INTRO
London experienced a drastic change from a dull post-War city in the 50
´s to a bright, affluent capital of cool in the 60´s
By the mid-60´s, 40% of the population was under 25, and youth weekly earnings increased dramatically in contrast to the cost of living
The combination between youth and affluence resulted in a social phenomenon against the limitations and restrictions of the post-War London society
A blossoming of pop music, fashion, design, films and creative
literature of all kinds gravitated to the capital becoming the mainstay of the London economy
Industrial decline and rising unemployment in the 70´s, and the derivative social problems made Swinging London vanish
THE SETTING
British Gov´ts in the 60´s:
- Tories from 1957 to 1963 - Whigs from 1964 to 1970
National Mandatory Military Service abolished in 1960
Abortion regulated in 1967
Cultural Tribes Outburst: The Beatniks, the Rockers, the
Mods
THE FEATURES
ARTS: Pop Art and Op(tical) Art
MUSIC: Beat music evolved to psychedelic rock:
Beatles, Stones, Who, Kinks Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Cream
FILMS: Blow Up, The Party, Yellow Submarine, The Magic Christian
LITERATURE: Postmodernism, Nonsense Literature
FASHION: Miniskirts, Maxicoats, Winklepickers, Widebrim Hats, Flare/Bell Bottoms, Skinny Jeans
TRANSPORT: Vespa, Mini Morris
Peter Blake
On the Balcony (1955-57)
Bridget Riley
Movement in Squares (1961)
MARY QUANT’S MINISKIRTS
THE MAXI COAT
THE WINKLEPICKERS
WIDE BRIM HAT
SOPHIA LOREN AT ASCOT (1960)
FLARE/BELL BOTTOMS
SKINNY JEANS
BRIGITTE BARDOT
VESPA AND MINI MORRIS
THE TERM
The term “Swinging London" was actually invented by Time magazine as late as 15 April 1966, and celebrated the name of the pirate radio station Swinging Radio England However, "swinging" in the sense of hip or
fashionable had been used since the early 1960s
In 1965, Diana Vreeland editor of Vogue
magazine, said "London is the most swinging
city in the world at the moment”
MODS AND ROCKERS
The mods and rockers are two conflicting British youth subcultures of the late 1950s to mid-1960s.
Media coverage of mods and rockers fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youths, and the two groups became labelled as folk devils.
The rocker subculture was centred on motorcycling. Rockers
generally wore protective clothing such as black leather jackets and motorcycle boots. The common rocker hairstyle was a
pompadour, which was associated with 1950s rock and roll.
The mod subculture was centred on fashion and music, and many
mods rode scooters. Mods wore suits and other cleancut outfits,
and preferred 1960s music genres such as soul, rhythm and
blues, ska and beat music.
LONDON’S LITTLE ITALY
Since the Middle Ages Italians have settled in London. Back then they were merchants but the 19th century saw the Italian community grow and many settled in Clerkenwell. In the early 1800s the Italians who arrived in London were affluent, skilled craftsmen who manufactured thermometers, telescopes and optical instruments. Following the Napoleonic Wars more Italian migrants arrived driven by terrible economic conditions. Most were poor and unskilled and travelled to London on foot. Organ grinding and knife grinding were common trades, as was making plaster statuettes with many of the craftsmen coming from Lucca in Tuscany. Ice-cream selling soon took off and as the men brought their spouses over to join them more Italian restaurants and cafes opened. The women also became domestic servants and got involved in lace manufacture. Others chose street entertainment and made money singing and dancing or telling fortunes by means of parakeets in cages.
The area known as Little Italy covered north and south of Clerkenwell Road.
Rosebery Avenue and Farringdon Road were the boundaries in the north and the south took in the streets and alleyways around Saffron Hill, Leather Lane and parts of Hatton Garden. By 1850 there were over 1,000 Italians in
Clerkenwell living in densely-populated, slum-ridden streets. The area was made famous by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist
In 1895 the Italian consul published a report estimating there were 12,000 Italians in London with southern Italians traditionally making their home in Little Italy while those from farther north were establishing a newer base in Soho
Since the 1880s there has been a carnival each July (with a few years of exception during wartime). The Processione della Madonna del Carmine goes around the St Peter's Church on Clerkenwell Road which is still the centre of the Italian community. St. Vincent Pallotti started planning the church in 1845 as he
wanted somewhere for the Italian community to worship. The Irish architect, Sir John Miller-Bryson, modelled the church on the Basilica of San Crisogono in Trastevere, Rome. St Peter's Church opened in 1863 and at that time it was the only church in Britain in the Roman Basilica style.
ST. PETER’S CHURCH
WEST INDIAN IMMIGRATION
During the 1950s, the increase of West Indian
migration to the UK and especially London created racial tensions that were met by white and non-white writers with novels that tried to portray the lives of
Black immigrants from a non prejudiced perspective.
George Lanning (Barbados) and Samuel Selvon (Trinidad), in The Emigrants and The Lonely Londoners (both published in the mid 1950s)
stressed how the “colour line” created barriers that isolated the black communities but also, in doing so, helped them to create a shared consciousness.
In The London Trilogy (City of Spades, 1958;
Absolute Beginners, 1959; Mr. Love and Justice,
1960) Colin MacInnes tries instead to show how the
racial barriers were beginning to be dismantled by the
new, much more open, youth culture that would soon
give birth to the Swinging London phenomenon.
LONDON RACE RIOTS (1958)
The Notting Hill race riots were a series of racially motivated riots that took place in London, over several nights in late August and early September 1958.
By the 1950s white working-class "Teddy Boys" were beginning to display hostility towards the black families in the area, a situation exploited and inflamed by groups such as Sir Oswald Mosley's Union Movement and other far-right groups such as the White Defence League, who urged disaffected white residents to "Keep Britain White.“
There was an increase in violent attacks on black people through summer, but the real riot is theorized to have been set off by the assault of Majbritt Morrison, a Swedish former sex worker, on August 29, 1958. Morrison had been arguing with her Jamaican husband Raymond Morrison at the Latimer Road tube station.
A group of various white people attempted to intervene in the argument and a small fight broke out between the intervening people and some of Raymond Morrison's friends. The following day Morrison was verbally and physically assaulted by a gang of white youths that had recalled seeing her the night
before. Later that night a mob of 300 to 400 white people, many of them Teddy Boys, were seen on Bramley Road attacking the houses of West Indian
residents. The disturbances, rioting and attacks continued every night until they petered out by 5 September.
The Notting Hill Carnival was started in January 1959 as a response to the riots and the state of race relations in Britain at the time.
ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS (THE NOVEL)
Absolute Beginners, the novel, is written from the first person perspective of an anonymous teenage freelance photographer, who lives in a rundown yet vibrant part of West London he calls Napoli. The area is home to a large
number of Caribbean immigrants, as well as English people on the margins of society, such as homosexuals and drug addicts.
The themes of the novel are the narrator's opinions on the newly formed youth culture and its fixation on clothes and jazz music, his love for his ex-girlfriend Crêpe Suzette, the illness of his father and simmering racial tensions in the summer of the Notting Hill race riots.
In June takes up half of the book and shows the narrator meeting up with various teenaged friends and some adults in various parts of London and discussing his outlook on life and the new concept of being a teenager. He also learns that his ex-girlfriend, Suzette, is to enter a marriage of convenience with her boss, a middle-aged gay fashion designer called Henley.
In July has the narrator taking photographs by the Thames, seeing the musical operetta H.M.S. Pinafore with his father, has a violent encounter with Ed the Ted and watches Hoplite's appearance on TV.
In August has the narrator and his father take a cruise along the Thames towards Windsor Castle. His father is taken ill on the trip and has to be taken to a doctor.
The narrator also finds Suzette at her husband's cottage in Cookham.
In September is set on the narrator's nineteenth birthday. He sees this,
symbolically, as the beginning of his last year as a teenager. He witnesses several incidents of racial violence. His father dies, leaving him four envelopes stuffed with money. Suzette has separated from Henley, but still seems
uncertain as to whether she should resume her relationship with the narrator.
The narrator decides to leave the country and find a place where racism does not exist.
