Beatle Loathers Return: Britain’s Teddy Boys

London—”You weren’t here when the Teddy Boys arrived on the scene in the Fifties,” my English friend says. “London doesn’t remember them with any fondness. You know those little caps Gene Vincent wore—Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps? The Teds used to put a razor blade in the bill and use the cap as a weapon in fights. Those crepe-soled shoes they wear, they had razor blades sunk in the toes. No, London doesn’t remember the Teds with any fondness.”

We were on our way to the Black Raven, a small working-class pub in London’s sooty east end, where a picture session was planned.

“Awopbopa-loobop, awopbamboom …” The sound of falling through a time warp.

Outside, parked at the curb, are half a dozen Fifties American cars. Inside there are at least 150 Teds, attired in their weekend flashback best: velvet-trimmed Edwardian suits, jackets reaching mid-thigh, drainpipe pants so tight the Teds look as if they’ve been dipped in ink, frilly shirt fronts, bootlace ties, glow-in-the-dark salmon and chartreuse sox, suede shoes with thick crepe soles, creepers is what they’re called. But no caps. All you can see is hair.

Plumes and cascades and whirlpools of hair, all of it greased and obsidian-black, thumbing its nose at gravity as it stretches four inches from the brow, wobbling, glistening: the classic Elephant’s Trunk; sweeping back in shiny sheets past earringed ears to plunge into a perfect D.A. or splash over the velvet collars in hirsute waterfalls. Towers and arches and walls of hair. This isn’t just extraordinary styling—it’s architecture.

Over there. There’s a Gene Vincent. And there’s a Roy Orbison. Everyone has a favorite. Maybe it’s Carl Perkins, who’s right now, courtesy of Sun Records and the Black Raven Golden Oldies Juke Box, “Boppin’ the Blues.” There’s a little leather here, too: motorcycle jackets sprinkled with studs. Tattoos. And from nearly every left ear in the pub there dangles a tiny cross. One Ted has five crosses dangling. Another has had his ear pierced with 20 gold rings. Over the bar, a painting of Elvis, executed by one of the customers. Is all this the Presley legacy?

The pub is crowded, shoulder-to-shoulder, but over near the door, Gene Vincent is dancing—jitterbugging, indeed—with a miniature Wanda Jackson lookalike: back-combed hair that’s sprayed just so. The record ends, the Teddy Boy’s comb comes out, damage to the architecture is repaired, another oldie plops into place and it’s time for another shake: “I’m ready, ready ready ready to-uh, rock & roll …”

It’s staggering when you think about it. Some say there are as many as 20,000 Teddy Boys, in England today, with hundreds more stuffing themselves into the “drapes-and-crepes” each week. The figure may be inflated, but even if it’s a quarter that, it’s worth noticing, because Teddy Boys were declared extinct back around 1958, and now they have boutiques and pubs and clubs joining their parade at the rate of one or two every fortnight. It’s not the rave of trendy London yet—and probably won’t ever be—but it’s not bad for the once-feared, long-forgotten Ted: England’s pop cultch dinosaur.

Bob Acland, the Black Raven’s proprietor and father figure, an Original Ted still wearing the drape, sits on a stool at the end of the bar. “These boys,” he says, “most of ’em are young boys, they missed this music when it was at its peak. They don’t want the music that’s being written today because it’s all political stuff. The kids today ‘aven’t ‘ad the opportunity to ‘ear good clean music, the rock & roll, because all this modern music is political stuff, dirty music. Now they’ve got a chance to listen to good clean music, with no malice, no politics, no propaganda.”

Bob points toward the jukebox. “The only Beatles record I got on there is ‘Me Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,’ because at that time, in Munich, Germany, in 1962, the Beatles was good. Then they deteriorated to rubbish.

“I’m not politically minded meself and that’s why I don’t listen to the Top 20 tunes, because as soon as you listen to one it starts up about a man’s skin or a man shootin’ somebody else, or you got to take drugs and I don’t want to listen to this rubbish.”

Of course, there’s more to it than that, especially when it’s realized that—according to Bob Acland, as good a source as any—fully 80 percent of today’s Teds are still in their teens, which isn’t childhood exactly, but when rock & roll came by the first time, they weren’t even school-age yet.

“You ‘ave to admit it’s smart,” says Bob Acland. “My boys that drink in this pub are the smartest dressed boys in the whole of the country, I might even say the whole of the world.”

It’s fashion for effect, not function. Soft as velvet, sharp as razor blades. It’s possible to be a dandy, yet tough.

* * *

We’re back in the early Fifties now. The Teddy Boys, then as today, are working-class—juvenile veterans of the London blitz, seeking an identity and kicks. At the time, the Edwardian style was offered in only the smartest shops, an appeal to modish dignity in a time of rubble and rationing. The precise moment at which the working-class boys adopted the style—and the shocked aristocrats instantly discarded it—has not been recorded. But that’s what the skinny little beggars did: took from the rich like grotty Robin Hoods.