Product Overview

'Enormously enjoyable' Sunday Times 'Genial and entertaining' Daily Telegraph
'A joyous celebration of the founding fathers of British youth culture' Alwyn
Turner, author of All in it Together and Little Englanders With their draped
suits, suede creepers and immaculately greased hair, the Teddy Boys defined a
new era for a generation of teenagers raised on a diet of drab clothes, Blitz
playgrounds and tinned dinners. From the Edwardian origins of their fashion to
the tabloid fears of delinquency, drunkenness and disorder, the story of the
Teds throws a fascinating light on a British society that was still reeling
from the Second World War. In the 1950s, working-class teenagers found a way
of asserting themselves in how they dressed, spoke and socialised on the
street. When people saw Teds, they stepped aside. Musician and author Max
Décharné traces the rise of the Teds and the shockwave they sent through post-
war Britain, from the rise of rock 'n' roll to the Notting Hill race riots.
Full of fascinating insight, deftly sketching the milieu of Elvis Presley and
Derek Bentley, Billy Fury and Oswald Mosley, Teddy Boys is the story of
Britain's first youth counterculture. Read more