the swinging 60's/70's. sex. drugs & rock 'n roll - yeah baby

Twiggy the iconic face of the 1960's. 

Rebellion against the establishment started in the 1950's with the Teddy Boys. They'd been born during WW2 or soon after, at a time when ordinary people were finding that life as they knew it had changed forever. As a sub-culture the Teddy Boy era fortunately didn't last for very long. They were prone to violence and ripping up movie theatre seats.

Then came --------

Mods and Rockers emerged as a sub-culture in the early 1960's. The two groups are remembered mainly for the violent clashes that went on between them. I remember one spectacular brawl on Brighton beach - 

I was a Mod, but my boyfriends were Rockers. It was the motorcycle bad boy image that did it for me. All James Dean and sultry good looks.  It came as a big disappointment to me years later when I found out that my oh so masculine dreamboat was gay.

No matter - I thought him gorgeous then, and I still do. Shame he died so young in a car crash.

It was the viciousness of the mods and rockers  that turned me into a peace loving Hippie. And it is the hippie movement that most people refer to when talking about the Swinging 60's.

If the 1950's was black and white then the swinging 60's was vivid technicolor. 

Our gentle revolution - The Hippie movement began in the USA in the early 60's, and rapidly spread around the world. Much to the consternation of our elders. 

gif by glitter-graphics.com

What fuelled our rebellion? Music. Fashion. Telling our parent's generation to get stuffed. And generally being no different from teenagers today.

Music - we supped at the table of the five bar blues and thought the world was ours. In 1969 -  400,000 people went to the Woodstock Music Festival. 

Glastonbury the UK's version of Woodstock started in 1970 - the day after Jimi Hendricks died. I went to that first concert - I was 18. 





Perhaps one of the most remembered singers who performed at Woodstock - was Janice Joplin. Boy could that girl sing. 

from the album PEARL

Booze and drugs took her from us long before her time. She was 27 years old when she died. Janice Joplin - born 19 January 1973 - died 4 October 1970. What a waste.

Pearl - released after her death in 1971 - I no longer have my vinyl copy (I've moved with the times) -  I've uploaded the full album from YouTube. It's 47 years since Pearl was released, and it's still as brilliant today as it was back then. 

The swinging 60's didn't end as soon as the bell rang at one minute past midnight in 1970 - it kept going a lot longer - and for some of us - those days never really ended.

Check out the 2018 Hippie Fest - 








Fashion - Clothes went wild - the drab 1950's were left far behind with creations that introduced style concepts never seen before. Designers like Mary Quant, and the originator of the miniskirt, Andre Courreges, were at the forefront of completely changing our attitudes to fashion.
The mini skirt with it's ultra short hem burst onto the fashion scene in the early 60's. And it is still as fashionable today as it ever was.  

Stores such as 

were today's version of the inexpensive high street fashion shop, allowing the young to buy great fashionable clothes at affordable prices.  




Twiggy was the super model we all aspired to look like, but never quite made it as she was so thin.  It was in the early 1970's that Anorexia raised it's ugly head.  A result of young girls trying to emulate the extremely thin fashion models of the era like Twiggy.  

The 1960 decade was the start of social changes that is still happening. With the introduction of the 'Pill', young women were free from the fear of pregnancy. Feminism and the vocal women activists like Germaine Greer, changed how women saw themselves. Women became more independent. They thought about having careers as opposed to just getting a job before marriage and babies.





And it wasn't just women who were freeing themselves from the inhibitions of earlier generations. Young men were also freeing themselves from the straight jacketed stereotyped norm they were expected to conform to. Although, men were still expected to be the 'bread winner of the family' - they were  allowed to express their individuality and became fashion conscious - adopting different styles from elegant suit and boot  - to the wild and wacky. 

It would be impossible to write an article about the 1960's and not mention drugs, and the  influence it had on the whole scene. 
LSD (Acid). Marijuana (Weed) - the main drugs of choice. Harder drugs, such as cocaine, came toward the end of the decade. 

The Beatles album - Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band - was said to have been heavily influenced by the Beatles use of LSD.  Drugs - killed a lot of well known '60's/70's musicians.

Jim Morrison (The Doors). Janice Joplin. Jimi Hendrix. Gram Parsons (The Byrds). Keith Moon (The Who) - were but a few.

Drugs. Sex & Rock 'n Roll - wasn't the only thing that heavily influenced the Hippie generation - we had the dark cloud of war throughout the decade and into the mid 70's  - The Vietnam War 

Like a lot of young people at that time, I went on anti war protest marches. By 1967 the number of American soldiers in Vietnam was approaching 500,000. By that time US casualties had reached the staggering figure of 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. Did all the protesting stop the war? 

I think it helped to fuel awareness of the futility of the conflict. In 1967 a huge protest outside the Pentagon of some 35,000 demonstrators made it clear to the government of the day that the American people no longer believed there was any justification for the war. And the longer the war went on with the government telling the people they were winning, the less the people believed them. 

There was also a robust anti-war movement among American forces - with violent protests, killings, and mass imprisonment of military personnel both in Vietnam and the United States. 

Between July 1966 and December 1973 more than 503,000 military personnel had deserted. The war finally ended on 30 April 1975 with the fall of Saigon. Some 500,000 of the 3 million who served in Vietnam suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, together with high rates of divorce, suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse.  

There is a saying that if you can remember the 60's you weren't there - it's not true of course.

I was there, and when I look back at the 60's/70's - I remember a period in time that produced radical social ideas on equality for the sexes. Was anti war. Anti racist. And perhaps the most artistically vibrant era of the 20th century. 

It was a privilege to have been there. As we used to say back in the day - thanks a bunch for reading this article. 

I hope you have an excellent weekend - and a great week ahead. 

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