Book Contents
4 The introduction – all is revealed; yes, the 2006
edition of The Mod Years
8 A very cool TV; the guy says it’s ‘the
quintessential Mod scooter’ in fact
13 A real class act – John Steed. We can all follow
his shining example
21 Let’s go out into the countryside and pose
about for a bit, whaddyafink?
26 A right pair of geezers; two first-time-round
Mods and their scooters
32 Is Ray Winstone the new Michael Caine?
Well, I think so, so there
42 The Motown Years. Berry Gordy’s genius
creation – when and how
44 The sad stories of Tamla stars Flo Ballard,
Tammi Terrell and Mary Wells
54 What could a Mod drive if he was averse to
two wheels? See this…
58 ‘I’m not trying to cause a big sensation’– don’t you believe a word of it
64 Not enough girls in this magazine so far,
don't you think? How about this then?
70 Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Only
when it’s a bank holiday run
80 New Mod music. Yes, there’s a lot of it about,
and the best is just brilliant
86 Read all about it! Read the story of your life
on this guy’s side panels.
98 ‘We’re the best Mod scooter club in Britain,’ the Bristol mob say
101 The Regent Park Run – nice cast iron work,
nice scooters too
106 The greatest Mod band ever to come out of
America; yes, The Byrds
110 Carnaby Street; first it was a plague pit then
it was the capital of cool
116 The Who play Liverpool – a treat for Scouser
at the start of a world tour
120 Talking of The ’Oo – the greatest rock song
ever recorded… ever
127 Terry and Julie walk over the river; the most
beautiful couple of the 60s
INTRODUCTION
 Well, it seemed to go pretty well. We produced the first edition of The Mod Years this time in ’05, and more than a few people seemed to like it. Fair enough, we thought, let’s do it again. So we did. It’s been easier this time in that I’ve had rather more time – more time to plan it and more time to get out and about, see more people and broaden the whole thing a bit. Once again there are features on the very best Mod scooters around, and lots and lots of faces. Faces in crowds, faces in discos, faces on seafronts, faces on shoulders.
You’ll also find masses and masses of music stuff in here too – class Mod music; Tamla rather than Stax this time around – and a lot of very impressive contemporary Mod music too. And classic Sixties style icons too – Patrick McGoohan as John Steed, Terry (Stamp) and Julie (Christie), Michael Caine and his modern-day clone Ray Winstone. Somewhere in here you’ll find a feature on Anthony James’s really lovely Series II TV, which he describes as the ultimate Mod scooter. A lovely bike, just right. I’d been listening to him raving about the Series II though, and then, later, started thinking ‘Yeah but I had a Series III when I was 16 so that’s always been my favourite’. And it all came flooding back to me; how I bought that bike, my first scooter, through the small ads in The Manchester Evening News and paid just £45 for it – sounds like nothing now but it was a fortune to me back then.
There was a degree of angst involved in owning that scooter. I hated the way that when I dropped it the front cash bars deformed the leg shields and I could never get the front end to sit dead straight again. I hated the way that every aftermarket exhaust I ever bought snapped off at the back bracket. I hated the way that the air canister for the horns seemed to empty every ten days.
I hated the way the mirror lenses seemed to crack if you so much as looked in them – and I was never going to ride it with even a single cracked lens. And I could never get the florida bars – which I’d bought second-hand – to sit just right; they always seemed to be up slightly on the right hand side. Above all, I hated the fact that once in a while a side panel would decide to part company with the bike, usually on a dual carriageway, and usually in front of a truck, whose driver would rather have gone straight to hell than bothered swerving to avoid running over it. Bastard.
Mind you, once I revved the bike as I was about to set off from the lights and a bloody side panel plopped off as I sat there. Ever so embarrassing. But oh heavens, how I loved it. I was desperately in love with that, more so than with any bird. I loved the chrome flash on the side panels, the subtle shape of the front mudguard, and the way those styling lines were reflected in the headlight rim. I just adored the look of the whole thing. I loved everything about it.
I loved running round the suburbs on it, trying to pick up girls and usually failing, popping round to a mate’s house to catch Ready Steady Go, going into town to listen to the new releases in the little independent record shop on George Street (now long gone). And most of all I adored zipping into Manchester on it, with a dozenmates in front and behind me. Me in my sharp suit – jacket with two buttons (only one fastened) and single rear vent – and turtle-necked shirt. I loved it as we pulled up outside The Twisted Wheel, or The Locarno in Sale, or when we went – with as many bikes and bodies as we could possibly muster – to haunt the fair on Knutsford Heath.
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