BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY 1969

[dthedrug]

So what's so good about the year of 69, for most people living in the UK "absolutely nothing" it was just another year wasn't it?  But for myself it was a year to remember, for a start as a 17year old Kid this was my year,  Bank Holidays traditionally was a time to go to the Seaside when you were little, Bucket & spade time, sandcastles with paper flags that depictured the EMPIRE, However for the Youth of the day 1969 hailed the latest Youth Sub-Culture that metamorphosis it's violent way onto the latent teenage scene, from the start of my Secondary years in 63 the main two youth sub-cultures were either MOD or Rocker,  However for those of us that left school in 1967, big changes were afoot, as we were living in that gap of being to young to buy a pint or get into a Dancehall without wearing a suit & tie, it bought the rebel out in us, Yes we were little MODS but for some of us say 1 in 10 who had spent time under the thumb of the Social Services, in Approve Schools & Kids Homes, the Government had made the few into a Violent don't give a F**K BOOT BOY, with a emphisis on being extreme with our views and outlook to anyone over 21 years of age,

Now there were many facets of the BOOTBOY which developed in 1968, Football, Fighting, Gangs, Music, Drugs, & more, It is the Music Side of the Youth Sub Culture that I want to bring your attention to, as depending on what part of the country dictated what you could here, and if that was not bad enough, you had to fit into the elite of the sub-culture and the demographics of your Town Or City as well as the North South Divide, and if that was not complicated for the average 16/17 year old the days of when asked what music you liked to hear 67/69 saw the arrival of Jamaican music, now we know the MODS in some of the big Cities like SKA, but music was still put into categories, so SOUL & TAMLA were see as not the same so when the new dance to come out of Jamaica called the Regay dance, it was picked up by this new sub-culture, however only in areas were there was a West Indian population, In 1969 the Home counties London Brum & selective city's such as Nott's, you could follow this music, In the North SOUL MUSIC RULED SUPREME.  

Now to-day I have picked the CHARTS & Release SHEETS that were given away with B&S #21 August 1969, as a way to jog the minds of those of us who are now pensioners or on the Cusp, I wonder how many of the 45s you had in 69? the birth of the rare SOUL SCENE, or as we call it "the SPIRIT of 69", this is just a potted summery on the subject, (c)more than SKIN DEEP, Dthedrug 07.  KTF