Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SWINGING
sixties
In the 1960s, England was at the heart of
the world. Recovering from the battering
it had received during World War II, a
new generation was emerging. Young-
sters, who hadn't seen war, and who
wanted something new. They craved
music, and found it, mostly, through the
r 'n' b and soul records imported for
American servicemen who were still
based here.
The Beatles
weren't the first
homegrown act to entrance teenagers
(they'd already had Adam Faith and Cliff
Richard), but they were the first with a
new attitude, and who wrote their own
music. Others followed,
The
Rolling
Stones, The Zombies, Downliners Sect,
The Pretty Things, The Kinks, The Yard-
birds, The Who
… the list was endless.
The Beatles, with their lovable mop-tops,
had their first number 1, “Please Please
Me,” in 1963. The Beatles and Merseybeat
conquered the world but there were
more and more bands from the south.
The Stones were marketed as the bad
boys of cool, with their first show at Lon-
don's Marquee Club in 1962. Meanwhile
Tom Jones, son of a miner from Pon-
typridd in South Wales, had his first
number 1 in 1965 with “It's Not Unusual.”
Other outsiders moved in, such as Ameri-
can Jimi Hendrix who, between 1968 and
1969, lived in a flat on Brook Street, next
door to the house occupied by composer
Handel in 1723-59 (it's now the
Handel
House Museum;
p. 88). Venues like the
Marquee (now closed) and the 100 Club
hosted gigs and parties that have
become legendary. As the decade wore
on, psychedelic and progressive acts
emerged: Cambridge's
Pink Floyd,
Can-
terbury's
Soft Machine,
and many others.
Clothing was an essential ingredient in
the '60s' mix. The mod fashions and mini-
skirts of designer
Mary Quant
defined the
era. Models
Jean Shrimpton
(b. 1942) and
Twiggy
(b. 1949) were the faces of Swing-
ing London. Chelsea's
King's Road
(p. 74) and
Carnaby Street
(p. 72) were
the places to be.
Many films define the era.
Performance,
starring The Rolling Stones' lead singer
Mick Jagger, the Beatles'
Hard Day's Night,
and Michelangelo Antonioni's
Blowup
(with a live cameo by the Yardbirds) all
capture the spirit of the era.
2
gangs of mods (style-conscious youngsters who listened to ska and English, rather
than American, music) at south-coast seaside resorts such as
Margate
(p. 250) and
Brighton
(p. 264) during the May bank holiday weekend. Movies such as 1979's
Quadrophenia,
starring Sting, capture the mood of the era.
By contrast, Churchill's death in 1965 at the age of 90 seemed to herald the end
of an era. His funeral at St. Paul's Cathedral was attended by heads of state from all
over Europe. He was buried at the parish church in Bladon, near his
Blenheim
estate (p. 226) in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. At one stage, the public line to file past
his coffin was more than 1 mile long.
The 1966 Football World Cup final was won by England, in a 4-2 victory over
West Germany at Wembley Stadium. It's an achievement that has never been
repeated, although the nation lives in hope. The warm glow of this summer success
was swept away that October, however, with one of the most heart-breaking disasters
ever to affect these islands. A coal-tip slide at Aberfan near Merthyr Tydfil in South
Wales engulfed the village school and nearby houses, killing 144 people, including
116 children.
Cider With Rosie
novelist Laurie Lee visited the village in 1967 and was
moved to write about “The Village That Lost Its Children” in his 1975 collection of
essays,
I Can't Stay Long
.
