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Mod or Rocker?

Memories of 1960s

Carrying on the timeline from the last photograph I published, here is another 1960s view.

This shows a group of mods in 1964 who are throwing deckchairs from the terrace on to Madeira Drive below. 

I was a Mod in Liverpool at the time and I certainly never saw scenes like this. Insults were bantered between Mods and Rockers but that was as far as it went.

Were you a Mod or a Rocker? Did you see anything like this? Please share your memories with us by posting a comment below.

Mods causing mayhem in 1967
Royal Pavilion and Museums Brighton

Comments about this page

  • I was a mod at this time, although a fairly timorous one. Me and my friends watched this sort of stuff from above the Aquarium, well out of the way of the trouble. We had no intention of getting involved. In the end, I think, it was all over fairly quickly and the activities on the beach were finished by the end of the weekend. I suspect most people had to be back at school or at work.  Similar sorts of events happened in Margate, too. Police, in Brighton, separated mods from rockers by putting both groups on adjoining  beaches. This created a bit of tension and both parties started throwing deck chairs at each other. I suspect, but don’t know, that these mod and rocker groups were infiltrated by those with particular, perhaps extreme, political views. I enjoyed being a mod but I never had to encounter a rocker, face to face. If I had done, I would have run as fast as possible. I was in it for the ‘look’ and the clothes. As a song, sung at the Starlight Rooms, by Garry Farr and the T Bones, suggested, I was a ‘Lover not a Fighter’.  If only. 

    By Philip Burnard (22/07/2018)
  • Ditto to Philip! I was a Mod with a Lambretta 125 complete with double headlamps, stalk mirrors and chrome back rest plus a Union Jack swathed across the back, but my mum would have KILLED me if she knew I was at something like this… and you did not argue with my mum [Hackney born hard – girl!]. Riding up and down the seafront leaning back on the 125 [clothed at Sammy Gordon’s in Trafalgar Street], revving a lot and looking ‘cool’ [I wish…] was all I achieved.

    By Geoffrey Mead (23/07/2018)
  • I remember the Mods & Rockers coming to Brighton. I think it was over the Easter long weekend & I was ‘ on duty’ with the St John Ambulance underneath where this picture was taken. I think I was about 14 years old and was petrified with all the noises plus things being thrown about. The main thing I remember is one of the seniors telling me, and another girl my age, to go to the very back of the room as “ you don’t need be involved in any of this”. I didn’t need to be told twice believe me! Thankfully that was the only time I was in the middle of a fight whilst on ‘duty’!

    By Pauline Reynolds (02/03/2019)
  • This is not what Brighton was. Invaded by troublemaking idiots.

    By Richard White (20/07/2020)

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