This documentary charts the causes and consequences of the infamous Bank Holiday 'riots' of 1964, when Mods and Rockers clashed on British seaside beaches, notably Clacton-on-Sea and Brighton.
The only snag was that they were not really 'riots' at all, but a series of encounters between two groups which, despite their vast differences in outlook and clothing, had hitherto got on well with one another. Rebecca White's documentary suggests that the media played a large part in stirring up trouble with their lurid accounts of the 'damage' and 'mayhem' caused by warring factions. Although damage was certainly caused - broken windows, for example - the total cost was negligible.
Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the documentary lies in the interviews with 'original' mods and rockers. Now in their late sixties, they recall with pride their lifestyles, clothing and attitudes - they not only rebelled against their parents, but took advantage of a world where full employment was guaranteed, and they had the chance to earn their own disposable income. Unlike their parents, they were financially independent; and in a consumerist- oriented world, they had the chance to cultivate their own lifestyles.
As with many such programs, however, this documentary raised more questions than it answered. Mods and rockers were not the first youth culture groups to emerge in postwar British society; in the mid- Fifties the Teds caused similar moral panics as they supposedly displayed a contempt for 'British' values. Moreover the mods and rockers did not simply 'decline' after the mid-Sixties; both groups were equally active a decade later.
Nonetheless MODS, ROCKERS, AND BANK HOLIDAY MAYHEM recaptured a certain moment in British social history through archive film, interviews and comments from the obligatory academic experts. Perhaps more than anything else, the 1964 clashes showed how much society had changed in the two decades since the end of the World War II, and how the old consensus that unified society in the immediate postwar period had now collapsed with the onset of consumerism. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's vision of a world in which people "never had it so good," had a lot to answer for.
