Skinheads are alive and well -- in fact, many have come of age. DAVID
BELCHER talks to the man behind the resurrection of one of their
inspirations.
SKINHEAD lives again, more than 20 years on. Suedehead, Skinhead
Girls, and Boot Boys, too. Richard Allen's biff-bang novels will soon be
back in print, thus granting Britain's most enduringly-successful
post-war working-class cultural export -- the skinhead -- access to his
and her literary heritage.
Well, OK. So ''literary heritage'' might be stronging it a bit, but at
least the books' official reappearance will work wonders for this
nation's more timorous second-hand book vendors. Judging by the number
of desperate want ads in Skinhead Times -- there are five requests for
Richard Allen originals in the latest edition, including one from
Australia and another from France -- the world's stock of tatty
paperbacks has been trawled in vain by members of the youth cult that
refuses to grow old. ''Who you looking at?'' was once an ominous
skinhead war-cry; apparently these days it's ''Got that book I've been
looking for?''
George Marshall is the entrepeneurial force behind the resurrection of
Richard Allen, as well as Skinhead Times's 12-page news sheet. Allen's
first three novels (Skinhead, Suedehead, and Skinhead Escapes) will
emerge as a
single volume on George's imprint, S.T Publishing, early next month.
George it is who despatches Skinhead Times's 5000 copies round the globe
from his home in Dunoon, and can vouch for the undying strength of the
movement, the depth of its worldwide appeal.
Indeed, 1000 copies of Skinhead Times are now specially printed in
German, and George's own two social history books -- Spirit of '69: A
Skinhead Bible and The Two Tone Story -- have sold strongly to skins in
unlikely locales ranging from California to Poland, from Hawaii to
Singapore and Chile.
But how did a small Scottish specialist publisher become involved in
re-issuing a long-deleted collection of 18 books, the first two of
which, in their hey-day in the early seventies, each sold more than a
million copies? A bit of luck and a bit more perseverence.
''It was a complete fluke. New English Library, the books' first
publishers, were sold to Hodder and Stoughton, who weren't the least
interested in the Skinhead series, allowing Richard Allen to buy the
rights. I'd been trying to get in touch with Richard Allen for ages via
NEL, without any progress. I knew that Richard Allen was a pseudonym,
that he'd hacked out dozen of books under dozens of other pseudonyms,
that he was reclusive, and that was about all.
''Then purely by chance Scootering magazine did a postal interview
with Richard Allen -- someone who read Scootering had simply happened to
know where he lived -- and I got them to pass on a letter of my own. He
still conducts all his business with me by letter, sometimes three or
four a week.
''He's now retired and living in Gloucestershire, where he is
revamping a nineteenth Skinhead book, one that NEL didn't put out. He's
told me that he wrote under 10 to 15 different names; that he did
scripts for cartoon-book versions of the Thunderbirds and Joe 90, and
that he once successfully accepted a TV show's challenge to write a book
in a week.
''His real name is James Moffatt, and although at some point he lived
and worked in Canada, he's written that he's proud of the Scottish blood
in his veins. I think he gave us the rights to the Skinhead books
because we're Scottish, and we're a small company doing things for
ourselves.
''He was surprised that his books are so collectable, and pleased that
skinheads are still about. He's very much pro-British Empire, and I
think he sees skinheads as the last remains of that empire. Although
having said that, one reason he stopped writing the Skinhead books was
because he was getting pressure from the National Front to make his
fictional hero, Joe Hawkins, an NF member.
''It's interesting that because Joe is racist, Richard Allen was seen
as racist, too. While the character is, the author isn't.''
WHICH might be our cue to mention a similar sort of dichotomy: there
are skins and there are non-racist skins. One should not make dismissive
assumptions about any of them.
''Skinheads are a youth cult, and no other youth cult has
automatically had a set of political attitudes attached to it,'' says
George defensively. ''Skinheads hold as many different political views
as any other bunch of people. We're not all
Nazis; we're not all commies.''
More tellingly, he goes on to point out that as certain national
skinhead groupings have become undeniably more politically extreme, so
overall skinhead numbers have fallen. Skinhead Times itself is firmly
non-political. ''We're about music and style. We don't mention Nazi
bands. We don't mention left-wing bands. Our motto is 'pride without
prejudice'. ''
That said, George winces at the memory of the somewhat prejudiced
literary critique which Spirit of '69 dealt out to Richard Allen's work
prior to the emergence of the working liaison between the two parties.
''I really slagged him off. Then he wanted me to send him a copy of
Spirit of '69 for his research on the newest book. I hum'd and ha'd, and
then sent him one with an apology for having been unfair. I think it was
water off a duck's back, though.''
It's not actually difficult to find fault with Allen's books. Their
two-dimensional portrait of women; their inaccuracies with regard to
skinhead sartorial mores and musical taste; their air of naked
exploitation. Art they ain't. Raw and powerful pulp fiction they are, so
long as you take them with a grain of post-modernist salt-substitute.
George sees other plusses. ''If not for Richard Allen, terms like
suedehead and smoothie would have disappeared. And I found a copy of
Skinhead at a school jumble sale in 1978 when I'd just started being a
skin at 10 or 11. All the violence, the sex, being a Jack the Lad,
getting girls -- to me then, that was what being a skin was all about.
''But the attraction of playing the hard man wears off, not least
because there's always someone harder, and while I sometimes used to
enjoy being thought of as a scarey Richard Allen-type skinhead, you need
books that tell the truth.
''So I'll stand by Joe Hawkins, too. There were a lot of bad skins at
the times the books were written, and they are presented truthfully in
the books. They form a part of skinhead history, to be read about, to
dismiss, to decide about for yourself. But instead there's this media
trip about 'Nazi skins'.''
''Today phoned me last week. They'd seen an article in the Guardian
about the books being re-published, but in retrospect I think only one
line from it had sunk in -- 'Allen is obsessed by the sexuality of his
male characters'. They didn't have any questions about the books, just
about Richard Allen -- 'Is he married? Has he got a wife? How old is he?
Where does he live?'
''I'm sure they'd convinced themselves he was a pervert, and were
desperate to turn up on his doorstep and harass him into looking guilty
for a photograph so they'd be able to wheel out some sort of 'Skin
Author's Gay Sex Shame' headline.''
Let's hope that the media can understand that some skinheads have come
of age. Pride without prejudice. Tolerance without preachifying.
* Full details about Richard Allen's reborn Skinhead novels, plus
information about obtaining George Marshall's own books and Skinhead
Times, can be had by sending a large s.a.e to S.T. Publishing, PO Box
12, Dunoon, Argyll, PA23 7BQ.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article