Money (That’s What They Wanted)

In a radical reappraisal of the story of British youth culture published this week, a Cambridge University lecturer writes that the “Swinging” Sixties were less a golden age for the nation’s young than a celebration of wealth by its social elite.

Dr David Fowler argues that youth movements actually reached their apex between the wars, when they prospered under the leadership of figures such as the subversive Cambridge student Rolf Gardiner. A revival followed in the 1950s, but by the 1960s – so often a decade defined by its rebellious, younger generation – they were in decline.

Bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were more interested in selling records than acting as a mouthpiece for young people, Dr Fowler says. “Swinging London” was a high society phenomenon inaccessible to most 18- to 25-year-olds.

So out of reach was it, he observes, that iconic youth cults of the time – such as the Mods – were forced to inhabit a subterranean world of basement coffee bars in places like Soho; venues located quite literally below exclusive and glitzy nightclubs like Annabel’s in the fashionable West End.

Even the epic running battles between Mods and Rockers on Brighton Beach pale into insignificance next to the far more vibrant youth movements which flourished during the supposedly “mean” 1930s, according to the book.

“The 1960s are often viewed as the point at which youth culture in this country exploded, but in many ways they were the years in which the idea began to fall apart,” Dr Fowler said.

“People forget that real youth movements are about a lot more than spending and consumerism – they are a way of life. Groups like The Beatles were basically capitalists interested in enriching themselves through the music industry. They did about as much to represent the interests of the nation’s young people as The Spice Girls did in the 1990s.”

While historians have traditionally viewed youth culture as a post-war phenomenon, Dr Fowler’s study, Youth Culture In Modern Britain, starts in the 1920s.

It defines youth culture as a philosophy of living distinct from that favoured by the older generation. Authentic youth movements do far more than champion a series of consumer choices about what music to listen to or clothes to wear – they create a living, creative community based on engagement with like-minded youngsters.

The book suggests these communities were started by middle class students in the 1920s and developed to such an extent that by the outbreak of World War II they had become flourishing international networks that transcended class boundaries.

Chief among them was the collective started by Rolf Gardiner, the son of an eminent Egyptologist who studied languages at St John’s College, Cambridge, between 1921 and 1924. Fascinated by the emerging concept of Jugenkultur in Germany, Gardiner formulated the blueprint for a “cult of youth” in Britain through which young people might express themselves more freely and challenge the opinions of their elders.

Using diaries and other documents stored at Cambridge University Library, Fowler traces how Gardiner’s cult championed physical labour and rural reconstruction. It was, however, both recreational and highly controversial. At a time when women at the University had to be accompanied merely to take a walk along the River Cam, Gardiner’s group organised naked bathing sessions for male and female members – an expression of its “back to nature” values.

Dr Fowler argues that the perception of youth culture as developing only after World War II comes down to a “break in chronology”. In the 1940s the nation’s young were first conscripted, then endured years of austerity which spilled into the next decade.

The book suggests that when youth culture did resurface, in the late 1950s, British society was in a state of “collective amnesia”. As a result, the public – and later historians - wrongly viewed the concept of young people rejecting their elders’ philosophy in favour of their own as a new phenomenon.

By the 1960s, however, Dr Fowler believes that examples of genuine youth culture were few, as young people’s interests became increasingly commercialised. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones may have embodied “counter-culture”, but they never did so exclusively for the sake of an 18-25 age bracket that needed a voice.

Indeed, the Stones’ penchant for buying large countryside mansions and living like gentry was hardly something their fans could copy. As the book observes, when once asked if he regarded himself as a spokesman for his generation, Mick Jagger replied that he saw himself only as a musician. Young political movements of the time – notably the student rioters of 1968 – viewed themselves more as “revolutionaries” of no specific age group and often despised what groups like The Beatles stood for.

“The world of Swinging London may be viewed as an emblem of youth culture now, but it was really for the Michael Caines of this world; an elite who could afford it,” Fowler added.

“People like Rolf Gardiner were true cultural subversives – pop stars before pop even existed. In terms of the influence he had on giving Britain’s young people a sense of identity, there’s no doubt he is just as important as Mick Jagger.”

Youth Culture In Modern Britain, c.1920-c.1970, is published by Palgrave.