Spirit of '05

by Pug-In-Boots

"The National Front has been trying to recruit disaffected young kids. If I can bring up a historical thing here: I’ve read a book called The Classic Slum by Robert Roberts and it dealt with one man’s memories of this slum area in Warrington, northern England between 1895 and 1910. It was a very oppressive time for workers. You had a job for two years and then you were out of it for another two years. Robert Roberts in that book describes groups and youths, unemployed, hanging around street corners with working boots on, working trousers, short cropped hair, men and women, and this was 1905! There were skinheads in 1905. Really it is a symbol of frustrated, angry, disenfranchised youth and it’s never actually been solely a uniform of the right wing youth. Skinheads are a phenomenon but they ain’t new."

- Paul Hookham of the Redskins, from an interview in 1986.




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