Rocks Round the Clock

To Fleet Street, it was the second Battle of Hastings. To Hastings, now a drab south-coast resort town, it was simply the bloody awfullest sight since William the Conqueror. Mothers locked their children safe indoors, merchants closed their shops and pulled down the blinds, sedate middle-aged couples on the beach fled for cover. The Mods and the Rockers had come to town.

Up the Mods. Despite their common heritage (Elvis) and heroes (the Beatles), the foppish Mods and sullen Rockers like nothing better than to crack one another's skulls. Two mass bashes over the Easter and Whitsuntide weekends had only whetted the teen sects' appetites for more, as excited word spread from London's Mecca Ballrooms and myriad Soho record clubs that Hastings would be the smart place to be on the long three-day Bank Holiday weekend at the beginning of August.

The first waves began arriving on Saturday, black-jacketed Rockers by the hundreds, parka-clad Mods by the thousands. By Sunday morning, Hastings swarmed with teen-age Beatles and their birds, scruffy and wild-haired after all-night nesting on the beach. To add to the general misery, a light rain was falling. Suddenly, the kids began ranging through town in packs, stopping traffic, banging on cars, chanting ("Up the Mods"), looking for trouble. They raided cafes for dishes and glasses to throw, knives and forks to brandish, chased each other up the beaches and down the streets under a hail of rocks and crockery. On the promenade, herds of noisy Rocker motorcycles roared incessantly; buzzing them in hand-to-handlebar combat were enough Mod motor scooters to hold mass Vespa services.

Escape from Boredom. Round the clock Hastings rocked, while police, outmanned and outwheeled, called in reinforcements from nearby towns. Not until Monday morning, after Scotland Yard had airlifted four planeloads of riot cops from London, did they manage to round up the rioting youngsters and march them sternly out of town. Battle toll: dozens injured, 66 arrested. "It is time," said Hastings Magistrate Alfred Coote, "for Parliament to consider what measures they should take to crush this form of mass hooliganism."

Would legislation be any more effective than the vain protests of millions of anxious parents? Britain's youth, with more shillings in its pockets than ever, seeks escape from boredom--and from the hearth. "My Dad's trying to get me to join the Young Conservatives," sniffs a teen-age girl. "But I like this set. They're nice, and they say what they mean." "We hope to stay smart forever, not shoddy like our parents," adds a Mod leader.

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