Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 08:12 PM

My wife says the one near Epping (where she's from) was the Moletrap. Probably not many bikers there now but it's still Rod Stewart's local (I think - if not, some ageing popster of similar celebrity, anyway).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 07:34 PM

Dave remember everything old will be new again, except us.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Sep 17 - 06:15 AM

There must have been one in every town, Steve. In Swinton it was known as Popeye's in my day. On the A6, Chorley Road. In my Mothers day it was know as the 'Stingo'. No idea how it was named either and why but it was there for years and was still going in the 1980s when my eldest lads used to go with their friends. Sadly it is no more and nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

DtG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Sep 17 - 03:30 AM

A priest with a perm?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Sep 17 - 08:32 PM

Well I never got involved with motorbikes, but my very first real rebellion against grown-ups came on Sunday mornings when I was fourteen or fifteen when my parents sent me to Mass. Three-quarters of the way to church, well out of sight of home, was a little Radcliffe side street just off Church Street in the town centre. A few yards up there was the Bop Shop, a little back-room hang-out with a fruit machine and a juke box and enough seats for about ten of us. It was the haven for every adolescent petty criminal in town and I bloody loved it. I learned a whole new alternative morality there. The bloke who ran it, who we called Jake, was rarely seen, but at the first sign of a flare-up he'd dash downstairs in fearsome mode, more than enough to keep us in check. On one such occasion he came down brandishing an axe. I met the first girl in there whose naked breasts I ever fondled. I really do need to tell you that bit because, when I look back, it was an integral part of what makes me what I am. I'm sure pfr will understand...

I got very good at making up yarns about what the sermon was about in case I got interrogated, which was often. I used to worry quite a lot about whether I'd nailed the right priest, as there were four masses every Sunday in those days, and it was perm any one priest from three...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Sep 17 - 07:23 PM

I seem to remember the tabloids (wot did we call 'em then?) dubbed them
"coffee bar cowboys"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Sep 17 - 10:16 AM

Google "The Leather Boys" 1963 / 64ish Brit biker movie..

it is available to be streamed on certain obvious media sites...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: vectis
Date: 10 Sep 17 - 05:40 AM

At the Ace Cafe you played 'spin a disc'as I have been told. All the young bikers hung out at coffee bars in the UK as they had juke boxes and you could make a coffee last for hours.

Them was the days.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Raggytash
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 10:44 AM

The Bird in Hand, Patricroft was THE bikers pub. There was a challenge to ride the the CWS depot at Irlam and back in a given time but I cannot for the life of me remember the details.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Iains
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 10:36 AM

Back in days of yore the biker gatherings were the Ace cafe to the north of the metropolis, but I often went to Box Hill on a sunday. When I upgraded to a car, an austin countryman,it lost me a lot of street cred. but I kept dry when it rained.

For our friends across the pond.
https://london.acecafe.com/

http://www.boxhill.co.uk/

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 10:33 AM

New Zealand licencing laws were weird. Not only (as in the UK) could you drive or ride a motorbike years before you could legally go into a pub, but pubs all closed at 6pm (until 1967-68). I doubt if many milk bars stayed open later than that, but some might have.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 09:48 AM

I never owned one but my first motorcycle ride was on my Dad's BSA Gold Flash and Busmar Astral Double Adult sidecar.

The same law applied to 3-wheelers, Iains, which is why there were so many Reliants and Bonds on the road. There used to be some confusion about having a reverse gear but when I got my provisional (1970) there was no such restriction and I could (and sometimes did) drive a Supervan III like Del boys with an L-plate and no supervision.

Not sure about milk bars but there were some local cafes that were predominantly biker hangouts. There was one around the Eccles/Patricoft area but I cannot remember what it was called or just where it was. Just that there was often a plethora of old British bikes outside. late 60's/ early 70's possibly? Can you remember that Raggy or did I dream it?

DtG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 09:39 AM

"A girl could feel special on any such like."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Raggytash
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 09:25 AM

Nice machine Iains !!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Iains
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 05:44 AM

And if you had a sidecar you could have an engine of any capacity and carry a passenger, while still displaying "L" plates.

I wish I still had my G9Matchless and Steib sidecar!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: BobL
Date: 08 Sep 17 - 03:07 AM

Ah, the days of my youthful innocence! Point about coffee bars as a meeting place was that legally you could ride a motorbike at a lower age than drink in a pub (still true).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Sep 17 - 11:43 PM

Truly folklore, but more on the non-music side of folklore.
Down below the line it goes, there into the "notorious den of teenage lust."
Hard to imagine something called a "milk bar" being such a den of iniquity. I can't remember what they were called in the U.S., but we had them - dairy bar, perhaps? The buildings were all shiny white, the employees were all dressed in white, and they sold ice cream and milkshakes and such.

-Joe-"

Subject: Folklore: Milk bars, motorbikes and moral panic
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Sep 17 - 08:56 PM

This is a rather wonderful bit of forgotten social history:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/96610377/moral-panic-and-milk-bar-cowboys-lower-hutt-has-seen-it-all

I think milk bars were sometimes seen the same way in the UK, my wife knew about them from Essex. (A bit before my time, or in the wrong places, when I was in NZ: I never encountered one that was a den of sex and motorcycling, but I guess if you lived in Lower Hutt, abusing dairy products and fucking would be all the entertainment there was).