ANYONE with a teenage kid in the UK, or about to go there to study, will discover that British youth culture is now dominated by clothes-defined, attitude-defined, class-defined, music-defined youth cultures. And it was ever thus. I remember happily wandering around in my boho cheesecloth and beads avoiding “skinheads” who we regarded as xenophobic Neo-Fascists, though in reality they have probably grown up to be lovely Dads who take their kids down the park with ours on Saturday afternoons.
It’s always limiting to use labels and the language of youth is constantly evolving. Nevertheless, it’s good to know your Chavs from your Goths, and your Skaters from your Punks. So here is a quick and very rough guide.
Chavs seen fundamentally as an urban, working class culture can be known as Neds, Townies, Kevs and so on. Easy to spot, they’ll be wearing mock Burberry, white trainers, tight jeans and gold jewellery. They have a reputation for being hard, streetwise and confrontational, tending to say things like, “What yer f**** looking at?” I found myself dropping a whole bag of shopping this year outside Debenhams in Guildford, right by a gang of them. They all quickly stopped what they were doing, which was jeering at some passing Goths, and helped me pick up the stuff, which made me think they must, at least, all love their Mums.
Goths are easy to spot: they’re the ones in head-to-toe black, like modern day Alice Coopers. They are into the “dark side”, traditionally like heavy metal and ironic crucifixes, and supposedly enjoying smoking pot. A Goth chick, looking like a wraith, will often have piercings in what seem to be alarmingly painful places and a white face with kohl-rimmed, haunting eyes. They look scary but to be honest they always seem more a danger to themselves than others.
Skaters like to think of themselves as individualists, often goes with a boardin’, surfin’ easy goin’, “whatever” laid back lifestyle. Many more middle class kids adopt this look (well after all they’re the ones that get to go on foreign holidays!). Clothes tend to be baggy: hoodies and jeans hanging low over their boxers, scruffy but colourful. You’ll find lots of them at the Reading Festival, generally chilled, cheerful souls who keep out of the way of Chavs. Real skaters have to skate though.
Finally, Punks: they’ve been around a long time. They still like to see themselves as the anarchists: breaking taboos, swearing, fighting the system. They’d argue they are the most politically aware: anti-establishment and cynical. You’ll spot them in lots of layers with rips, pins, zips, tattoos and piercings. Can often be seen sporting tartan and mock animal skins, although perceived as vicious and aggressive, in that Johnnie Rotten way, they are gentle, sensitive souls, often living off a diet of vegetables.
All this brings me to a new intiative by the good folk of Peterborough, who fed up with feeling intimidated by teenage gangs of Chavs and Goths hurling abuse at each other in the Cathedral Square on a Saturday afternoon, came up with the imaginative initiative of letting them play “war games” in local woods with plastic bullets. The gangs had been attracting complaints from local residents about violence, vandalism and under-age drinking. The Council hoped by providing an outlet for their aggression they would defuse the gang mentality and get the kids off the streets. The problem was that all the Chavs turned up on time in their clean white trainers ready for battle but half the Goths didn’t make it out of their beds, “Probably smoking too much dope,” says the local organiser.
Know which lot I’d recruit for the armed forces.
