Skinheads' key links to Thurrock (From Thurrock Gazette)

Skinheads' key links to Thurrock

5:16pm Wednesday 23rd May 2012 in Memory Lane

THIS week in Down Memory Lane I explore a more recent controversial music culture ‘Skinheads’.

Last week the Thurrock Gazette featured London-born Adewale Akinnuoye-agbaje, who has starred in the films G.I Joe, Mummy Returns and the Bourne Identity. He was fostered with white working-class parents in Tilbury.

Adewale’s film, called Farming, is based on his experiences as a black child who became a skinhead in the 1970s.

The Skinhead culture originated among working class youths in the 1960s.

Named for their close-cropped or shaven heads, the first skinheads were greatly influenced by West Indian music, specifically Jamaican ‘rude boy’ and British ‘mods’ in terms of fashion, music and lifestyle. Skinheads ranged from a clean-cut 1960s mod-influenced style to less-strict punk and hardcore styles.

The Trojan Record Label promoted, from 1969, the Jamaican music, from rocksteady to reggae and Tilbury skinheads adopted the name Tilbury Trojan Skins.

I have already featured our link with Pink Floyd, who played live on April 13, 1967, at the Tilbury Railway Club in Calcutta Road.

In 1982 a film version of The Wall was made, directed by Allan Parker and starred Boomtown Rats and Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof as a drug crazed pop star who becomes a fascist leader.

Three-hundred unemployed youngsters, including some from Thurrock, were extras in the film.

If you were a Tilbury Trojan, or involved in the making of The Wall, I would be interested to hear your memories of the time.