Glimpsing best bits on a life’s journey

June Thorne runs in the sprint competition at Topsham School sports day in Exeter, 1948.

Ben and Adrian look so happy in their Liverpool colours in 1982.

Paul Wanless and his mate in Paul’s room in Middlesbrough, 1978.

It had been quite a night for John Tate, pictured on the coach taking him and his mates home after a rave.

Three teenagers get behind the decks at a DJ session at Caxton Youth Trust youth club in Pimlico, Central London.

THESE pictures collected by the Youth Club Archive evoke such flashbacks of teenage thrills and spills.

Mostly pre-social media, they capture times less documented than today. Candid and often snapped on a pal’s Kodak or Polaroid, they don’t have the polish of TV footage or a style magazine photoshoot.

They recall the lost but never forgotten moment between childhood and adulthood when anything was possible and life promised to be fun.

Each generation and each youth cultural style has different memories.

Fifties Teds lived through post-war reconstruction and the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, their colourful drapes jarring with an age of austerity.

Mods signalled 1960s optimism and mobility, as cross-cultural influences began to transform us.

PORTENTS

Punk embodied the tensions of the 1970s.

If pop transmitted the teenage news, then the styles and behaviours of young people became portents for the future.

In effect, youth cultures mark changing of the generational guard – representing both a bright tomorrow and a world gone to the dogs, depending on the viewer.

Britain has excelled at youth culture. A combination of the welfare state, increased living standards, more leisure time and education let cultural identities be reimagined through style and sound.

American, Jamaican, European and wider influences were absorbed as our demographic and socio-economic base transformed.

Youth cultures served – and still serve – as a way to navigate the world. And these pictures are like holiday snaps, recording the best moments of a life’s journey.

■ Matthew Worley, is Professor of Modern History at University of Reading and co-founder of The Subcultures Network.

Nigel Portlock and his cousin on his Raleigh Chopper MK1, in Andover, Hampshire. Rosalie Mountain submitted this photograph showing two of her friends at Pride London last year.