Teddy Boys: Post-War Britain and the First Youth Revolution: A Sunday Times Book of the Week

Max Décharné's Teddy Boys offers an enormously enjoyable and illuminating exploration of a fascinating and often under-examined period in British youth culture and social history, as Dominic Sandbrook notes in the Sunday Times. Jon Savage, writing in the New Statesman, concurs, highlighting the book's excellence in shedding light on this significant era.

With their distinctive draped suits, suede creepers, and meticulously greased hair, the Teddy Boys marked a defining moment for a generation of teenagers who had grown up amidst the austerity of drab wartime clothes, Blitz-scarred playgrounds, and uninspired tinned dinners. Décharné expertly traces the origins of their fashion, from its Edwardian roots, through the tabloid-fuelled anxieties surrounding delinquency, drunkenness, and public disorder, revealing a compelling insight into a British society still grappling with the aftermath of the Second World War.

The book vividly portrays how, in the 1950s, working-class teenagers discovered a powerful means of self-assertion through their distinctive style of dress, their slang, and their social interactions on the streets. When the Teds appeared, people made way. Décharné, himself a musician and author, meticulously charts the rise of the Teddy Boys and the shockwave they sent through post-war Britain, deftly weaving in the burgeoning influence of rock 'n' roll and the unsettling backdrop of events like the Notting Hill race riots.

Packed with fascinating insights and skilfully sketching the cultural landscape that encompassed figures as diverse as Elvis Presley and Derek Bentley, Billy Fury and Oswald Mosley, Teddy Boys is a compelling and authoritative account of Britain's very first youth counterculture. Décharné brings this pivotal era to life with engaging prose and sharp analysis, making it essential reading for anyone interested in British social history, youth subcultures, and the birth of modern teenage identity.