'Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?', 'Whadda you got?' - Marlon Brando, The Wild One, 1953

One of the things I realised while growing up in England was that every generation needs to rebel against something, normally the status quo, as represented by their parents and elders.  Although that may be a relatively recent phenomenon, starting perhaps after the second world war?  Certainly the iconic images of rebellious youngsters seem to be from that era,  Marlon Brando and James Dean from the silver screen and musicians such as Bill Hayley, Elvis and Cliff Richard (yes, he was considered dangerous at the time..) from the music scene. I put it down to the youth of the day wanting to make their own mark, maybe prove that they are individuals and not just replicas of their parents.  I'm not a social historian so can only apologise if this trait was going on before the 1950s.  It's just that I associate teenage rebellion with Marlon Brando and not someone from the Victorian or any other earlier age, although maybe there was a cohort of youngsters going out without top hats on to 'stick it to the man.'?

Marlon Brando, this was in his later bus driving days judging by the hat..



The obvious manifestation of independence for teenagers is in their clothing.  In my day they would wear anything but the same clothes as their parents, often influenced by the fashion in popular musicians at the time.  For my generation it was the like of David Bowie and Marc Bolan, followed by punk I guess.  I still remember when an older lad came to school with a Bowie-esque lightening strike across his face and another drawn in chalk across the back of his blazer.  You knew he was going to get in a lot of bother for these statements but you also had to acknowledge his chutzpah in expressing his rebelliousness.

No such demonstrations here.  We had a 'dress down' day last week in support of the #bringbackourgirls campaign, a worthy cause if there ever was one.  As always with these special days, some students throw themselves in to the theme, which is to wear red in this case, while others prefer not to participate, as is their right.  But there is a also a large contingent who take the opportunity to wear the clothes of their choice, neither school uniform nor the advised dress down alternative.  For boys it is the traditional white kandora (also available in other colours, notably cream and grey) and maybe a keffiya on their head to finish off the traditional attire.  For girls it's the abaya black robe and shayla on their head, again very traditional.  

As you're gathering, they like to dress the same as their parents, so to the untrained eye it looks like a crowd of diminutive adults coming in to school rather than teenagers.  Being a positive sort of bloke I put this down to them respecting their elders and wanting to carry on the traditions of the past, but can you imagine the same thing happening in the UK on Comic Relief day, 'dress down for £1'?  You'd have the boys rocking up sporting jeans from M&S and a nice comfortable cardigan, the girls in some leggings from Peacocks and an ill fitting fleece with a border collie motif.  Please note these images are from the last time I was in the UK and had time to observe fellow Brits, maybe the parental fashion has changed in the last year?

The closest I came to having an image of any sort was when my friends and I rode motorbikes.  We were all leather jackets and black leather boots on machines with exhaust systems that would make windows fall out at a hundred yards, no consideration for anyone else, just the desire to make your bike sound quicker than it was.  During the late 70's early 80's there was a mod revival, no doubt encouraged by The Jam and other two tone bands.  They were mods and where you have mods you have to have rockers, it's a yin & yang thing.  By default we were rockers, only because we rode motorbikes and not scooters and wore leather rather than parkas.  I couldn't have picked Gene Vincent out of a police line up if my leather jacket had depended on it.

For future reference, this is Gene Vincent.
In those days we went to the cinema a lot, there was no multi channel TV or internet, so you went out with your mates instead, everyone under the age of thirty is now confused, 'what do you mean, no internet.?!'.  I think I'm right in saying the three screen cinema in Worthing, The Odeon,  was knocked down to make way for Laura Ashley, not the Laura Ashley you understand but one of her shops.  We were left with the Dome Picturedrome, a fabulous building dating back to the dawn of moving pictures.  So one weekend my mate and I went to see the film of the week, apparently all about mods and rockers, Quadrophenia.  We arrived late so the Pearl and Dean adverts had already started, the place was dark, we took our seats and removed our leather jackets.

It transpires the film was all about the mods, the only time rockers made an appearance was in a mass fight on Brighton beach.  After it finished the lights went up and we prepared to leave.  However it now appeared that we were the only 'rockers' in the place, everyone else was wearing Fred Perry attire and a parka, oh dear..  We sensibly stayed seated until everyone else had left then put on our leather jackets and left, as inconspicuously as we could.

Mods, looking well moody as they say in London.

Whilst writing this my attention has been drawn to the mini-heatwave that the UK is about to experience, with, and I quote 'a sweltering 24C'.  I have no wish to be a pedant, and I do not want to upset my journalist niece, but I do think the press are once again using hyperbole to exaggerate a modest rise in temperature.  In the Cambridge Dictionary swelter is: 'to feel very hot'.  Now I'm not sure 24C is that hot?!  I guess the headline 'Britain to get a bit warmer for a short time' is simply not eye catching enough, but out here nothing under 50C gets a mention and even then it would need to be a slow news day.  So good luck everyone with your mini heatwave, don't forget your suncream, and it's probably OK to take off the cardigans and border collie motif fleeces, at least around mid-day.