Description
'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 Decharne 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.
The story of Britain's first youth counterculture
About the Author
Max Decharne was a member of the band Gallon Drunk, and has been with The Flaming Stars since 1994. An authority on the 1950s and 1960s counterculture, he is the author of Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of British Slang, as well as A Rocket in My Pocket and Hardboiled Hollywood. He lives in London.
Reviews
[An] enormously enjoyable history of the Teddy boys ... plenty of historians have mentioned them in passing, but none has ever investigated them with Decharne's enthusiasm and attention to detail -- Dominic Sandbrook, 'Book of the Week' * Sunday Times *
In his genial and entertaining Teddy Boys, rock journalist Max Decharne takes a calm look at the phenomenon and strips away the myths that coloured it * Daily Telegraph *
Excellent ... Decharne's book is a loving reclamation of an important youth type ... Most of all, in focusing on the late Forties and early Fifties, Teddy Boys illuminates a fascinating and still under-explored period in British youth culture and social history. -- Jon Savage, 'Book of the Day' * New Statesman *
Max Decharne's book delves into the vanished world of the 1950s Ted just before it slips from living memory, presenting contemporaneous reports and eyewitness accounts with empathy and enthusiasm * Financial Times *
Taking in everything from the birth of rock 'n' roll to the Notting Hill riots, [Teddy Boys] takes us back to an era when working-class teenagers first began to assert themselves in the UK ... Decharne's cultural history offers a fresh take on one of the most maligned youth cultures in 20th-century British history * Herald *
Enjoyable ... diligently researched ... a powerful, almost poignant, story * Englesberg Ideas *
Expert research, insider knowledge and a love for the subject all make for a thumping good read * Classic Rock *
A persuasively detailed chronicle of an entire country ... an engrossing read, meticulously researched * Record Collector *
**** [A] rise-and-fall chronicle of the New Edwardians, from the early-'50s cosh boys to the Notting Hill Riots of 1958 ... offers repeated riches in its lovingly curated assemblage of news articles and interviews that reveal how this working-class cultural revolution was reinterpreted, co-opted and demonised * Mojo *
A joyous celebration of the founding fathers of British youth culture, and a great slice of social and cultural history -- Alwyn Turner
Reclaiming a youth cult that from the very outset was besmirched by the gutter press of Fleet Street and continues to be associated more with thuggish behaviour than peacockish dandyism, Max Decharne traces the rise and fall of a peculiarly English street-wise style that found a soundtrack in American rock 'n' roll and that lit up the grey, bomb damaged streets and sedate dance halls of post-war Britain in truly glorious fashion -- Travis Elborough
Praise for Max Decharne -- :
Decharne writes attentively and with authority about the ping-ponging of scenester phrases between genres, and from closed circles of cognoscenti to the wider world * TLS *
Decharne, a musician and songwriter, has written extensively on music, crime and noir, and his great gift is to connect his encyclopaedic knowledge of more recent slang to that of the past. His mind is a trivia-trap of the first order * New York Times *
The strength of Mr. Decharne's account is its zest ... he has an infectious enthusiasm for the peculiarities of English vocabulary * Wall Street Journal *
Book Information
ISBN 9781846689789
Author Max Decharne
Format Hardback
Page Count 336
Imprint Profile Books Ltd
Publisher Profile Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 560g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 162mm * 36mm
The story of Britain's first youth counterculture
About the Author
Max Decharne was a member of the band Gallon Drunk, and has been with The Flaming Stars since 1994. An authority on the 1950s and 1960s counterculture, he is the author of Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of British Slang, as well as A Rocket in My Pocket and Hardboiled Hollywood. He lives in London.
Reviews
[An] enormously enjoyable history of the Teddy boys ... plenty of historians have mentioned them in passing, but none has ever investigated them with Decharne's enthusiasm and attention to detail -- Dominic Sandbrook, 'Book of the Week' * Sunday Times *
In his genial and entertaining Teddy Boys, rock journalist Max Decharne takes a calm look at the phenomenon and strips away the myths that coloured it * Daily Telegraph *
Excellent ... Decharne's book is a loving reclamation of an important youth type ... Most of all, in focusing on the late Forties and early Fifties, Teddy Boys illuminates a fascinating and still under-explored period in British youth culture and social history. -- Jon Savage, 'Book of the Day' * New Statesman *
Max Decharne's book delves into the vanished world of the 1950s Ted just before it slips from living memory, presenting contemporaneous reports and eyewitness accounts with empathy and enthusiasm * Financial Times *
Taking in everything from the birth of rock 'n' roll to the Notting Hill riots, [Teddy Boys] takes us back to an era when working-class teenagers first began to assert themselves in the UK ... Decharne's cultural history offers a fresh take on one of the most maligned youth cultures in 20th-century British history * Herald *
Enjoyable ... diligently researched ... a powerful, almost poignant, story * Englesberg Ideas *
Expert research, insider knowledge and a love for the subject all make for a thumping good read * Classic Rock *
A persuasively detailed chronicle of an entire country ... an engrossing read, meticulously researched * Record Collector *
**** [A] rise-and-fall chronicle of the New Edwardians, from the early-'50s cosh boys to the Notting Hill Riots of 1958 ... offers repeated riches in its lovingly curated assemblage of news articles and interviews that reveal how this working-class cultural revolution was reinterpreted, co-opted and demonised * Mojo *
A joyous celebration of the founding fathers of British youth culture, and a great slice of social and cultural history -- Alwyn Turner
Reclaiming a youth cult that from the very outset was besmirched by the gutter press of Fleet Street and continues to be associated more with thuggish behaviour than peacockish dandyism, Max Decharne traces the rise and fall of a peculiarly English street-wise style that found a soundtrack in American rock 'n' roll and that lit up the grey, bomb damaged streets and sedate dance halls of post-war Britain in truly glorious fashion -- Travis Elborough
Praise for Max Decharne -- :
Decharne writes attentively and with authority about the ping-ponging of scenester phrases between genres, and from closed circles of cognoscenti to the wider world * TLS *
Decharne, a musician and songwriter, has written extensively on music, crime and noir, and his great gift is to connect his encyclopaedic knowledge of more recent slang to that of the past. His mind is a trivia-trap of the first order * New York Times *
The strength of Mr. Decharne's account is its zest ... he has an infectious enthusiasm for the peculiarities of English vocabulary * Wall Street Journal *
Book Information
ISBN 9781846689789
Author Max Decharne
Format Hardback
Page Count 336
Imprint Profile Books Ltd
Publisher Profile Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 560g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 162mm * 36mm
