren't on-side.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07I made a hasty retreat back to my block, and my mother,
0:13:07 > 0:13:12hearing the altercation outside, ran down, trusty kitchen knife in hand,
0:13:12 > 0:13:14and proceeded to tell them about their mothers.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18Lucky for those skinheads, they did the right thing!
0:13:18 > 0:13:21When skinheads turned up, it was like, they'd had a precedent.
0:13:21 > 0:13:23You weren't surprised by that,
0:13:23 > 0:13:26you weren't surprised that there were elements of white youth that
0:13:26 > 0:13:28thought that kind of thing.
0:13:29 > 0:13:31From its beginnings on London council estates,
0:13:31 > 0:13:35skinhead was now entering the dangerous waters of the mainstream,
0:13:35 > 0:13:38and all the media attention that came with it.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42'The media love a good moral panic.
0:13:42 > 0:13:46'In 1969, they were looking for this year's mods and rockers,'
0:13:46 > 0:13:51and suddenly, there we were, this ready-made youth cult.
0:13:55 > 0:14:00'When the media articles did first come out, me included,
0:14:00 > 0:14:02'and some other people, thought, "Oh, wow,'
0:14:02 > 0:14:04"we're getting a bit of recognition."
0:14:04 > 0:14:07And then, those kids, the same ones who were right up the front,
0:14:07 > 0:14:10they started growing their hair long,
0:14:10 > 0:14:15and first of all it was just the hair, then it was the clothes,
0:14:15 > 0:14:19and by the end of 1970,
0:14:19 > 0:14:21dare I say it, flares!
0:14:24 > 0:14:28This might well have been the last call for the originators, but skinhead
0:14:28 > 0:14:33didn't die. Instead, it found a new form and a new legion of followers.
0:14:35 > 0:14:40The boots, the genes, the Harrington jackets and things like that,
0:14:40 > 0:14:42the football supporters adopted those.
0:14:45 > 0:14:49'Teams that were coming down to London were seeing this attire'
0:14:49 > 0:14:53seeing the way we were dressing. You know, "We're taking this back." It started to spread,
0:14:53 > 0:14:55so it went out into the counties.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01The inherent working-class appeal of skinhead found
0:15:01 > 0:15:03a natural home up north.
0:15:03 > 0:15:05London might well have been swinging,
0:15:05 > 0:15:07but the rest of the country was less prosperous.
0:15:09 > 0:15:13It's only later that I found out that a skinhead thing persisted
0:15:13 > 0:15:17quite some time up there. And that makes sense.
0:15:17 > 0:15:21When you consider that to a great extent in Britain,
0:15:21 > 0:15:26fashions seemed to start in London and spread out from London.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30Now, truth be told, I've never been to a football match in my life!
0:15:30 > 0:15:35And I was curious as to how the skinhead style has spread through the terraces.
0:15:35 > 0:15:38So I figured I'd better speak to those that were there.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41First stop, Yorkshire, to meet the Shipley Skins.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48Jack, Austin, when and how did skinhead reach the North?
0:15:48 > 0:15:51A guy moved up here from London.
0:15:51 > 0:15:56He came up with his Sta-Prest and his boots and his shaved head.
0:15:56 > 0:15:58And we were all football crazy,
0:15:58 > 0:16:02so it weren't skinheads who started watching football,
0:16:02 > 0:16:06it were football fans round here who started dressing as skinheads.
0:16:11 > 0:16:13The first Harringtons that everybody was wearing was black,
0:16:13 > 0:16:16but the uniform was red boots, white Sta-Prest, and the white
0:16:16 > 0:16:18Fred Perry, I remember more than anything.
0:16:18 > 0:16:21And looking after the boots was really important, in my view,
0:16:21 > 0:16:23because the boots looked after you.
0:16:23 > 0:16:24They did.
0:16:26 > 0:16:31'It was 1969, I was a little 12-year-old going to football.
0:16:31 > 0:16:32'And I seen this gang of skinheads.
0:16:32 > 0:16:36'To me they were men, 16, 17, 18 years old.'
0:16:36 > 0:16:39And they were like an army, and they just had this impression on me.
0:16:39 > 0:16:40Do you know what I mean?
0:16:40 > 0:16:44That was it, I went home, got my hair cut, stole my brother's work boots,
0:16:44 > 0:16:47nicked my father's braces, and I become a skinhead!
0:16:47 > 0:16:50MUSIC: Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival
0:16:52 > 0:16:55'When they used to play things like Bad Moon Rising
0:16:55 > 0:16:57'at football grounds, that used to whip the crowd up.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00'I remember a semifinal against Manchester United,
0:17:00 > 0:17:03'they played that at half-time, and that has stayed with me for ever,'
0:17:03 > 0:17:06because Bad Moon Rising was trouble on the terraces.
0:17:08 > 0:17:12'If you went to football, you would go there to support your team
0:17:12 > 0:17:14'and to defend your end.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17'Football was the only bastion where you could go there on a Saturday or'
0:17:17 > 0:17:19a Sunday, scream and shout obscenities,
0:17:19 > 0:17:21threaten people and not get arrested.
0:17:24 > 0:17:28'We were fucking horrible, we wanted to fight with everyone, like, you know?
0:17:28 > 0:17:32And, it's not nice, but kids are kids, that's what they do, do you know what I mean?
0:17:32 > 0:17:34It's almost like a rites of passage thing.
0:17:34 > 0:17:37It used to be, they'd sign 'em up and send 'em off to fight wars, like.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41But after the Second World War there wasn't any more wars to send the kids off.
0:17:41 > 0:17:43- So they had to release their... - Testosterone!
0:17:43 > 0:17:47- Exactly.- Yeah, get it out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.- Like lions, they fight each other
0:17:47 > 0:17:49to establish who's the best.
0:17:49 > 0:17:51We're just the same, you know, we're animals.
0:17:51 > 0:17:55# There's a bad moon on the rise... #
0:17:55 > 0:17:58'Aggro, words came in, we'd never heard of "aggro" before until we heard,'
0:17:58 > 0:18:00"We are the Chelsea Aggro!"
0:18:00 > 0:18:04And all that sort of thing. We heard all of these songs, and we became Shipley Aggro Boys.
0:18:04 > 0:18:08I remember one particular match where we disguised ourselves as Manchester United fans.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12Then we saw this small group of ten or 12 Manchester United fans,
0:18:12 > 0:18:16and we started chanting, "Manchester, lah, lah, lah." So they all came jumping out.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19We said, "We're fucking Leeds fans!"
0:18:19 > 0:18:21And kicked the seven bells of shit out of them!
0:18:21 > 0:18:24- We did!- Yeah.- Not proud of that, by the way, and I have to say that,
0:18:24 > 0:18:27but that's how it was. And you were part of a military operation.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30In London, there's a lot of interaction with the Afro-Caribbeans.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32What was going on here?
0:18:32 > 0:18:37There was a good number of black skinheads in Bradford. We didn't consider them black.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39They were skinheads. They were our mates.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42They weren't West Indians with same clothes on.
0:18:42 > 0:18:46They were skinheads who liked our music, our football.
0:18:46 > 0:18:48Not even all the same football team.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55There were many dark faces, there were many black faces going to football.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59I never got once confronted by that, but I was totally aware of it.
0:18:59 > 0:19:03I heard stories and I knew about stuff, but there was a dark side to it,
0:19:03 > 0:19:05there was this dark side in football.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12This dark side obviously made for great headlines.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16It was further intensified by the publication of Richard Allen's book, Skinhead,
0:19:16 > 0:19:20in 1970. It became the Bible for these new skinhead converts.
0:19:20 > 0:19:25Trouble was, its hero, Joe Hawkins, was an out-and-out racist.
0:19:25 > 0:19:28Consequently, it had a lot to answer for.
0:19:30 > 0:19:32'The book was passed around and it was my turn,'
0:19:32 > 0:19:36I got hold of the book and read it and I read it again, and...
0:19:36 > 0:19:40I'm not... I sort of admired Joe Hawkins, because he was the skinhead I wanted to be.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44I liked the way he looked. The front cover was very sort of, you know, big sideburns.
0:19:44 > 0:19:49- Yeah, it was.- Big 'burns.- And then the fact that he didn't like policemen.
0:19:49 > 0:19:52Now, I realise how juvenile my thought was, but he influenced me,
0:19:52 > 0:19:54there's no doubt about that.
0:19:54 > 0:19:59So, for a while, it's about style, music and football.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02And then politics seems to come into the mix.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05Definitely down in London. Was that the same up here?
0:20:05 > 0:20:08It did for a short while, we had one guy, he was...
0:20:08 > 0:20:10You know Barnadale's cousin?
0:20:10 > 0:20:13- Yeah.- He came in, he was a young socialist.
0:20:13 > 0:20:15Behind-the-scenes was the National Front.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18They actually took us to, I remember going to Scarborough for a weekend,
0:20:18 > 0:20:21all free. You can imagine young folk with nowt else to do jumping on a
0:20:21 > 0:20:25coach. And the conference was held at the Spa in Scarborough, and they
0:20:25 > 0:20:26wouldn't fucking let us out.
0:20:26 > 0:20:30They'd got us in there and they locked the doors. We wanted out. We went to Scarborough for a good time,
0:20:30 > 0:20:33we didn't go to listen to all this bollocks about politics.
0:20:33 > 0:20:35Seriously, that happened.
0:20:35 > 0:20:38And they still kept on. And a few guys got hooked into it.
0:20:44 > 0:20:46'Football was a massive movement.
0:20:46 > 0:20:51'And I think certain people thought, "If we can influence football on a political level'
0:20:51 > 0:20:54"and give them the start that we want, you know,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57"it could get, it could go off the wrong way."
0:21:00 > 0:21:03Now, I'd heard about the National Front's attempts to infiltrate the
0:21:03 > 0:21:07terraces, so I dug deeper, via the net, to speak to a repentant,
0:21:07 > 0:21:09ex-high ranking NF member.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12What's the truth behind the NF targeting football fans,
0:21:12 > 0:21:13many of whom were skinheads?
0:21:13 > 0:21:16At the time, I was chairman of the Young National Front,
0:21:16 > 0:21:18which was the youth movement of the NF.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21And we were aware of the sympathy that many of the skinheads
0:21:21 > 0:21:24had for what we were doing.
0:21:24 > 0:21:25And we used to sell Bulldog,
0:21:25 > 0:21:27the newspaper of the Young National Front,
0:21:27 > 0:21:30of which I was the editor, outside many football grounds.
0:21:30 > 0:21:35And at Chelsea, Chelsea were a bad team with home crowds of only about
0:21:35 > 0:21:36seven or 8,000.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39We were selling 700 copies of Bulldog at every game.
0:21:39 > 0:21:43So that's 10% of the crowd were actually buying copies of the magazine.
0:21:43 > 0:21:47So, it was a fruitful place for us to be plying our ware, shall we say.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50So it's not surprising you're going to go where your support base is.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55Did you know guys with right-wing tendencies?
0:21:55 > 0:21:59Well, I were a member of National Front, simply because...
0:22:01 > 0:22:05they used to have a disco and they wouldn't let you in if you weren't a
0:22:05 > 0:22:09member. So I used to go to a regular meeting on Thursday nights,
0:22:09 > 0:22:12at Belfry, it was called, Belfry,
0:22:12 > 0:22:14just for the music and stuff.
0:22:17 > 0:22:21Why do you think the skinheads found the National Front attractive?
0:22:21 > 0:22:24I think the skinheads found the Nation Front attractive probably for the
0:22:24 > 0:22:25same reason I did, they were white,
0:22:25 > 0:22:31working-class at a time of major demographic change, of economic hardship,
0:22:31 > 0:22:32of class identity,
0:22:32 > 0:22:35of racial identity, and I think all of those things came together.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38The tribal cohesiveness.
0:22:38 > 0:22:43And of course, once you have a crucial number of skinheads,
0:22:43 > 0:22:45the rest of the skinheads want to be part of the same scene.
0:22:45 > 0:22:49In order to be a true skinhead, you have to be a member of the Nation Front and it becomes a
0:22:49 > 0:22:50self-fulfilling prophecy at that point.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53When I joined...
0:22:53 > 0:22:58as far as I can remember, I was the only young member, under 25.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01And now, there's so many, I don't know how many.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06'There was an element that tried to hijack the terraces,
0:23:06 > 0:23:09'of course there was. There was an element that tried to infiltrate the'
0:23:09 > 0:23:11terraces, even on a political way.
0:23:11 > 0:23:15But fortunately, they never got to the masses.
0:23:17 > 0:23:21The country slipped into a period of social decline during the mid-70s.
0:23:21 > 0:23:23And as skinheads took hold on the terraces,
0:23:23 > 0:23:27it seemed to disappear as a fashion from the streets.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30But the arrival of punk rock, a new soundtrack fuelled by the times,
0:23:30 > 0:23:33would kick-start the skinhead revival.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36# And I am an anarchist... #
0:23:36 > 0:23:39In 1977, as DJ at the legendary Roxy Club,
0:23:39 > 0:23:41the UK's first punk rock venue,
0:23:41 > 0:23:46I was perfectly placed to see this forgotten army emerge from the shadows.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49# ..want to be
0:23:49 > 0:23:53# Anarchy... #
0:23:53 > 0:23:55Skinheads were in a funny place when they came back.
0:23:55 > 0:23:58They started coming back from '76 onwards,
0:23:58 > 0:24:01but they were very small at the time.
0:24:01 > 0:24:04And at that time, the only places these kids could go were to punk clubs.
0:24:04 > 0:24:07And they didn't really like punk, because to them,
0:24:07 > 0:24:10a lot of the punks were middle-class, a lot of the punks were posers.
0:24:10 > 0:24:12They didn't like the scruffiness.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19'I remember being 12 and seeing the Sex Pistols,'
0:24:19 > 0:24:23listening to them. I was scared. I was scared.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26That's a bit much. Like, "I'm an antichrist!"
0:24:29 > 0:24:33'Me, as a kid, I would see all these punks walking round town with
0:24:33 > 0:24:36'multicoloured hair and spikes and that sort of stuff and thought it was so exciting.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39But punk itself was a little bit to art school for me,
0:24:39 > 0:24:42I was a council estate kid living in, you know...
0:24:42 > 0:24:45I think Sham 69 is what really got me.
0:24:50 > 0:24:54Sham had an upsurge in working-class people
0:24:54 > 0:24:56so much wanting something else
0:24:56 > 0:24:59and something new and something that they could feel was a punk band.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06'When Sham came along, they were like the champions, in our own eyes,'
0:25:06 > 0:25:09of the underdogs. So a lot of kids gravitated towards them.
0:25:12 > 0:25:19I gave them our way into punk that they did not have outside of that.
0:25:19 > 0:25:24Their whole thing is not about being experimental, it is a structure.
0:25:27 > 0:25:28'And I think what Sham did,
0:25:28 > 0:25:32'they took that whole terrace chant thing and they tried to reinvent'
0:25:32 > 0:25:35themselves. And I think they'd have done it and been much more successful
0:25:35 > 0:25:38if they hadn't been destroyed by the politics.
0:25:40 > 0:25:46'By the late '70s, the right-wing politicians, they realised there was'
0:25:46 > 0:25:49an army who'd fight for them, do you know what I mean?
0:25:49 > 0:25:54'They saw a way of, say, recruitment at our gigs.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58'The lost souls of whoever they were, in the weakness of whoever they were,
0:25:58 > 0:26:03'could far more easily be contained and brought about into their party'
0:26:03 > 0:26:07through a Sham 69 gig than probably any of the gig they could possibly
0:26:07 > 0:26:10go to. I was very, very quick to recognise this.
0:26:10 > 0:26:16So therefore that's why I quickly wanted to play the Rock Against Racism gig. Any of them,
0:26:16 > 0:26:21to show straightaway I was an ally to the theme of rock against racism
0:26:21 > 0:26:25than I ever was, do you understand, to the other event?
0:26:25 > 0:26:28- Hold-up!- Hang on!- Oi!
0:26:28 > 0:26:29Oi!
0:26:29 > 0:26:34'Sham 69 concerts were disrupted by National Front and British movements,
0:26:34 > 0:26:40'skinheads after Jimmy Pursey came out on the anti-racist side.
0:26:40 > 0:26:41'It became, if you like,'
0:26:41 > 0:26:46a catalyst for the skinheads to show their disapproval of what they saw
0:26:46 > 0:26:51as Jimmy Pursey's sell-out of what they saw as being the true skinhead thing.
0:26:52 > 0:26:57'When Sham 69 had their last stand, a terrible gig at The Rainbow,
0:26:57 > 0:27:00'it was that lot, all of them who caused it.'
0:27:00 > 0:27:01And even though there was only 40 of them,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04they got a bigger mob around them and that's what caused that chaos,
0:27:04 > 0:27:06so that was a terrible time for Jimmy Pursey.
0:27:06 > 0:27:08What can I do? I mean,
0:27:08 > 0:27:11I do it for you. If you trust me, I would have trusted you.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19This 40 managed to get about
0:27:19 > 0:27:23200 of the audience running round in packs terrorising people, and then
0:27:23 > 0:27:27they invaded the stage and there's Sieg Heiling and all this old crap.
0:27:27 > 0:27:29It was horrible. Absolutely horrible.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32The worst gig, up to that point, I had ever seen.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41'When people bring themselves out into the daylight,
0:27:41 > 0:27:46'it's a completely different way of looking at things, isn't it? So that's what it did for me.'
0:27:46 > 0:27:50It put a total value to their stupidity, do you understand, of saying,
0:27:50 > 0:27:53"Thank God you've done that," because now I can also go, "Look,
0:27:53 > 0:27:57"do you really think I want to play to that?" That's why it was the last.
0:27:57 > 0:28:00"Do you really think I've got anything to do with this trash?"
0:28:03 > 0:28:04In 1979,
0:28:04 > 0:28:08Jimmy walked away from a scene that was becoming increasingly toxic.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12And from where I'm standing, the Sham 69 story is a real tragedy.
0:28:12 > 0:28:14Because whether I liked the music or not,
0:28:14 > 0:28:19he definitely made a connection to youth that felt ignored and rejected.
0:28:19 > 0:28:21Something I could certainly relate to.
0:28:21 > 0:28:25And they wouldn't be the last band to feel the pressure of having a skinhead following.
0:28:25 > 0:28:28# One step beyond... #
0:28:28 > 0:28:31MUSIC: One Step Beyond by Madness
0:28:33 > 0:28:36There was another movement waiting in the wings to pick up the skinhead
0:28:36 > 0:28:38slack, good and bad.
0:28:38 > 0:28:40Fuelled by the energy of punk and a love of reggae,
0:28:40 > 0:28:44it focused on kids living on multicultural estates that had grown-up with,
0:28:44 > 0:28:46well, kids like me.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49And it put style and music centre stage.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51Because this was 2 Tone.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55'We lived in a town called High Wycombe, which was west of London,
0:28:55 > 0:28:58'it was an overspill town. So, it was full of immigrants.'
0:28:58 > 0:29:02Calypso was played all the time, reggae was played all the time.
0:29:02 > 0:29:04But our music, the white kids, you know, council estate kids,
0:29:04 > 0:29:08was punk rock. When 2 Tone came along, to us,
0:29:08 > 0:29:12that was the kids of our council estate playing in a band together.
0:29:12 > 0:29:15When The Specials done that music, Neville Staples and Terry Hall,
0:29:15 > 0:29:17that was us, that was me and Barry.
0:29:19 > 0:29:23These guys, they were us.
0:29:23 > 0:29:26And I'd never seen us jumping around on Top Of The Pops.
0:29:29 > 0:29:33When I heard that, just the call of "one step beyond", I thought,
0:29:33 > 0:29:36"I'm having some of that." I didn't really look at it as being skinhead,
0:29:36 > 0:29:40it wasn't about that, it was just about, "This music, I like.
0:29:40 > 0:29:43"What they're wearing, I like."
0:29:43 > 0:29:44End of.
0:29:46 > 0:29:50'There was a whole new bunch of kids coming up and Specials and
0:29:50 > 0:29:54'the multicultural stuff are talking to that, and they were talking to the kids'
0:29:54 > 0:29:57that were seeing stuff, the new world out of our eyes,
0:29:57 > 0:30:00not our parents' eyes, when the whole world was white.
0:30:04 > 0:30:06'My dad was extremely racist.
0:30:06 > 0:30:08'I mean extremely.
0:30:08 > 0:30:11'He was a National Front member, he hated anybody that wasn't white,'
0:30:11 > 0:30:15Anglo-Saxon. So my dad was saying one thing, I was saying something else.
0:30:15 > 0:30:19But it wasn't about making a big statement, it wasn't like,
0:30:19 > 0:30:22"Oh, we shouldn't be doing it." It was just normal.
0:30:24 > 0:30:27'It was full of black people like Neville Staples and Pauline Black on'
0:30:27 > 0:30:30the television telling us it was us, as well.
0:30:30 > 0:30:33Do you know what I mean? So it was like, "This is ours."
0:30:40 > 0:30:43We didn't think we were skinheads, or we were this, or we were that,
0:30:43 > 0:30:47we were just... I had as many black mates that were wearing their stuff
0:30:47 > 0:30:50as anybody else, until...
0:30:50 > 0:30:53the evilness of it all started happening and they all chipped.
0:30:53 > 0:30:56They just went, "Obviously we can't do that no more."
0:31:01 > 0:31:04You know, if you're playing, you had maybe the first four or five rows
0:31:04 > 0:31:08all Sieg Heiling at the stage, at some stage during your set.
0:31:08 > 0:31:10And you had to deal with that.
0:31:10 > 0:31:14And the only way you could deal with it would be to stop the gig.
0:31:16 > 0:31:21So we used to go offstage and wait for it all to calm down and then a
0:31:21 > 0:31:26skinhead ambassador would come upstairs and sort of tap on the door
0:31:26 > 0:31:28and say, "Are you coming back on?"
0:31:28 > 0:31:30"And you go, "No, we're not!
0:31:30 > 0:31:32"All your mates are all Sieg Heiling at us."
0:31:32 > 0:31:36He was like, "Well, they don't represent what we think.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39"There's a whole group of us down there and we only came along because we
0:31:39 > 0:31:41"love the music," and all this kind of thing.
0:31:41 > 0:31:45I mean, what I used to say was, "Go down and talk to them,
0:31:45 > 0:31:48"convince your other mates, who look exactly the same as you do,
0:31:48 > 0:31:52"that this is, they're at the wrong gig."
0:31:56 > 0:32:00Even though I was very ideologically
0:32:00 > 0:32:03involved with the National Front's
0:32:03 > 0:32:07credo, I was quite happy to listen to black music.
0:32:07 > 0:32:11I loved soul music, I loved reggae music, I loved ska music.
0:32:11 > 0:32:13So, there was a paradox, you can call it a contradiction,
0:32:13 > 0:32:18it was certainly an oddity that we wanted an all-white culture and all-white
0:32:18 > 0:32:24society, yet we were quite happy to imbibe this non-white culture.
0:32:31 > 0:32:36I still don't understand how any skinhead can keep that contradiction
0:32:36 > 0:32:40within themselves of loving the music and feeling it is perfectly
0:32:40 > 0:32:43acceptable to practise racism.
0:32:43 > 0:32:46- # Stop your messing around - Ah-ah-ah
0:32:46 > 0:32:48# Better think of your future... #
0:32:48 > 0:32:51'Skinhead was always, always a multicultural theme.'
0:32:51 > 0:32:56Skinhead was born of a mixed marriage between Jamaican culture and white
0:32:56 > 0:32:58working class London culture, Cockney culture.
0:32:58 > 0:33:00And that's what it always was.
0:33:00 > 0:33:02So, for any of these idiots to come along later and say, "No,
0:33:02 > 0:33:04"it's a racist thing." How can it be racist?
0:33:04 > 0:33:08How can you be so ignorant of the roots of the thing you're trying to be?
0:33:14 > 0:33:16'It never made sense to me, you know what I mean?'
0:33:16 > 0:33:19Why the fuck would a racist want to go and watch 2 Tone bands?
0:33:19 > 0:33:22Because the whole idea of 2 Tone was multiculturalism.
0:33:22 > 0:33:26But the same thing, I think they went along just for the fucking trouble.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29So all people would see is skinheads in trouble, you know what I mean?
0:33:29 > 0:33:32They'd see some of them would have fucking "white power" T-shirts and
0:33:32 > 0:33:36they'd assume all the skinheads that were there were white power.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40# A message to you, Rudy... #
0:33:40 > 0:33:43'The media, they seem to think we were the instigators of that.'
0:33:43 > 0:33:47And in some ways, that 2 Tone completely missed the point,
0:33:47 > 0:33:51was some right wing movement that attracted skinheads
0:33:51 > 0:33:55and we were a threat to society in some way or another,
0:33:55 > 0:33:57without ever thinking past that or even thinking, "Well,
0:33:57 > 0:33:59"there's black people who were in these bands,"
0:33:59 > 0:34:02or even investigating what we were talking about.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08'They tried to brand all skinheads as being right-wing thugs and idiots,'
0:34:08 > 0:34:10'which was never, ever true.'
0:34:10 > 0:34:14To the extent that I think they actually transformed the way skinheads
0:34:14 > 0:34:15were seen.
0:34:19 > 0:34:22A lot of middle-class people were scared of the skinheads,
0:34:22 > 0:34:26because they were largely working class, they took this line they were all right-wing thugs.
0:34:26 > 0:34:28And they weren't, they never were.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31- MUSIC:- Ghost Town by The Specials
0:34:33 > 0:34:37'When I was a little kid in school, the teacher asked us,
0:34:37 > 0:34:41'"What do we think we are? Working-class, middle-class or upper class?"
0:34:41 > 0:34:43And nearly every kid said middle-class.
0:34:43 > 0:34:45We were all from a fucking council estate.
0:34:45 > 0:34:49But we were ashamed to say fucking working-class, do you know what I mean?
0:34:49 > 0:34:50There was a stigma on it.
0:34:50 > 0:34:54So when we reached 12, 13 and become skinheads, we thought, "Fuck him,
0:34:54 > 0:34:55"why should we be fucking ashamed?"
0:34:55 > 0:35:00We become proud to be working-class, not so much proud, but unashamed.
0:35:00 > 0:35:05# All the clubs are being closed down... #
0:35:05 > 0:35:07'We were the ones no-one wants talk to.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10'We were the scruffs, we lived on council estates,
0:35:10 > 0:35:12'there was nothing cool about us.
0:35:12 > 0:35:17'And the more we were hated by the media, the more we were called the Nazi,
0:35:17 > 0:35:22'hooligan thugs, scumbag, lowlife, drug sniffing, mugging old lady lowlife,
0:35:22 > 0:35:25'the more it put us together. The more it made us outlaws,
0:35:25 > 0:35:27the more we were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
0:35:27 > 0:35:32That's what we felt we were. And that kept us together throughout the '80s.
0:35:35 > 0:35:38The coming decade would see yet another incarnation of skinhead,
0:35:38 > 0:35:40and one that confused the hell out of me.
0:35:40 > 0:35:44It was harder, it was tougher and I couldn't see or hear any connection to
0:35:44 > 0:35:47Jamaica. Trust me, there was no black in Oi!.
0:35:51 > 0:35:54This generation of skinheads were disillusioned and felt despised.
0:35:54 > 0:35:57So they needed a new soundtrack.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00'It was 1981.
0:36:00 > 0:36:05'By then, skinheads had come back on the back of Sham 69 and 2 Tone,
0:36:05 > 0:36:07'they were already back, like. So the older ones like me,'
0:36:07 > 0:36:10we already knew what it was all about.
0:36:10 > 0:36:13The younger kids, they didn't remember the first time round.
0:36:13 > 0:36:17For them, it was like a punk inspired skinhead thing,
0:36:17 > 0:36:19hence the different clothes.
0:36:19 > 0:36:22They were more like military with the flight jackets and stuff like that.
0:36:22 > 0:36:24# Running down the backstreets Oi, oi, oi
0:36:24 > 0:36:28# And we're running and we're free Oi, oi, oi... #
0:36:28 > 0:36:32'What you noticed were bands coming through who were the reality of that
0:36:32 > 0:36:36'punk myth, who were the dead-end kids, they were from council estates,
0:36:36 > 0:36:38'they were from high rises, tower blocks,
0:36:38 > 0:36:41'that was the people forming bands.'
0:36:41 > 0:36:46And it became a harder guitar sound, it became more of an all lads together,
0:36:46 > 0:36:48big mob chorus. That's what distinguished it.
0:36:53 > 0:36:55I give it the name, I think, new punk, real punk,
0:36:55 > 0:36:58we're searching for a name for it because it was different.
0:36:58 > 0:37:00And I hit on Oi! in 1980.
0:37:00 > 0:37:05But you also, you put together a record of Oi! music that had as its title,
0:37:05 > 0:37:09Strength Thru Oi!, which is a parody of a Nazi slogan.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12- You must have known it was a Nazi slogan?- Did you know that before? I didn't.
0:37:12 > 0:37:15You mean you were sold a title for your album without realising?
0:37:15 > 0:37:17I was looking for a play on words.
0:37:17 > 0:37:19I thought of The Oi! Of Sex from Joy Of Sex,
0:37:19 > 0:37:21I thought of Oi! Division from Joy Division.
0:37:21 > 0:37:26I thought Strength Thru Oi! was, it was the definitive, street level,
0:37:26 > 0:37:27hooligan album.
0:37:27 > 0:37:29You mean to say you didn't realise it was a Nazi slogan?
0:37:29 > 0:37:32The first time I saw that slogan, it was on a Skids album.
0:37:32 > 0:37:36The Oi! music per se is not racialist, it's never been racialist.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39All it is, is pro working-class people.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44We happened to show up there and we sing about football violence and
0:37:44 > 0:37:46fighting with the police and shit like that.
0:37:46 > 0:37:51So Oi! is just a name that got coined to make it different from the
0:37:51 > 0:37:52original punk.
0:37:56 > 0:38:00'When the Oi! came in, I was 15, 16 and I thought, "Yeah,'
0:38:00 > 0:38:04"they are expressing how I fucking feel and how angry I am.
0:38:04 > 0:38:07So you had the Madness stuff you could dance to and the "fuck you" stuff
0:38:07 > 0:38:08with the Oi!
0:38:15 > 0:38:18You said earlier you were running round smashing things up anyway, right.
0:38:18 > 0:38:21- Tell me about that?- We had our moments.
0:38:21 > 0:38:24But, yeah, we went down to see Angelic Upstarts and just fucking tore the
0:38:24 > 0:38:26place to pieces.
0:38:26 > 0:38:31I liked Angelic Upstarts. There was no reason why we done that, we did it.
0:38:36 > 0:38:41When you hear the music, you feel aggressive. Then after, you feel like punching someone's head in.
0:38:41 > 0:38:42THEY LAUGH
0:38:42 > 0:38:44Kicking their teeth in, whatever.
0:38:44 > 0:38:46All you want to do is go in a pub, get yourself pissed,
0:38:46 > 0:38:50kick somebody's brains in and then go out and smash a few windows or
0:38:50 > 0:38:51something. Something like that.
0:38:51 > 0:38:53There's nothing to do, when you think about it,
0:38:53 > 0:38:56that's the only reason why people do that sort of stuff.
0:39:00 > 0:39:05'They were singing that violent, aggressive white, skinhead music.'
0:39:05 > 0:39:08And we, "Wow, man, this is us."
0:39:08 > 0:39:12The days of dancing down the disco to 2 Tone and having a great time
0:39:12 > 0:39:15had now turned into this, we are now street fighting gangs.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23'Now, I can't pretend I was one of Oi's biggest fans,
0:39:23 > 0:39:26'but one of the things that did catch my eye were the tattoos.
0:39:26 > 0:39:30'These new street gangs had lots of them in strange places.
0:39:30 > 0:39:32'And they'd become a defining part of Oi.'
0:39:36 > 0:39:40'In the 1980s, there were a lot of skinheads within the Oi movement
0:39:40 > 0:39:42'that did opt to have tattoos, tattoos had started'
0:39:42 > 0:39:46to become popular with all subcultures at the time.
0:39:46 > 0:39:49# I just can't take much more of this oppression
0:39:49 > 0:39:51# I'm going out my head... #
0:39:51 > 0:39:55Many skinheads wanted to make a big statement in those days
0:39:55 > 0:39:59and, um, the face became very popular.
0:39:59 > 0:40:01# Have you ever seen grown men cry?
0:40:01 > 0:40:04# Police! Police! Police oppression!
0:40:04 > 0:40:07# Police! Police! Police oppression! #
0:40:07 > 0:40:11One of the problems with people getting their faces tattooed
0:40:11 > 0:40:13is that, in some ways, you're behind an ink prison.
0:40:13 > 0:40:15I guess you can move on from fashion,
0:40:15 > 0:40:17but you can't really move on from a face tattoo.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21Some tattoos, you know, you could regret,
0:40:21 > 0:40:24because of your life choices and how they change.
0:40:26 > 0:40:30In London, in Leicester Square especially,
0:40:30 > 0:40:32you had all the runaways living on the streets, right.
0:40:32 > 0:40:35These are the ones who had the tattoos on their faces
0:40:35 > 0:40:37and were glue sniffing, and we, as kids...
0:40:37 > 0:40:40Again, we were their age, we were looking at them and hero worshipped
0:40:40 > 0:40:42them a bit, cos they were the toughest, they were the hardest.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48This very white and violent incarnation of skinhead
0:40:48 > 0:40:51seemed always to be always looking for a fight and, once again,
0:40:51 > 0:40:54the National Front were there to give them a reason.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57How did the politics coming into the mix affect your attitude?
0:40:57 > 0:41:02Oh, mate, I was hanging out, everyone was cool.
0:41:02 > 0:41:04And, er, then, suddenly,
0:41:04 > 0:41:09they started to listen to some of this other music, which...
0:41:09 > 0:41:12I'm a lover of music, so, within the music they were listening to,
0:41:12 > 0:41:14there were some tunes I thought, "That's a good tune.
0:41:14 > 0:41:16"That's a nice tune, an all right tune."
0:41:16 > 0:41:18But what fucked me off is I couldn't go to the gigs.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21- Yeah.- There was no chance that I could now travel with my friends.
0:41:21 > 0:41:26There was no chance that I could now continue socialising.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29Er... I was out of the game, basically.
0:41:31 > 0:41:32For a black kid then,
0:41:32 > 0:41:36there was not much reason for them to get involved in the Oi! scene,
0:41:36 > 0:41:39especially when all they seen in the newspapers and the telly was Oi was
0:41:39 > 0:41:42full of skinheads, Oi! was full of fucking racism and shit like this,
0:41:42 > 0:41:43you know what I mean?
0:41:44 > 0:41:46Although I couldn't relate to Oi!,
0:41:46 > 0:41:49as a black man, I could definitely relate to the growing discontent
0:41:49 > 0:41:52across the land - something I experienced personally
0:41:52 > 0:41:55during the Brixton riots of the early '80s.
0:42:03 > 0:42:05You've gotta look at what was going on at the time.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09There was a lot of anger going on and so it was very easy, it was like
0:42:09 > 0:42:11get this fucking anger music up there and people went for it,
0:42:11 > 0:42:14because, you know, they could relate to it.
0:42:17 > 0:42:21Unemployment was high, you had a lot of people with fuck all to do,
0:42:21 > 0:42:23they had no future, they genuinely had no future.
0:42:23 > 0:42:26And so, if someone comes along and has got a message for them saying,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29"We can help you guys," whether it be the far left, or the far right,
0:42:29 > 0:42:33they've got an audience, and, even if only one in ten of them listens,
0:42:33 > 0:42:34they can recruit.
0:42:35 > 0:42:38Skinhead was becoming even more polarised,
0:42:38 > 0:42:40leading to confusion on all sides.
0:42:40 > 0:42:42And in a year that was full of anger,
0:42:42 > 0:42:47the situation came to a head in the summer of 1981, at a gig featuring
0:42:47 > 0:42:50several Oi! bands that attracted a right-wing following,
0:42:50 > 0:42:52regardless of where they stood.
0:42:52 > 0:42:56- NEWSREADER:- 200 skinheads travelled to the large Asian community
0:42:56 > 0:42:59of Southall in London to attend a concert at the Hambrough Tavern.
0:42:59 > 0:43:01As they reached the centre of Southall,
0:43:01 > 0:43:05several skinheads ran down the Broadway breaking shop windows.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07Here you had large groups of people,
0:43:07 > 0:43:12fascist people, er, who were doing Nazi-type salutes,
0:43:12 > 0:43:15writing NF on the condensation of the windows
0:43:15 > 0:43:18and abusing all the Asians here.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21You know, police still didn't do anything.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24The idea that these bands went to Southall...
0:43:24 > 0:43:28- An Asian community!- ..with the intention of starting a race riot is
0:43:28 > 0:43:31- just nonsense. I mean... - That's still a little naive!
0:43:31 > 0:43:34If you go in there in a mob!
0:43:34 > 0:43:37What happened at Southall was the locals,
0:43:37 > 0:43:40who obviously had been wound up by someone about the fact
0:43:40 > 0:43:44that skinheads, as well as other kids, were coming to this gig.
0:43:44 > 0:43:45And they took it as an affront and
0:43:45 > 0:43:48it was a massive attack on the gig with kids throwing petrol bombs.
0:43:51 > 0:43:53It kicked all off, the pub got burned down.
0:43:53 > 0:43:56This made major news across the country.
0:43:56 > 0:43:59Margaret Thatcher, in her wisdom, said, "Ban that, let's ban Oi!"
0:43:59 > 0:44:03Right? So that got pulled off the shelf and then, after Southall,
0:44:03 > 0:44:07most of the good Oi! bands all folded up, The Rejects, all them were gone.
0:44:07 > 0:44:09And in their place were small little Oi! bands
0:44:09 > 0:44:12and they were being funded by the right wing groups
0:44:12 > 0:44:14and it just fed this whole monster, really.
0:44:19 > 0:44:21So, of course, the media picked up on it
0:44:21 > 0:44:24and every time you then saw somebody with the high boots on
0:44:24 > 0:44:26and the bleached jeans - racist skinhead.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33I think the trouble really started up in London,
0:44:33 > 0:44:35with bands like fucking Screwdriver.
0:44:35 > 0:44:40The out and out, Nazi, fucking bonehead bands.
0:44:40 > 0:44:44They got into it in a big way, the right wing thing. I think they could
0:44:44 > 0:44:47see they could make money, they could play gigs, sell records.
0:44:47 > 0:44:50Being part of being a skinhead is to be a nationalist,
0:44:50 > 0:44:52to be patriotic and proud of your country and proud of your race.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55There's a lot said about skinheads being started from blacks
0:44:55 > 0:44:59in the East End, but personally, I don't think that's right at all.
0:44:59 > 0:45:01I've heard these rude boys, whatever they are called,
0:45:01 > 0:45:04but I don't consider them to be skinheads anyway. I think
0:45:04 > 0:45:07skinhead is a white, working-class movement thing, really.
0:45:07 > 0:45:12# Boots and braces Fighting cos you're bored... #
0:45:12 > 0:45:14For Screwdriver, they started "blood and honour".
0:45:14 > 0:45:15What was blood and honour about?
0:45:15 > 0:45:21Blood and honour was the sort of prodigy of Screwdriver, really.
0:45:21 > 0:45:23It was a proper neo-Nazi thing.
0:45:25 > 0:45:27We were trying to bring about race warfare,
0:45:27 > 0:45:31so our job was to basically disrupt the multicultural society,
0:45:31 > 0:45:34the multiracial society, and make it unworkable and make the various
0:45:34 > 0:45:38different groups hate each other to such a degree they couldn't live
0:45:38 > 0:45:41together and, when they couldn't live together, you end up with that
0:45:41 > 0:45:44ghettoised, radicalised society from which we hoped to rise,
0:45:44 > 0:45:47like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53The rise of these right-wing bands led to the formation of SHARP -
0:45:53 > 0:45:56Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice -
0:45:56 > 0:45:59spearheaded in the UK by Roddy Moreno.
0:45:59 > 0:46:03We were reactionary, so we become like an antifascist band.
0:46:03 > 0:46:05Nothing to do with the country,
0:46:05 > 0:46:08it was simply because there was fucking boneheads out there
0:46:08 > 0:46:10- making us fucking look bad. - You had to do something, I guess?
0:46:10 > 0:46:12Look, if skinhead was about anything,
0:46:12 > 0:46:15it was about don't let people take the piss out of you,
0:46:15 > 0:46:18you know what I mean? Be a man, man up like, you know what I mean?
0:46:18 > 0:46:22So, when we seen these fucking dickheads dressing up like us and
0:46:22 > 0:46:25come in with all this Nazi nonsense, we had to stand up and say,
0:46:25 > 0:46:27"No, we're not having none of that."
0:46:30 > 0:46:33The Daily Mail tried to paint the whole thing
0:46:33 > 0:46:37as being this neo-Nazi movement, which it never, ever was.
0:46:37 > 0:46:40And I think that media version was
0:46:40 > 0:46:43taken up by, um... the media all round the world.
0:46:43 > 0:46:47MUSIC: Beethoven's Symphony No 9 from A Clockwork Orange
0:46:47 > 0:46:50If you put in the internet "skinhead", you'll get, like,
0:46:50 > 0:46:54a whole list of Polish casuals running around at football matches.
0:46:54 > 0:46:57You'll get American, white supremacist groups.
0:46:57 > 0:46:59You know, where's the skinhead amongst that?
0:46:59 > 0:47:02You know, there is none. It's got nothing really to do with us.
0:47:02 > 0:47:05- No.- It's been hijacked by the media, it's been sold.
0:47:05 > 0:47:10And that is a shame, that, after 40 years, it's that same thing.
0:47:18 > 0:47:22The demonisation helped, if you like, to ghettoise skinheads
0:47:22 > 0:47:26and they became this very sort of angry, bitter, resentful, paranoid
0:47:26 > 0:47:30subculture, because of the way they were being depicted by the media,
0:47:30 > 0:47:33so, um, in one sense, they became the monster the media had created.
0:47:36 > 0:47:38You look at most racist rallies,
0:47:38 > 0:47:42say in America, and they're dressed all in black, military fatigues,
0:47:42 > 0:47:45the boots and that. They don't look anything like skinheads,
0:47:45 > 0:47:47but it's the military look.
0:47:47 > 0:47:51They just wanted to look hard, so they dressed up like skinheads.
0:47:51 > 0:47:52Particularly in Europe,
0:47:52 > 0:47:55and especially perhaps now in Germany and Eastern Europe,
0:47:55 > 0:48:00the skinhead movement has emerged as part of the new what you might call
0:48:00 > 0:48:04neo-fascist response to the challenges of migration,
0:48:04 > 0:48:08and European union meltdown and whatever other political phenomenon
0:48:08 > 0:48:10you want to bring into the equation.
0:48:12 > 0:48:14As this idea of skinheads as fascists,
0:48:14 > 0:48:18with misguided ideas about national identity, spread around the world,
0:48:18 > 0:48:22it would even find a home where there were no white people.
0:48:22 > 0:48:26There's this gang of fucking dickheads called the KL Troopers
0:48:26 > 0:48:31and they're Malaysia Nazis. I know, it don't make sense.
0:48:31 > 0:48:34The Nazis would've fucking shot them all, do you know what I mean?
0:48:34 > 0:48:38And their thing is Malay Power. Brown Power they call it.
0:48:38 > 0:48:40And they want fucking Malaysia for Malaysians,
0:48:40 > 0:48:42so they want all the Chinese to fuck off
0:48:42 > 0:48:45and they want all the fucking Vietnamese to fuck off.
0:48:47 > 0:48:51Wherever the right reared its ugly head, there was a left response.
0:48:51 > 0:48:54And then, there were those that wanted nothing to do with either side.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59The global appeal towards the skinheads is because
0:48:59 > 0:49:03they stand up for themselves, and I think we all need that sometimes -
0:49:03 > 0:49:06to stand up and say, "I want to be heard."
0:49:06 > 0:49:09You know, I want to be heard, and I think other countries, they have
0:49:09 > 0:49:13their downfalls and have got their upset with their societies and they
0:49:13 > 0:49:16just go, "We're going to stand up for ourselves and say who we are."
0:49:16 > 0:49:19MUSIC: Morning Sun by Al Barry & The Cimarons
0:49:22 > 0:49:24If you ever find a very proud working-class nation,
0:49:24 > 0:49:28you will find skinheads and reggae music and Oi music there,
0:49:28 > 0:49:31because it speaks to somewhere else, it isn't just surface.
0:49:31 > 0:49:33And I have spent three decades trying to suss out
0:49:33 > 0:49:36what that fucking is, I think it's a bit of a mystery.
0:49:37 > 0:49:39Something organic, something that goes deep
0:49:39 > 0:49:41when you're within a tribe.
0:49:41 > 0:49:46# She was waiting so impatiently... #
0:49:46 > 0:49:49I mean, I still have people come up to me today and say,
0:49:49 > 0:49:51"Are you a skinhead?" and you go, "Yeah."
0:49:51 > 0:49:53and they go, "So you're a racist?"
0:49:53 > 0:49:55And I go, "What makes you say that I'm a racist?"
0:49:58 > 0:50:02Even though, after fucking 35 years fighting against it,
0:50:02 > 0:50:06Joe Public still assumes skinheads are fucking racists.
0:50:06 > 0:50:09Where we have one, everyone knows the fucking truth,
0:50:09 > 0:50:10you know what I mean?
0:50:10 > 0:50:14Everyone knows there's skinheads and there's boneheads.
0:50:19 > 0:50:22You have skinheads within skinheads. So there are, if you like,
0:50:22 > 0:50:26retro skins that just want to go back to that '60s purity,
0:50:26 > 0:50:29as they would see it, or those that are blood and honour
0:50:29 > 0:50:33keeping on that tradition that goes back to the late '70s.
0:50:33 > 0:50:35But I mean, except for the fact they call themselves skinheads,
0:50:35 > 0:50:38and they might look superficially similar, a white supremacist,
0:50:38 > 0:50:41neo-Nazi skin is not going to look very much like someone
0:50:41 > 0:50:45who's trying to look like a 1969 skinhead who loves ska music.
0:50:50 > 0:50:51Subcultures are interesting.
0:50:51 > 0:50:56Skinheads are one of the most enduring, one of the most striking
0:50:56 > 0:51:00and, for me, interesting,
0:51:00 > 0:51:05because they contain that contradiction of liking one thing,
0:51:05 > 0:51:12but sometimes having differing views from what that might suggest.
0:51:15 > 0:51:19The fight for the soul of skinhead has always been a one-sided battle,
0:51:19 > 0:51:23as these opposing views have been poorly represented.
0:51:23 > 0:51:26But there have been attempts to redress the balance.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29What do you think Shane Meadows was trying to do with This Is England?
0:51:29 > 0:51:32I think Shane was trying to put a truth across.
0:51:32 > 0:51:36Um, an honest truth about how it actually was for his generation
0:51:36 > 0:51:38and that time growing up.
0:51:41 > 0:51:43There's a kid in it, he's dressed up with his bleached jeans,
0:51:43 > 0:51:46he's got a shaved head, he's a full-on skinhead.
0:51:46 > 0:51:48And they're driving back from a Nation Front meeting
0:51:48 > 0:51:52and he's sat in the back and he goes, "Er...
0:51:52 > 0:51:55"Wasn't that all a bit of a load of old bollocks?
0:51:55 > 0:51:57and he stops and throws him out the car and leaves him
0:51:57 > 0:52:00in the countryside, and I thought, "That's me, that is me all over."
0:52:04 > 0:52:07The Tim Roth film, it's like, "Whoa!"
0:52:07 > 0:52:11You know, anything that gave a little nod towards who we were,
0:52:11 > 0:52:12you jumped on.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15He was a confused kid, he had a Swastika on his forehead.
0:52:15 > 0:52:16He was a confused kid, thank you.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19But he spent most of the film hanging out with the black guy.
0:52:19 > 0:52:21Thank you. See, that's what I mean!
0:52:21 > 0:52:25That's why he got it, so that director got it so spot fucking on.
0:52:30 > 0:52:32Against a tidal wave of negativity,
0:52:32 > 0:52:35there's always been those that know the real story.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39And it's left to them to keep the original flame alive
0:52:39 > 0:52:41in the form of skinhead revivals.
0:52:47 > 0:52:49I'm 61 years of age, I was brought up in this culture.
0:52:49 > 0:52:52And I love the music, I love the clothes I wear,
0:52:52 > 0:52:55People give me dirty looks and everything else, but I don't care.
0:52:55 > 0:52:59Cos, at the end of the day, I wear what I want. As I says, I'm 61!
0:52:59 > 0:53:03I'm happy what I'm doing, I have friends, I have everything.
0:53:03 > 0:53:06But the odd occasion, you have people come up to you saying
0:53:06 > 0:53:09you're a Nazi and NF and all this. I'm not NF!
0:53:09 > 0:53:13What's NF got to do with dressing like this, you know? It's stupidity.
0:53:15 > 0:53:17It's a way of life for me.
0:53:17 > 0:53:21It's the music, it's the clothing, it's the culture,
0:53:21 > 0:53:24from when I was young. That's what I grew up with. That's what I love.
0:53:27 > 0:53:30We do what we do and we'll do what we do till we die, you know.
0:53:30 > 0:53:32It's important for the younger generation to understand
0:53:32 > 0:53:36- where it came from, to understand the music.- It wasn't about racism.
0:53:36 > 0:53:40There is no racist element in what we do
0:53:40 > 0:53:43and that's very important to get over to people.
0:53:44 > 0:53:46This is a very, very interesting phenomenon for me.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49I've been in touch, lately,
0:53:49 > 0:53:52with people like that, because it's heartening they want to do that.
0:53:52 > 0:53:56Cos what really united us, when all said and done, as I keep saying,
0:53:56 > 0:53:58was the music and the clothes.
0:54:00 > 0:54:04For a youngster now, to actually choose to become a skinhead...
0:54:04 > 0:54:06- HE LAUGHS:- ..I mean...I mean...
0:54:06 > 0:54:10why would you want to do that, unless you are really into it?
0:54:10 > 0:54:14It's probably the hardest youth culture to choose to be in.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17We didn't do that when we... We just went for whatever was cool!
0:54:17 > 0:54:20And we didn't have all that stigma - that's all come after.
0:54:20 > 0:54:22But to choose to do that now as a youngster,
0:54:22 > 0:54:24I've got nothing but respect for them.
0:54:27 > 0:54:31On my feet, I wear Doctor Marten boots, they're cherry red,
0:54:31 > 0:54:33they've got yellow stitching and yellow laces.
0:54:33 > 0:54:37Levi jeans, they're 501s with a half-inch turn up
0:54:37 > 0:54:42and I also wear a Brutus trim fit shirt, nice button-down collar
0:54:42 > 0:54:44and I wear half-inch braces,
0:54:44 > 0:54:46so they match everything else.
0:54:46 > 0:54:50And I wear a Harrington jacket that completes the whole skinhead look.
0:54:50 > 0:54:54So, skinheads started in the '60s, there was a revival in the late '70s
0:54:54 > 0:54:57- and there's reunions in the 21st century.- Yeah.
0:54:57 > 0:54:59Why are young people so into it?
0:54:59 > 0:55:04It's...it's something different, it's the music, the style
0:55:04 > 0:55:08and just to be someone else and be part of a family.
0:55:10 > 0:55:14I think the clothes is a big part of it, cos it's...
0:55:14 > 0:55:17what separates you from everyone else, isn't it? So...
0:55:17 > 0:55:19the clothes is a big part of it,
0:55:19 > 0:55:21I think you either go into collecting the records
0:55:21 > 0:55:25or you collect the clothes and I started off collecting the clothes,
0:55:25 > 0:55:28getting everything, so I looked pukka!
0:55:32 > 0:55:35Why are you skinheads in the 21st-century?
0:55:35 > 0:55:37Because it's a way of life.
0:55:37 > 0:55:39It's just one of them things that doesn't leave you.
0:55:39 > 0:55:41It's there, the music, the fashion,
0:55:41 > 0:55:44even through the times when you're growing up, getting married,
0:55:44 > 0:55:47you're having kids, where you think, "I have to put it
0:55:47 > 0:55:48"on the back burner," it's always there,
0:55:48 > 0:55:52so, when you get the opportunity... I think you're always a skinhead.
0:55:53 > 0:55:55The younger generation,
0:55:55 > 0:55:58as long as they look at the good aspects of being a skinhead,
0:55:58 > 0:56:02the traditional skinhead, and the Trojan music, the clothes
0:56:02 > 0:56:06and whatever and don't go for the bad side of the skinheads,
0:56:06 > 0:56:11that, um, sort of a merged in the late '70s, early to mid 80s,
0:56:11 > 0:56:15um, then that's a good thing, and it keeps the culture alive.
0:56:15 > 0:56:17# This is the law!
0:56:17 > 0:56:18# Chapter one
0:56:18 > 0:56:21# The law
0:56:21 > 0:56:23# The law for the good
0:56:24 > 0:56:26# The law for the ugly
0:56:29 > 0:56:31# For the bad! BAD!
0:56:33 > 0:56:35# The law... #
0:56:35 > 0:56:38When I'm listening to the news and they say,
0:56:38 > 0:56:41"Gangs of skinheads attacking refugees" or, this, that
0:56:41 > 0:56:45and the other, I think, "Hang on, taking my name in vain,
0:56:45 > 0:56:48"taking the name of my mates in vain."
0:56:48 > 0:56:50I would like to reclaim their name.
0:56:50 > 0:56:53Either throw it away, because it's become associated
0:56:53 > 0:56:56with something else, or actually reclaim it.
0:56:58 > 0:57:00Do you think it's possible to
0:57:00 > 0:57:02reclaim the name skinhead from the fascists?
0:57:02 > 0:57:05- No.- Really? - No, I don't think so at all.
0:57:05 > 0:57:08For the simple reason that, again,
0:57:08 > 0:57:11those ideologies have been so sold to people,
0:57:11 > 0:57:15in that skinhead is associated with...
0:57:15 > 0:57:17that it's like a branding.
0:57:19 > 0:57:20I get asked a lot by people about,
0:57:20 > 0:57:24like, well, "You seem to know a bit about skinheads. What's it about?
0:57:24 > 0:57:27"I thought they were all racist, I thought they were all this."
0:57:27 > 0:57:29It depends on where you start reading your story.
0:57:29 > 0:57:33If you go back and start reading your story back to the beginning
0:57:33 > 0:57:35and get yourself a good foundation
0:57:35 > 0:57:39of your knowledge of the skinhead culture, and where it was born from,
0:57:39 > 0:57:43I think, if you can just get that foundation sorted out right
0:57:43 > 0:57:46in your head, then everything you read and come from after that,
0:57:46 > 0:57:49at least you've got that, you know what it was about.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53Then you can understand and you can see where it's been distorted,
0:57:53 > 0:57:57do you know what I mean? Because it did start off as one thing.
0:57:57 > 0:58:00Now it has branched off to mean untold different things.
0:58:02 > 0:58:05I thought I knew what skinhead was when I started this journey.
0:58:05 > 0:58:09Even though the world's telling me it's changed into something else,
0:58:09 > 0:58:11I still believe in the original idea - the one
0:58:11 > 0:58:15that brought us together through a mutual love of music and style.
0:58:15 > 0:58:20In my world, a tool for social change, albeit at street level.
0:58:20 > 0:58:22But where I'm from, that's where it starts.
0:58:22 > 0:58:26Where it ends up, well, as we've just seen, that's something else.