Diary of a Teddy Boy review quotes

Diary of a Teddy boy. Hip before the hippies. Mim Scala. Review Publishing, #9.99 by Jack McLean
The Herald

Subtitled ''a memoir of the long sixties'', the period covered is from the mid-fifties to the end of the seventies and I recognised it all. I also recognised the author, whom I remember meeting in various smart pubs and clubs in Chelsea's King's Road when that was where we swung when Chelsea was swinging. As I remember Mim he was a wide-boy on the make, involved in the film and record industry, who dressed like a hippie but who was very good company. For most of this autobiography he still is. His account of the early years of rock'n'roll and coffee bars will strike, what else, chords with those of us who were around when the greyness of post-war Britain got all shook up and burst into colour. This is not hyperbole either. I can remember it: suddenly, instead of grim gaberdine raincoats and short back'n'sides, there were bop hairstyles and drape jackets. The early fifties had an air of 10 Rillington Place, for heaven's sake. As John Lennon once said: ''Nothing meant anything until Elvis.'' Scala captures the strange narcissism of the period. All goes well right through the early days of the Beat boom, characterised by the young popsters dressing in expensive but outrageous suits and sharp shirts and ties. Where the period goes off the rails, and indeed this memoir as well, starts about the time when the hippies came in and the love generation discovered how to take themselves seriously, which is far more than they had a right to do. But after 1969 in this account both the book and Mim Scala become very tiresome indeed. I'd forgotten how much contempt I had for hippies but this brought it all back. The origins of political correctness and social-workerism lie with the sad stupidity and rank ignorance of the hippie generation. The second half of this book contains all the usual nonsense, mysticism, eastern religions, lots of drugs, travelling in north Africa, Jack Kerouac, The Whole Earth Catalogue; rubbish, all of it. It's difficult to see how the author achieves his effects really. Right up till he encounters the salivating drivel of the late sixties with all that love going about he writes crisply and with authority. It's Mile End Road cockiness, sashaying through the spivvery of Soho and the markets, the gambling club scene of the late fifties and early sixties before betting was legalised. But later his tone changes to one of druggy, bloviating bombast. Like any decent reviewer I tried to put myself in the reader's shoes. I couldn't. I've reviewed this in my own. In the first half they were elegant winklepickers. The second half? Tackety boots. But don't let the second half of the book put you off: the first half is too good to miss.