1950s Menu

The following quotes are from an interview Vic King conducted with Tony Woolcock, on 9th March, 1996, about Island Teddy Boys during the fifties.

Drape jackets and drainpipe jeans

"I got my first Ted suit in Burtons. Putting down a quid a week, it seemed to take forever to pay for it. You would treat it like gold, steam the velvet on the collar. If anybody used to brush up against it you were not happy. We had short hair in a DA (Duck's Arse), youngsters hair these days is like a hayrick. We wore drainpipe jeans and a jacket during the week. At weekends on went the suit. We wore brothel creeper shoes, it took about three months to save up to buy them. You had pride in your appearance, hair slicked back.

I left Moreys and went on the railway at Newport. I got an oversize jacket for a bit of a drape, got the old lady to take in the overalls."

ON NEWPORT STREET CORNERS

"There would be a gang of soliders on one corner and us on another. This was the time when the Army were at Albany Barracks. We would spend from eight until about half past ten eyeing each other up. The girls would look at us, then at the soldiers. When the last bus used to pull out that's when it used to start. At weekends we didn't want to spoil the suit, in the week we would plough in. The coppers would welcome the weekends, then we would have to make a date for another day.

We used to go in The Bugle Tap to have a few bevvies. A little private room that used to be our sort of den. Duke Carden was the biggest of us all, that's how he got his name. He was about as tall as you. Duke still lives it now.

Dancing competitions were held at the Queen's Hall, girls in flared hooped skirts. Jack's Cafe at the top of the town had two long rooms. The room with the jukebox in was at the front. You went up a couple steps to another room. We used to walk home from Cowes and shin up the gas light to light our cigarettes. You would walk in the Grand, people used to take their fish and chips in there. James Dean's 'Rebel Without A Cause' was an important film. A hot pie and a Brown Ale in Jolliffe's Pie Shop (opposite Medina Cinema), beautiful pies."

THE SEAGULL BALLROOM, RYDE PIER

"None of us would go to Ryde unless we all went together. At The Seagull, the Ryde Teds were there, you were encroaching on their territory. You would get the tram up the pier and if you picked up a girl walk back."

TELEVISION AND FIRST CAR

"When television first came out there would be crowds of people looking in the shop windows watching them. My first car was a Vauxhall Cresta, the nearest you could get to an American car with great long fins out the back. Proud as a peacock I was."

Tony Woolcock spoke to Vic King (9/3/96)

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