Saturday's kids
Saturday’s kids live in council houses, wear V-necked shirts and baggy trousers, drive Cortina’s fur trimmed dash boards, stains on the seats - in the back of course!
Recently a scooter buddy posted something on Facebook that made me stop, pause and read again. I wasn’t alone in doing so, because the sentiment in Darren’s post hit several people in the same way. Curly was an old friend and Darren had grown up with him, but Curly had recently passed away and Darren had just attended the funeral. As we grow older the cycle of funerals seems to accelerate for many of us, but this one had clearly touched Darren. With his kind permission I have included an extract from his words…
‘So yesterday we said goodbye to an old friend, Curly, a council estate kid who epitomised the Mod ethic of clean living under difficult circumstances! A poignant, reflective, but otherwise cheerful day with old friends reminiscing as you do.
On my way home I took a walk for old time’s sake, past Curly's house were his mother still lives.The house and gardens were as I remember them, still well-kept with neat gardens and fencing. However, what was a real shock was that gone was the feeling of warmth and security of a community, pitching in to make ends meet. Gone were the Saturday’s kids in v-neck shirts and baggy trousers. Gone were the neat and tidy streets, polished cars, kids’ bikes leaning against walls and fences. Gone were the nods and greetings from those you passed. Gone was the smell of someone’s tea being held in the oven! All replaced by the overwhelming smell of skunk and a tension in the air. Kids scowling as you passed, pissed up. Stoned parents in gardens shouting and swearing as they made their makeshift bonfires. Rubbish and shit in the streets, WTF!
But still as I passed my old house in Vulcan Way you could see the old-school council kids’ houses still with neat little gardens, tended with pride. It must be difficult, if not sometimes scary, for them as chaos and disruption surrounds them. These are the people to whom my empathy and political thoughts are directed, not
skunk smoking shit bags who object to being sanctioned for not really trying. So long live those who continue to keep their pride and standards, whilst those around spread chaos and confusion.
Long live the Saturdays kids and Curly's mum, who continues to epitomise the ethic of clean living under difficult circumstances!’
Those words hit home for quite a few people. In the last 40 years or so since the generation that Darren and I are from grew up from the streets of council estates, much has changed and the pace of change seems to get faster, but yet at the same time we are maybe about to go full circle. Saturday’s kids live in council houses, wear v-neck shirts and baggy trousers. The streets Darren was on reminded him of his youth. Those lyrics from a song on the Jam’s ‘Setting Sons’ album echoed around his head, and mine, too. ‘Saturdays Girls work in Tescos and Woolworths…’ not any more.
Setting Sons was released in 1979 and even then on the album Weller was writing about social aspects of his generation – the generation many of us belong to. ‘Thick as Thieves’ was another song from that album that spoke of how people grow apart – no longer as Thick as Thieves was a line. I’m sure to many of us those songs were a massive part of our formative years. I think what Darren was thinking was that life was hard back then for many, with social and political tensions building and culminating in the miners’ strikes and social unrest that was to come a few years later. But despite this, communities still worked together and had pride. They had a pride in their surroundings and didn’t steal or destroy their neighbours’ property. They may not have had a lot in some places, but it was looked after. Kids played outside, but didn’t destroy everything around them outside. There was still a pride and respect and a trust. I may sound like a Victor Meldrew grumpy old man, but to some level that seems to have gone. The streets are a different place. Kids are stabbing each other and carrying machetes to feel ‘safe’. Hard drugs have replaced illicit cider.
With the splits in society and community caused by Brexit issues, sometimes I can’t help feeling that some of the tensions building in those days are possibly around the corner again and social political unrest is building. But amongst that I sincerely hope that within the scooter community we can keep that respect and pride from our youth uppermost in our minds. We have scooters and the lifestyle around it in common, and that is what has bound everyone together over the last 60 years or so of scootering, and long may it continue. We could read Darren’s words, identify with them and become quite depressed about the world around us for our future generations, but let’s not. Instead, let’s celebrate those Saturdays kids who have grown up into the scootering world. They have stuck with many of those values. They're still playing ‘Setting Sons’ and whilst yes, for sure, times have changed, it’s certainly not all bad. Clean living in difficult circumstances. That is one of the original descriptions of Mod culture. Keep it in your hearts.