“Basically You Were Either a Mainstream Sort of Person or You Went to the Leadmill and the Limit”: Understanding Post-War British Youth Culture Through Oral History

Abstract

Utilising testimony from over twenty oral history interviews this chapter challenges traditional approaches to youth culture that position alternative and mainstream cultures as necessarily opposed. Young people’s identities and youth cultural experiences have often been categorised and labelled by adults, ranging from academics to the media, with far less emphasis placed on the views of the young people under observation. This chapter illuminates the nuances in young people’s cultural identification, and sheds light on the experiences of ‘ordinary’ young people whose experiences are so often absent from studies of youth culture. It argues that oral testimony is a valuable tool for scholars wishing to access the voices and experiences of young people who are less often represented in the traditional archive.