For my birthday this year I got a captivating book by Sam Knee called The Bag I’m In. It documents youth style from 1960-1990 through the lens of meticulously researched archive photography, looking closely at 36 tribes and how music, society, class, and regionalism influenced their look. It also includes a wonderfully illustrated timeline referencing the typical fashion choices of these subcultures. I love it because youth culture is one of the most fascinating things about the UK and I hope it doesn’t disappear.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s I was envious of individuals that could stick to one tribe referencing their defined style without deviating into another tribe’s sartorial territory. I suppose to some extent there must have been a blurring of the lines as that is how culture evolves, but so many of the looks appealed to me. I borrowed elements that I liked and that I could get my hands on, as this was pre-internet, and threw them together in an eclectic mess that the young are able to nonchalantly carry off.
Watching Quadrophenia, I liked both the mods and the rockers. Dancing in clubs in the 80s I never really identified as a goth, because I also loved elements of psychobilly, indie, disco and glam rock.
Finding your tribe can be really challenging. I never found it easy. I attended two primary schools and two secondary schools, and I struggled to make friends. By the time I was in my second high school I met a couple of girls that I bonded with. We shared a love of music and dancing. I guess by that age, individuality is starting to kick in and style choices are a signal to others as to whether you are going to be a kindred spirit.
Our Venn diagram of popular culture had strong overlapped circles. I was very much into Bowie, The Velvets, JAMC and The Stooges, whereas one friend was much more into the soul/jazz thing (very sophisticated) and the other more into punk. We would go around to each other’s houses and listen to records, experiment with make-up and clothes and generally have a laugh. I liked the fact we were all a bit different as it meant we introduced each other to new things and that has always been hugely appealing to me.
A few years later, I met a group of friends at college. They had gravitated towards a place called Hulme on the outskirts of Manchester city centre. Hulme was a failed social housing project built in the late 60s featuring concrete flats known as the crescents, ironically named after Regency architects. It had, by the mid to late 80s been largely abandoned by the many families that were housed there as it was totally unsuitable. Due to the feral nature of the place, you could squat for free and then once you had been there a while you could claim tenancy rights.
My boyfriend at the time, and friend Sam were due to have their meeting with the housing officer and needed a third person to attend to be granted a lease on the home they had been squatting in. I went along, and after a short interview, we became the proud occupiers of a flat on Elston Walk. I spent a lot of weekends there recovering from the night before and being grossed out by the many cockroaches, which were the main tenants in Hulme at that point, due to the way the flats were connected - they ran amok.
Hulme provided students and creatives with rent free accommodation right in the city centre and as I spent time there, I got to know more people. It was how I imagined Berlin to be - run down, riotous, political and stinking of piss. It felt grown up, but it was full of kids who had no money and big dreams of being able to make their own way in the world, free from a 9-5 existence. It also meant you could stumble home from the clubs, many which were popping up in the flats themselves.
Hulme was temporarily home to Nico, who probably squatted there to feed her drug addiction. It was also the location of the Russell Club, a Caribbean club where Anthony H Wilson, established Factory and put on gigs. By the time I was in Hulme, Nico had sadly just passed away and Factory had opened the Hacienda and were just opening Dry bar in what was to become The Northern Quarter of the city. The Russell Club was known as the PSV. It stood for Public Service Vehicles and was set up by Jamaican bus drivers who wanted somewhere to hang out. It was a social club, hosting reggae nights and selling cans of red stripe.
The elevated walkways linking the flats together gave it a dystopian feel. Strangely, this concrete uniformity attracted various tribes. The punks, who held a picnic outside the flats on the small patches of green most summers. There were the travellers/crusties who usually had dreadlocks and the obligatory dogs on ropes with their clapped-out vans parked outside Otterburn Close. The art students who dressed as they saw fit and the tail end of goth culture and the early days of acid house. Manchester was buzzing with energy. Young people disenfranchised were taking over the empty industrial spaces of the city with raves and parties popping up everywhere.
Just as all this was happening, I went to university in London. I had just turned 20 years old. This meant I was classed as a mature student. I was also the first person (and only one) to go to university in my family. Some of the organisations I have worked for ask this question on their equal opportunities’ forms – which I take to mean –are you from a working-class background? I think the answer to that would be yes, but it isn’t quite as clear cut as that and that is another post entirely.
My two school friends had by this time, both had babies. I was adrift, spending half of my week clubbing in Manchester, and the other half at home with my mum attempting to get through my A levels, knowing that I needed a route out of small-town life, and I certainly wasn’t ready to have a family.
I got into university through clearing. I had a bit of a rough landing and ended up at a campus on the outskirts of West London with a couple of suitcases, a stereo, records, some bedding and not much else. I had aspired to go to North London Poly, but it wasn’t to be.
The campus was quite leafy but populated by 1960s concrete halls of residence that were a tad brutal, but there were no cockroaches. I had picked to go into a mixed hall, and I was next door to a lad called Jim, who was really laid back, with dark Manchester curtains framing his broad face and he wore a 60s style long black leather jacket.
I arrived with hope. In many ways I felt like a mature student compared to a lot of the fresh faces unpacking things out of their parents’ car boot. I spent the first few weeks trying to get to know people. There were tribes. The rugby tribe. The music tribe who were studying to become pop stars, including Chesney Hawkes and the band Reef, who were not Reef at this point. There were the posh kids who were from West London who were still living at home and a selection of random teenagers who were there for similar reasons to me.
I made a couple of girlfriends who lived on the campus. They were kind and intelligent. Liv was into 2 tone and ska. She had grown up in a grand 18th century manor with a medieval priory at its heart, surrounded by a rose garden and the rolling lush landscape of Hampshire. She lived there as her parents ran a specialist book business and rented a wing of the house, which is now in the full ownership of National Trust. I visited her one day and was blown away by the place she had called home. Her mother was a beautiful, gentle soul, who had a touch of the Maggie Smiths about her. Returning the favour, I took Liv up to Manchester, for a weekend of music and clubbing putting her up in Hulme. She was absolutely horrified, and I don’t think she every quite forgave me.
By Christmas of the first year my boyfriend back at art school in Manchester had dumped me, which left me totally broken hearted and my Mum moved in with her boyfriend which meant that I had to go back up north and pack everything I owned into two old fashioned suitcases (no wheels) and lug it all back to London with me on the train. I remember sitting on the tube with my belongings heading back to halls of residence wondering what the hell I was going to do with my life and more pressingly, how I was going to be able to change on to the district line with two massive cases.
When I got back, I got very drunk with my friend Andy. We shared a bottle of whiskey and passed out. I haven’t drunk whiskey since. Andy was handsome and I really liked his company. He was quiet and wore a velvet jacket. We seemed to be in tune with each other but we both had the weight of the world on our shoulders and had no idea how to communicate with each other about it. I was sure Andy was gay, but he wasn’t openly out. He had hinted at it to me on a few occasions. Jim and I were worried about him.
Towards the end of the first year, things seemed bleak. I wasn’t enjoying university and I missed Manchester. I read Modern Nature by Derek Jarman and wrote to him to say how much I loved it, sending him packets of seeds that I’d bought from Kew Gardens. He dutifully wrote a note back. I still have that note.
Back in the halls, Maurice the strange man that lived and governed the place was telling me off for not drawing my curtains in the morning. I remember watching KLF on Top of the Pops on the communal television in the living area. It reminded me of Hulme. I changed my hair. It had been a bright copper, but I became a brunette. The indie clothes were making way for something a bit different.
Exam season was underway. Andy had started playing Queen records back-to back. The death of Freddie Mercury had hit him hard, and he wanted to be left alone. I think he was terrified of getting AIDS. And rather distressingly one of my friend’s was sectioned when he found out his parents had died in a car crash.
He was in a Victorian hospital near Isleworth in West London. I visited him taking him a few magazines, an herbal drink from Holland and Barret, some fruit, and some sweets. I sat on a chair next to his bed in a cold open ward. It was as if the 20th century hadn’t happened. I couldn’t believe that he was there, but he had lost pretty much everything and was clearly traumatised. He fixated on the colour orange. He pointed out pictures of Jason Orange from Take That in the magazine. Picked out the orange sweets and ate the oranges that I brought him, which are by all accounts, not the only fruit.
I turned 21 in the summer of that year. It was a Monday, and I had a philosophy exam that morning and got my period. The difficult decisions of where to live next year had started to surface. I agreed to rent a house with my two friends, and we took in a Geordie girl with very long hair and slightly dubious personal hygiene. But she agreed to have the smallest room.
I was glad when the year ended. I went to stay with my dad for the first part of the summer holidays. I got a call from Liv who told me that Andy had died by suicide. He had hung himself at his parents’ house. His parents had tried to call me but didn’t have my number. Every year on February 13th I think of Andy and wish him a Happy Birthday. I still get very upset about it. The promise of a life yet to be realised and someone I really wanted to get to know better. I was angry with myself that I hadn’t had the skills to help him and I’m sad that he must have been in so much pain. It makes me cry to this day just talking about it.
I spent a lot of time between London and Manchester over the next couple of years. I loved London with a passion. My grandma was over in the east, and I used to visit her regularly and I loved the cultural life of the city. I just never quite made the connections that I had hoped for. Hulme still featured in my life, and I would stay there on and off throughout the next two years. When I graduated, I moved back to Manchester, and I felt like I had come home. It was because my tribe were there, and I found them in the most unlikely of places.
Notes
Sam Knee The Bag I’m In is currently out of print. But you may find a copy in the usual places second hand. It’s a great book.
The British Culture Archive has lots of images of Hulme here
Derek Jarman was a good egg. Oranges must defer to peaches, surely?
While still living at home (and still at school) I had some friends who were full on Pink Floyd - and a wardrobe full of moroccan beads decorating caftans to suit but I also had some dorothy perkins chunky knit wear and some heavy duty foundation. Dressed for a day out with the straight girls I was horrified when we ran into cool Derek in his levi's with tapestried inlet flares ...
I have yet to find 'my' tribe -
Thank you for taking me back. A moment and then some. CC
Sorry to hear about your friend, Andy. Losing friends young has a massive impact, not surprised it still upsets you. Very glad you found your tribe.