Over the past five years increasing public concern has been expressed in the media about the behaviour and appearance of some young people. The concern has ranged from the comparatively innocuous wearing of hooded tracksuits to the carrying and use of guns and knives. Have things changed from when I was teenager and then a student?
As I have become older I have tended to forget how things really were and were not, holding on to emotional memories of some experiences, blanking out others. I have tended to go with the flow of public and political opinion, abandoning the time consuming systematic studies that I used to make, reading the latest academic works, evaluating media reports and questioning all and any generalization about human behaviour.
And yet is those days, fifty years ago, the psychology was usually contested theory based on limited personal research and experience. However over the past five decades there has been significant improvement in the measurement of individual and collective behaviour and perception through psychometric testing and profiling, once restricted to intelligence, but now comprehensively covering everything from educational potential to criminal propensity, and matrimonial functioning to managerial ability in a team work culture.
The popular image to-day of young people as portrayed in the media and discussed over a pint and fag before July or during breaks and travel to and from the bingo, is for young boys and girls barely out of nappies, wearing track suit tops with hoods called 'Hoodies,' or skimpy skirts revealing their knickers and tattooed midriffs, with rings and needles sticking out of the tongues and intimate places, terrorising those younger than themselves in and out of school, peddling drugs to buy drugs and the latest combination of mobile phone, camera, computer, music and film player, getting bladdered, raving it up in clubs and bars to all hours, listening to incomprehensible lyrics about violence, and street credibility, bed hopping without using beds, foul mouthing anyone who questions, ignorant of the basics of history and culture and contemptuous of everyone older than themselves, especially those in any form of authority, including parents if they attempt to exert any.
Experts, politicians and media editorials propose remedies from greater understanding to improving the economic and social environment, to the provision of more adventuresome and comprehensive youth facilities to keeping off the streets, to extending compulsory education and lowering the age for voting, to compulsory voluntary or military service, to bringing back birching, more punitive custodial sentencing, and capital punishment.
I grew up as a teenager in the 1950's when the same things were being said and written about although mainly in daily newspapers and Sunday exposures bought on the way back from church. Today the image portrayal is unrelenting and world wide, and in truth I have as little idea of the accuracy or extent of what is being argued then, as now. As a teenager the belief that all young men carried and used knives was based in the pre world war novel "No Mean City," the McArthur and Long classic set in the slums of Glasgow and which I bought in a now yellowing and without its cover paperback in 1957 when I was eighteen. About a year before I was spending a couple of nights, a weekend, in and around Soho, having a brown and mild in a pub, spending the rest of the evening, a sweaty cellar listening to traditional jazz, and then rushing to catch the last train home, sometimes when it was missed walking the three to four miles from Croydon to Wallington after midnight. One of my aunts asked if I carried a knife! In fact the only knife I ever saw used in anger, was a blunt eating knife, which a young and prison hot head used in an attempt to hurt one of the other non violent protestors who had been locked up with me after we had refused to give up our self appointed role as unofficial weapons of mass destruction inspectors in Essex and elsewhere in the UK It did not pierce the fabric of his prison wear. More on this young man is to follow.
The term gang actually applies to any group of adolescents who associate closely for social reasons and is often also associated with delinquent behaviour. The classic gang film is The Boys released in 1962 and set in the era when I was a teenager, and is a court room drama with flashbacks involving a gang of four who meet for a drink in a pub, then to a Palais in the hope of picking up a bird, and then work out that they have the cash for another round of drinks in another pub before alleging that they then went home, three together and one separately having gone in search of a dropped union card, a requirement for work. In the film one is convicted of the unintentional murder of a garage owner for 75 pence, then nearly a day's wage for the likes of me, and is sentenced to death because the crime was for monetary gain, two others were detained at the pleasure of the monarch, and the fourth declared not guilty as he had no part in how the night ended. This tough policy did not act as a deterrent then and there is no reason to imagine it would again fifty years later.
At school the closest I came to being in a gang was small group of three or four who would kick a ball together in the play ground and cycle part of the way home, which led to a court appearance when one was knocked down by a car. I then lived in one of two three storey blocks of council flats, twelve in all, the only ones then in the town. I knew one lad who had been to the same catholic preparatory school who went to the secondary whereas I was given an assisted place to an independent Catholic school with ambition of being Public! He belonged to a mixed gang that hung about in the biggest of the four parks within walking distance, and we would sometimes have a chat until he went off to national service and I did not. I did not gain the impression of any wildness although once at school he had winded me over some triviality.
I was part of what can be called other gangs, three in total. The first was a mixed cycling club where we would travel around the countryside on Sundays, sometimes completing 100 miles, and once or twice meeting up with other clubs from all over London. Today I have encountered a local mainly mixed cycle gang, more reckless than in my day as they sometimes dart across busy main roads between the back lanes, and recently were seen doing wheelies showing off along the main road to the sea front, and most probably on their way to the special area provided by the council for their use
The second gang frequented the jazz clubs and was led by Teddy Boy, but only in the sense that he had the suit, the shoe string tie, and shinny winkle pickers and sideburns, much like one of the characters in "the Boys." except that the gear was only put on for nights at his local south London Palais. Once when his sister had a spare ticket for a modern jazz concert at he Royal Festival Hall, he introduced me to her over a drink at the concert and then met up with us afterwards to see her home. In those days there were also Mods and Rockers. The Mods wore funny hats, sharp suits and drove Italian scooters and had confrontations with Rockers who wore leathers and drove motorbikes. I did once go on the back of a Lambretta to Brighton where meets sometimes took place, but we both wore helmets and just hung around with one other owner who lived in the town. I have encountered Rocker gangs on my travels through time and one group meets regularly sitting at table outside an ice cream parlour in the sea front, and with mostly its members looking more like my age than adolescents. I also was invited to go a picnic in Epping forest with a mixed gang of an Italian background work colleague where there was a little hank panky when two engaged to be married couples did some cuddling and kissing.
Whereas then my thing was Soho area cellars for traditional jazz, but most youngsters attended the local Palais, which carried on a tradition which developed apace with the swing bands of the thirties and forties and the jitter bugging jivers and bobby socks'ers who went for the crooners, while today my equivalent go to a specialist hard rock head banging, spiky hair or gothic music pub, and those who used to go to the Palais attend the disco bar and night club. There was, and are, those who get into a scene which becomes a way of life for a time, and some who like the life so much that it lasts a lifetime, but usually they are likely me, become involved for a time and then go off to do what is then regarded as more important adults things only to look back in nostalgia at some reunion, documentary or tribute band concert if they are dead or no longer touring. For the greater majority of young people it is also something to do now and again for a birthday or stag night. Sometimes hiring an outrageous stretch limo
I did spend six months in prison with the third gang although the only gang activity in which we engaged was to register as Quakers which meant we could hold a quiet meeting once a week, and organised a fast when the one of the last, if not the last individuals was sentenced to death, which was subsequently commuted to life, plus organising a ban on eating South African oranges in which we were joined by our black brothers. Three of us also intervened when one prisoner alleged to have been convicted for an offence against a child was being attacked on a stairway between landings. We persuaded other prisoners to desist by force of argument. This was not the only situation of violence in a prison main block where all those who had been convicted of crimes and sex who had been to prison before were kept in a separate building. I sometimes met some of these men when under escort they were brought over to the wing library, where the were books which could be selected as well as to collect books which had been ordered from the main library centre where some of the gang worked. While the two and then three of us who worked in the wing library were supposed to have a prison officer supervising we were often left on our own, and sometimes I was on duty on my own without supervision. In was on one such situation that the young man who had attempted to stick the eating knife put an arm lock around my neck, I think because he resented the fact that our gang could leave the prison at anytime time by saying we promised not to engage in our activities for two years. I did not resist and fortunately he let go and went away, returning to apologise another time explaining that he had not taken the pills for his head and admitting he could not read, something which was common knowledge although he was one of most regular visitors always wanting books with contained explicit sex scenes, and which were not in fact available. The violence in prison was of course insignificant compared to that which has taken place on the streets, on public transport and in grounds associated with professional football, often with an extreme political right wing tribalistic and territorial component
My experience commenced in the 1950's when I would travel on my own to Crystal Palace, and sometimes went further afield, including once to Brighton for a game which sent the Palace into the new fourth division (I think) when the top and bottom teams of the old third divisions north and south were amalgamated. In those days the Palace had the size of crowds which Wimbledon, the Dons, were to have later when they rose through the divisions to the first and beat Liverpool in the FA Cup, " and I was there." Three sides of the ground were open ended terraces, and I used to meet up with a few regulars inside the ground, one a former RAF pilot who had been shot down during World War Two, and after a time I got to know by sight most of the others around, in a period when re-election to the league because of coming bottom was a regular occurrence. There was never any trouble inside the ground although visiting supporters congregated in small groups, but we did take the decision not to attend one match with Millwall because of rumour that there was to be trouble, although I subsequently made visits to The Den and never encountered a problem.
It was only decades later that I experienced incidents of major violence. Children and teenagers throwing stones, breaking windows, one night as a coach convoy left Everton where we had lost and which went on for several miles as we made our way to the M6. This happened in the late 1970's. There were two instances of major violence in the 1980's, once inside Stamford Bridge where Chelsea thugs went on the rampage, and fortunately I was sitting next to the deputy leader of my Council and two other leading politicians, and twice outside the ground, when first I witnessed a running battle between 100 or so young men with the police who had assembled in a quite road near the ground in two and threes and then formed in ranks in silence at the signal of a raised umbrella at the sound of the visitors leaving the ground at the end of the match. Later a similar group swamped a platform to smash their way in and fight London based supporters of the visiting club, some as young as twelve or thirteen, armed with knuckle dusters and using the hanging straps to swing and kick with their boots. On a separate occasion travelling fans from West Ham who had been to Wimbledon smashed their way out of a train which I was travelling, in order to reach a Chelsea gang who were battling with the police to get onto the platform, and reinforcements had to be urgently deployed when the police found themselves attacked from two sides. I was told this by a member of the railway police.
Once at Tottenham Hotspur I found that there were only a dozen other visitors in seats in a stand above the main contingent of standing away fans and we became surrounded by a threatening swearing group of home supporters who miraculously assembled from seats in other parts of the same and largely deserted stand. This was corporate negligence by the club especially after a steward refused to do anything. I eventually found the police and a dozen officers then sat behind the gang who sat closely behind us swearing the vilest and making taunts and threats. Fortunately I had the sense to move and sit next to the police so when the away team was awarded and the Spurs supporters rushed forward followed by the police I ran for my life in the pouring rain.
It has to also be said that police are not always the "innocents" or "victims" in such crowd situations. On the advice of a police inspector who approached after attempting to leave a game at Arsenal early because of a young policeman had brought out his truncheon in my view along my row when removing an alleged "away" supporter, I made complaint which resulted in the matter being left with the police to deal with after preliminary investigation. The whole situation smacked of a set up when I learnt that visiting officials from Europe were present to observe crowd control measures. However I have knowledge of only one situation where the police used premeditated excessive force described by a national newspaper as excessive brutality. This happened at the end of a non violent sit down protest in Trafalgar Square very late into the evening and when I was an observer and walked around the perimeter with a different journalist who I knew because of her sympathies with the movement and marriage to a leading protestor. However this situation was exceptional and there was provocation, although the origins were not made public and I had experience where those advocating violence where plants by governments, extreme political groups of the right and left, or just nutters who attach themselves whenever such events occur. In general the police were amazingly calm and polite even friendly, apologising for having to arrest, insisting to a magistrates that my statement should be read to the court in full, and in one instance in Scotland, asking how many police were needed to protect a march through Clydebank on its way to protest at Holy Loch.
All these experiences occurred between twenty and fifty years ago during a time when I trained and worked first with young people, being a juvenile court officer in Oxfordshire and West London, supervising teenagers as part of other child care work and then as a social work manager, so I gained knowledge of the reality behind the headlines. The main issue was the amount which it cost to keep a delinquent in care, especially when placed in secure accommodation. There was also concern when the concept of intermediate treatment was first introduced which enabled local authorities to fund the placement of young people in trouble in a range of non custodial activities including expensive adventure courses and events which were beyond the means of parents whose youngsters were law abiding. A dilemma which remains to this day. It is of concern that our troops have to live in conditions when overseas in Afghanistan for example which are worse that those in prison who have been convicted of serious offences.
This brings me to the subject of class and wealth. The news that Brideshead Revisited is to be made into a film will lead to the books being read and the brilliant TV series re-shown and a new generation of "Bright Young Things." going up an attempting to emulate some of the wilder behaviours portrayed and occasionally someone will be sent down, or leave without their degree, which was almost impossible to achieve where I inhabited the fringe of Oxford University Life, although I did get to being entertained at a nearby Girls finishing school, did get drunk after a feast and swapping tales of experiences at the top of Nuffield Tower with a jazz pianist who ran a few women, was a dinner guest club at the Union next to table where Ted Heath was entertaining the University Conservative club. There were tales in my day of lots of windows broken one college after a night too much drink, and I did meet in town one university female friend with her new baby who was a proud single mum, who had once taken afternoon tea in my room, which the land lady had found out because of the stiletto marks on the stairway lino. We had in fact talked about converting the Labour party to the CND and to voting against the capitalist common market. Nowadays there is a serious problem about excessive alcohol, although with its train line into central London and fast motorways, students tend to have drug away days and nights, and the stress is from worrying about exams and student debt, much the same as everywhere else.
Finally, for now, there is my main point and society's dilemma while we continue to need twelve and thirteen year olds of both sexes to join the cadets and then at sixteen learn to shoot to kill on behalf of you and me, or become part of a team capable of launching a nuclear rocket, how do we expect them to make the transition from baby to state assassin if they are brought up as model, peaceful law abiding, dutiful little darlings?
As I have become older I have tended to forget how things really were and were not, holding on to emotional memories of some experiences, blanking out others. I have tended to go with the flow of public and political opinion, abandoning the time consuming systematic studies that I used to make, reading the latest academic works, evaluating media reports and questioning all and any generalization about human behaviour.
And yet is those days, fifty years ago, the psychology was usually contested theory based on limited personal research and experience. However over the past five decades there has been significant improvement in the measurement of individual and collective behaviour and perception through psychometric testing and profiling, once restricted to intelligence, but now comprehensively covering everything from educational potential to criminal propensity, and matrimonial functioning to managerial ability in a team work culture.
The popular image to-day of young people as portrayed in the media and discussed over a pint and fag before July or during breaks and travel to and from the bingo, is for young boys and girls barely out of nappies, wearing track suit tops with hoods called 'Hoodies,' or skimpy skirts revealing their knickers and tattooed midriffs, with rings and needles sticking out of the tongues and intimate places, terrorising those younger than themselves in and out of school, peddling drugs to buy drugs and the latest combination of mobile phone, camera, computer, music and film player, getting bladdered, raving it up in clubs and bars to all hours, listening to incomprehensible lyrics about violence, and street credibility, bed hopping without using beds, foul mouthing anyone who questions, ignorant of the basics of history and culture and contemptuous of everyone older than themselves, especially those in any form of authority, including parents if they attempt to exert any.
Experts, politicians and media editorials propose remedies from greater understanding to improving the economic and social environment, to the provision of more adventuresome and comprehensive youth facilities to keeping off the streets, to extending compulsory education and lowering the age for voting, to compulsory voluntary or military service, to bringing back birching, more punitive custodial sentencing, and capital punishment.
I grew up as a teenager in the 1950's when the same things were being said and written about although mainly in daily newspapers and Sunday exposures bought on the way back from church. Today the image portrayal is unrelenting and world wide, and in truth I have as little idea of the accuracy or extent of what is being argued then, as now. As a teenager the belief that all young men carried and used knives was based in the pre world war novel "No Mean City," the McArthur and Long classic set in the slums of Glasgow and which I bought in a now yellowing and without its cover paperback in 1957 when I was eighteen. About a year before I was spending a couple of nights, a weekend, in and around Soho, having a brown and mild in a pub, spending the rest of the evening, a sweaty cellar listening to traditional jazz, and then rushing to catch the last train home, sometimes when it was missed walking the three to four miles from Croydon to Wallington after midnight. One of my aunts asked if I carried a knife! In fact the only knife I ever saw used in anger, was a blunt eating knife, which a young and prison hot head used in an attempt to hurt one of the other non violent protestors who had been locked up with me after we had refused to give up our self appointed role as unofficial weapons of mass destruction inspectors in Essex and elsewhere in the UK It did not pierce the fabric of his prison wear. More on this young man is to follow.
The term gang actually applies to any group of adolescents who associate closely for social reasons and is often also associated with delinquent behaviour. The classic gang film is The Boys released in 1962 and set in the era when I was a teenager, and is a court room drama with flashbacks involving a gang of four who meet for a drink in a pub, then to a Palais in the hope of picking up a bird, and then work out that they have the cash for another round of drinks in another pub before alleging that they then went home, three together and one separately having gone in search of a dropped union card, a requirement for work. In the film one is convicted of the unintentional murder of a garage owner for 75 pence, then nearly a day's wage for the likes of me, and is sentenced to death because the crime was for monetary gain, two others were detained at the pleasure of the monarch, and the fourth declared not guilty as he had no part in how the night ended. This tough policy did not act as a deterrent then and there is no reason to imagine it would again fifty years later.
At school the closest I came to being in a gang was small group of three or four who would kick a ball together in the play ground and cycle part of the way home, which led to a court appearance when one was knocked down by a car. I then lived in one of two three storey blocks of council flats, twelve in all, the only ones then in the town. I knew one lad who had been to the same catholic preparatory school who went to the secondary whereas I was given an assisted place to an independent Catholic school with ambition of being Public! He belonged to a mixed gang that hung about in the biggest of the four parks within walking distance, and we would sometimes have a chat until he went off to national service and I did not. I did not gain the impression of any wildness although once at school he had winded me over some triviality.
I was part of what can be called other gangs, three in total. The first was a mixed cycling club where we would travel around the countryside on Sundays, sometimes completing 100 miles, and once or twice meeting up with other clubs from all over London. Today I have encountered a local mainly mixed cycle gang, more reckless than in my day as they sometimes dart across busy main roads between the back lanes, and recently were seen doing wheelies showing off along the main road to the sea front, and most probably on their way to the special area provided by the council for their use
The second gang frequented the jazz clubs and was led by Teddy Boy, but only in the sense that he had the suit, the shoe string tie, and shinny winkle pickers and sideburns, much like one of the characters in "the Boys." except that the gear was only put on for nights at his local south London Palais. Once when his sister had a spare ticket for a modern jazz concert at he Royal Festival Hall, he introduced me to her over a drink at the concert and then met up with us afterwards to see her home. In those days there were also Mods and Rockers. The Mods wore funny hats, sharp suits and drove Italian scooters and had confrontations with Rockers who wore leathers and drove motorbikes. I did once go on the back of a Lambretta to Brighton where meets sometimes took place, but we both wore helmets and just hung around with one other owner who lived in the town. I have encountered Rocker gangs on my travels through time and one group meets regularly sitting at table outside an ice cream parlour in the sea front, and with mostly its members looking more like my age than adolescents. I also was invited to go a picnic in Epping forest with a mixed gang of an Italian background work colleague where there was a little hank panky when two engaged to be married couples did some cuddling and kissing.
Whereas then my thing was Soho area cellars for traditional jazz, but most youngsters attended the local Palais, which carried on a tradition which developed apace with the swing bands of the thirties and forties and the jitter bugging jivers and bobby socks'ers who went for the crooners, while today my equivalent go to a specialist hard rock head banging, spiky hair or gothic music pub, and those who used to go to the Palais attend the disco bar and night club. There was, and are, those who get into a scene which becomes a way of life for a time, and some who like the life so much that it lasts a lifetime, but usually they are likely me, become involved for a time and then go off to do what is then regarded as more important adults things only to look back in nostalgia at some reunion, documentary or tribute band concert if they are dead or no longer touring. For the greater majority of young people it is also something to do now and again for a birthday or stag night. Sometimes hiring an outrageous stretch limo
I did spend six months in prison with the third gang although the only gang activity in which we engaged was to register as Quakers which meant we could hold a quiet meeting once a week, and organised a fast when the one of the last, if not the last individuals was sentenced to death, which was subsequently commuted to life, plus organising a ban on eating South African oranges in which we were joined by our black brothers. Three of us also intervened when one prisoner alleged to have been convicted for an offence against a child was being attacked on a stairway between landings. We persuaded other prisoners to desist by force of argument. This was not the only situation of violence in a prison main block where all those who had been convicted of crimes and sex who had been to prison before were kept in a separate building. I sometimes met some of these men when under escort they were brought over to the wing library, where the were books which could be selected as well as to collect books which had been ordered from the main library centre where some of the gang worked. While the two and then three of us who worked in the wing library were supposed to have a prison officer supervising we were often left on our own, and sometimes I was on duty on my own without supervision. In was on one such situation that the young man who had attempted to stick the eating knife put an arm lock around my neck, I think because he resented the fact that our gang could leave the prison at anytime time by saying we promised not to engage in our activities for two years. I did not resist and fortunately he let go and went away, returning to apologise another time explaining that he had not taken the pills for his head and admitting he could not read, something which was common knowledge although he was one of most regular visitors always wanting books with contained explicit sex scenes, and which were not in fact available. The violence in prison was of course insignificant compared to that which has taken place on the streets, on public transport and in grounds associated with professional football, often with an extreme political right wing tribalistic and territorial component
My experience commenced in the 1950's when I would travel on my own to Crystal Palace, and sometimes went further afield, including once to Brighton for a game which sent the Palace into the new fourth division (I think) when the top and bottom teams of the old third divisions north and south were amalgamated. In those days the Palace had the size of crowds which Wimbledon, the Dons, were to have later when they rose through the divisions to the first and beat Liverpool in the FA Cup, " and I was there." Three sides of the ground were open ended terraces, and I used to meet up with a few regulars inside the ground, one a former RAF pilot who had been shot down during World War Two, and after a time I got to know by sight most of the others around, in a period when re-election to the league because of coming bottom was a regular occurrence. There was never any trouble inside the ground although visiting supporters congregated in small groups, but we did take the decision not to attend one match with Millwall because of rumour that there was to be trouble, although I subsequently made visits to The Den and never encountered a problem.
It was only decades later that I experienced incidents of major violence. Children and teenagers throwing stones, breaking windows, one night as a coach convoy left Everton where we had lost and which went on for several miles as we made our way to the M6. This happened in the late 1970's. There were two instances of major violence in the 1980's, once inside Stamford Bridge where Chelsea thugs went on the rampage, and fortunately I was sitting next to the deputy leader of my Council and two other leading politicians, and twice outside the ground, when first I witnessed a running battle between 100 or so young men with the police who had assembled in a quite road near the ground in two and threes and then formed in ranks in silence at the signal of a raised umbrella at the sound of the visitors leaving the ground at the end of the match. Later a similar group swamped a platform to smash their way in and fight London based supporters of the visiting club, some as young as twelve or thirteen, armed with knuckle dusters and using the hanging straps to swing and kick with their boots. On a separate occasion travelling fans from West Ham who had been to Wimbledon smashed their way out of a train which I was travelling, in order to reach a Chelsea gang who were battling with the police to get onto the platform, and reinforcements had to be urgently deployed when the police found themselves attacked from two sides. I was told this by a member of the railway police.
Once at Tottenham Hotspur I found that there were only a dozen other visitors in seats in a stand above the main contingent of standing away fans and we became surrounded by a threatening swearing group of home supporters who miraculously assembled from seats in other parts of the same and largely deserted stand. This was corporate negligence by the club especially after a steward refused to do anything. I eventually found the police and a dozen officers then sat behind the gang who sat closely behind us swearing the vilest and making taunts and threats. Fortunately I had the sense to move and sit next to the police so when the away team was awarded and the Spurs supporters rushed forward followed by the police I ran for my life in the pouring rain.
It has to also be said that police are not always the "innocents" or "victims" in such crowd situations. On the advice of a police inspector who approached after attempting to leave a game at Arsenal early because of a young policeman had brought out his truncheon in my view along my row when removing an alleged "away" supporter, I made complaint which resulted in the matter being left with the police to deal with after preliminary investigation. The whole situation smacked of a set up when I learnt that visiting officials from Europe were present to observe crowd control measures. However I have knowledge of only one situation where the police used premeditated excessive force described by a national newspaper as excessive brutality. This happened at the end of a non violent sit down protest in Trafalgar Square very late into the evening and when I was an observer and walked around the perimeter with a different journalist who I knew because of her sympathies with the movement and marriage to a leading protestor. However this situation was exceptional and there was provocation, although the origins were not made public and I had experience where those advocating violence where plants by governments, extreme political groups of the right and left, or just nutters who attach themselves whenever such events occur. In general the police were amazingly calm and polite even friendly, apologising for having to arrest, insisting to a magistrates that my statement should be read to the court in full, and in one instance in Scotland, asking how many police were needed to protect a march through Clydebank on its way to protest at Holy Loch.
All these experiences occurred between twenty and fifty years ago during a time when I trained and worked first with young people, being a juvenile court officer in Oxfordshire and West London, supervising teenagers as part of other child care work and then as a social work manager, so I gained knowledge of the reality behind the headlines. The main issue was the amount which it cost to keep a delinquent in care, especially when placed in secure accommodation. There was also concern when the concept of intermediate treatment was first introduced which enabled local authorities to fund the placement of young people in trouble in a range of non custodial activities including expensive adventure courses and events which were beyond the means of parents whose youngsters were law abiding. A dilemma which remains to this day. It is of concern that our troops have to live in conditions when overseas in Afghanistan for example which are worse that those in prison who have been convicted of serious offences.
This brings me to the subject of class and wealth. The news that Brideshead Revisited is to be made into a film will lead to the books being read and the brilliant TV series re-shown and a new generation of "Bright Young Things." going up an attempting to emulate some of the wilder behaviours portrayed and occasionally someone will be sent down, or leave without their degree, which was almost impossible to achieve where I inhabited the fringe of Oxford University Life, although I did get to being entertained at a nearby Girls finishing school, did get drunk after a feast and swapping tales of experiences at the top of Nuffield Tower with a jazz pianist who ran a few women, was a dinner guest club at the Union next to table where Ted Heath was entertaining the University Conservative club. There were tales in my day of lots of windows broken one college after a night too much drink, and I did meet in town one university female friend with her new baby who was a proud single mum, who had once taken afternoon tea in my room, which the land lady had found out because of the stiletto marks on the stairway lino. We had in fact talked about converting the Labour party to the CND and to voting against the capitalist common market. Nowadays there is a serious problem about excessive alcohol, although with its train line into central London and fast motorways, students tend to have drug away days and nights, and the stress is from worrying about exams and student debt, much the same as everywhere else.
Finally, for now, there is my main point and society's dilemma while we continue to need twelve and thirteen year olds of both sexes to join the cadets and then at sixteen learn to shoot to kill on behalf of you and me, or become part of a team capable of launching a nuclear rocket, how do we expect them to make the transition from baby to state assassin if they are brought up as model, peaceful law abiding, dutiful little darlings?
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