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Why do people think this load of s...
This is probably more for those original mods of us around. Why were certain groups of us classed as so called Hard Mods, what does this mean?, i don't understand. Ok we never backed out of fights that's true, we never let anyone push us around especially the police or the leather boys. We didn't wreck private property or telephone boxes etc. A lot of the big fights Brighton, Hastings,Clacton, were the work of the press and tv winding everyone up, so through the press there was always a bit of bad blood. I think that at the end of the sixties people were so used to mods being around, when the skinheads arrived on the scene with their baseball bats and boots, we mods were tarred with the same brush.But Hard MODS looking for trouble all the time we were'nt, ha, what with the music,the pills, and the ?????????????/ we didn't have time. It would be nice to hear the reaction from some of the original MODS.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by sid on -
Although not born in the early 60's, hard Mods were guys who joined the 'Mod movement' not so much for the music and fashion but because they were more interested in fighting, some would argue they were 'proper' Mods, it's well written about in the book 'Friday on my mind'.
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Permalink Reply by 0zk2yqwiz7nxv on -
Don't waste your time mate , apparently the mods were those overdressed Georgie Fame impersonators that hung around up West and guys like me that did their bit at Brighton & hastings were 'beach thugs' lol We were the guys that gave the real mods a bad name according to the 35 year bloggers lol.
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Permalink Reply by Stevo on -
I had a mentor as a young Mod, a man called Ronnie Gray who was a 60's face. He told me that 'Hard Mods' were the Mods that developed into Skinheads. As the sixties got late and a lot of Mods descended into psycadelia the hardcore Mods decided that instead of softening their look into Hippyishness they would sharpen-or harden it-shorter hair against the longer locks of the Hippys etc and THAT'S where Hard Mods came from-just before they transformed into Skins.
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Permalink Reply by 0zk2yqwiz7nxv on
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That's true , we wore boots and braces in 68 ,short college boy cuts like 64, way before the press jumped in with the skinhead label.Skinhead as we know it,really seemed to take off in 70-71,a diferent breed , diferent generation too,lots of younger kids listening to Trojan and wanting to be West Indian. lol
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Permalink Reply by Stevo on
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So those Mods, that you to just described, would they be what we term as 'Hard Mods'? Like I said, Mod morphing into Skinhead?
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Permalink Reply by 0zk2yqwiz7nxv on
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I'd never heard the term 'hard Mods' untill I joined this site Stevo lol, to me and my mates,we were just the same in 68 as 64-65 ,it was the media that called us mods anyway , so to them we were still the alleged troublesome scooter gangs that had done the beaches a few years before.Personally I didnt feel any diferent,or dress that diferently over the period,hair went a bit longer and shorter by the year,usually Summer for the shorter cuts.
I didn't know one mod that ever went over to the Psychedelic dark side by the way , becoming a Buck/Dandy or Gimpie was as odd as a Mod become a Rocker , they were all classed as opposites,especially later in the 60's when the Greasers had faded in numbers.
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Permalink Reply by mike anderson on -
Mods from London always had a reputation as being hard in comparison to those of us from smallish towns, although "hard mods" is not a term I'd heard until I saw it on the MG.
My view is that Mod as I understood it was dead by the late 60's.Most of the Mods I hung around with went the same way as me, growing our hair long, getting a Sgt. Pepper 'tache, wearing flares, changing 2 wheels for 4 without a backward glance.
If I had known that I was a bit player in an iconic youth movement which went on to spawn numerous revivals and imitators and become a "life style" then I'd have stashed away my parka, put the TV175 in storage, tucked away the tab collar shirts and boating blazer to flog them on ebay!
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Permalink Reply by mike anderson on
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Hard or what? Here I am in Brighton by the Palace Pier in the early 60's. Bring on those Rockers, I'll set the dog on you.
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Permalink Reply by Bernard duffy on -
You must have struck terror on the pier,you look hard as feck lol.
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Permalink Reply by The Snow Runner on -
There will always be those who "got into it" via the the music and the style. And there are those who drift in because its the "thing" of the moment. Then there are those who are really more interested in smashing things up and giving some poor sod a good kicking, and then glorifying it.
As for names, call them what you will. Hard Mods, Skins, Boot boys or just good old yobs. They have always been with us, they are now and they always will be. Im sure we all know a few!
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Permalink Reply by 0zk2yqwiz7nxv on
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and all these guys that got into it via the music and style were called what then Snowrunner ? One thing they certainly weren't were mods . We were what we were , uniformed arrogant teenagers with scooters that didn't want to be like everyone else e.g.our dad's,useless strutting clothes horses, hairy losers or leather clad chavs. When you've lived it , start preaching your gospel.
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Permalink Reply by Paul D,Angelo on -
We were arrogant, irreverent, anti social, many of us bordering on criminality, the clothes we wore were seen as outrageous and effeminate, even though they look very tame now, we loved Black Music which used to raise a few eyebrows, we hung around in groups, always got trouble from Mods from other areas, I Can,t really remember calling ourselves Mods?, it was just the way things developed, it was worlds apart from the Revival days, and the way things are now, I still see the Lads I hung around with then, and we still go to allnighters etc, and thankfully, even though we are getting old now, we still have that 60,s optimism and attitude, are still rebels, as I hoped we would be, Lifes great!!
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