Teddy Boys

The life, loves and luxuriant locks of Hounslow West Teddy boy Mike Wood are revealed in this fascinating television documentary

Working class Teddy boy Mike Wood chats with journalist Michael Ingrams in this revealing 1956 edition of ITV's This Week looking at youth culture. After Mike and his mates are turned away from a club for being Teds, we see inside his tiny Hounslow bedsit, watch as he undergoes a three guinea perm for a Bebop hair style and visits Soho's Flamingo Jazz Club with his girlfriend.

Young men much maligned by the 1950s media, with their Edwardian-inspired long jackets, fancy waistcoats and elaborate hairstyles, Teddy boys were perceived by many as a menace. Mike, however, points out that the only time he ever started trouble was way back when he was in the army. The Hank Janson books Mike mentions were an infamous series of lurid paperback detective novels which controversially featured paintings of scantily-clad young women on the covers.