Our recent features on the teenage street gangs of Newcastle in the early 1970s sparked quite a bit of interest.
It was a time when there was increasing alarm around the country about the rising tide of casual violence in Britain's towns and inner cities. It was, we recalled, "the era of Crombie-wearing, Doctor Marten-booted, reggae-loving skinhead gangs, marking their well-defended territories out with graffiti tags and enjoying nothing better than a scrap with a rival gang".
Newspapers ran countless stories reporting random outbreaks of trouble on the streets, and longer pieces examining the causes of the phenomenon. The Chronicle in one front page story in 1971 namechecked four of Newcastle's main skinheads gangs and interviewed some of their members who were mainly 15 and 16-year-old boys.
READ MORE: Tyneside in the 1960s - 10 photographs
The gangs were identified as the Big Lamp Aggro Boys, Newbiggin Hall Aggro Boys, Blakelaw Aggro Boys and Scotswood Aggro Boys. The latter were even the subject of a BBC Look North documentary, All Dressed Up And Going Nowhere, narrated by a young Mike Neville, that charted their rivalry with other local gangs, including the motorbike-riding 'hairies' of the so-called Throckley mob.
Fifty years ago it was a problem that extended right across our region. In May, 1971 our sister title The Journal led one front page on another "bovver battle", this time in Gateshead.
It was reported how "trouble flared when 100 skinheads and greasers swarmed into the giant Saltwell Park. The gangs were from the High Street in Wrekenton and Saltwell Road in Gateshead. But police from Gateshead who had been tipped off about the battle moved into the park with dog units at the last minute.
"The youths were split up into groups and and moved out of the park by police and alsatian dogs. Others clambered over the park's iron fencing into the road . They were met by motor patrol cars and unit vans circling the park.
"Policemen grabbed some and bundled them into crowded mini-vans. One of the skinheads said 'It was going to be a 50-50 fight between Saltwell Road and High Street, but we'll be back'." Those picked up by police were later charged at Gateshead police station with causing a breach of the peace.
The teenagers involved back then will now all be in their mid-60s, and older and wiser. If the subject of early 1970s street gangs is today merely a piece of social history filed under the 'youth culture' section, 50 years ago the problem was a daily reality across Tyneside and beyond.
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