I was the dandy in the band. My Beau Brummell tendencies were constrained only by the penurious state of my purse. But there was a whole life of fashion before I joined the band. I had always fancied myself as something of a dapper dude. My brother had toyed with the Teddy Boy image before morphing into a Fifties beatnik complete with beret, beard and blonde girlfriend. I had quietly observed these goings-on from my early teenage sidelines.

As you can see from this rather charming family photograph from 1961, the fifteen-year old yours truly was into winkle pickers, casual sweaters and shades. In contrast to this happy snap I do have a painful memory from around this time of needing a new coat for the winter. My mum and I got the bus into Harrow and had a look in what was probably the only men`s outfitters at the time, Burtons. Mum wanted me to have the sensible standard overcoat; I wanted the stylish one with the higher collar and the neat three rows of stitching around the hem. But it was more expensive. We had to leave the shop, walk to the post office – and I had to stand beside her as my poor uncomplaining mum had to withdraw more money from her meagre account. We returned to the shop, bought the coat and I have never forgotten the intense sadness and guilt I felt on that bus ride home… But it was a fab coat. Here it is a few years later in an early promotional band shot:

Notice how my musical brothers are garbed. Dan in a cheap shiny waistcoat and black jacket, Steve in a bog standard Dad-style overcoat, Ed in his weird and wonderful faux suede coat with fake sheepskin collar. I`m perched very awkwardly on the gate not wanting to pop the knees on my sleek slacks. Note the coat`s high neck, feature pocket and, sadly not visible, the required three lines of heart-breaking stitching at the hem. When I left school my first job was at Dunn & Co in Harrow – swiftly followed by a move to their flagship Regent Street store (now home to Nespresso). Dunn & Co were the epitome of stuffy Fifties both-feet-in-the-past Britain with a range of Harris Tweed clothes that harked back to the wealthy hunting shooting and fishing brigade who still felt they had a god given right to lord it over the rest of us. My evil manager, Mr Starling, actually wore a wing collar starched shirt, à la Neville Chamberlain, he of the famous letter of assurances from Herr Hitler that all Adolf wanted was a bit more room outside his borders for his blonde subjects to multiply; there was no way he was going to attack Britain. Ha, ha... It was at this point that I met Les Burton. We both shared a love of motorbikes ­­ and after seeing a Triumph 200 in the Cliff Richard film, `The Young Ones` I pestered my dad for a loan. Against my mum`s desperate and vociferous opposition dad leant me the money and I got the bike. But to be a rocker required a particular uniform and central to this was the leather jacket. So dad coughed up some more hard-earned readies and off I went on my own to make the purchase. The salesman saw me coming and palmed me off with the only one he had left in stock. It was large and swamped my puny frame. Back at home my dad flew off the parental handle and marched me back to the shop and demanded a smaller size. One was acquired from another branch and we headed back home – me crimson with humiliation at my dad destroying my fledgling image of a hardened rocker. I might even have held his hand as we crossed the road.

Les and I called ourselves the Warlords and applied white sticky Ws to our jackets. But this ridiculous charade was about to come to an abrupt end…. After a particularly scary confrontation at a local youth club with another gang of youths I realised the game was up. I`d been exposed as a poser; I wasn`t hard tough brave or even bold. And who were these youths who blew my cover…? Mods! I`d seen these odd creatures buzzing around on these peculiar whining machines, with their quirky clothes and their cool attitude. Anxious to hold my hands up and admit that I was not the son of Marlon Brando or James Dean and that I really didn`t enjoy the greasy side of Rocker land I decided to become a Mod. Les was horrified, disappeared and we didn`t speak again for forty years! Wanting to admit that I was more of a dandy than a dangerous Dan I embraced this new persona with gusto. I sold the motorbike and bought a Lambretta TV 175. I bought a pair of tan Hush Puppies and a Fred Perry sports shirt. And I happily ditched the licorice leather jacket and bought a USA Airforce parka from an army surplus store in Wembley

But being a Mod was more stressful than being a rocker. The fashion police were out in force and woe betide any self-respecting Mod who dared to walk the streets in anything but the approved latest fashion. And those fashions changed with alarming regularity. Today a new age Mod can pick or choose which style of Mod they want to be, researching the various clothing styles from archive photographs. Back then when we were inventing Modernist styles; dress and scooter decoration changed from month to month – and occasionally seemed to change from week to week! The unwary or those not observant enough to note the changes were left with stylistic egg on their faces. One minute it was sharp Italian suits with three buttons, then four buttons. A neatly folded hanky in the top pocket with three triangular peaks showing; then no peaks. One minute we were wearing jeans with regulation one inch turnups – the next we were squeezing ourselves into very short dyed cotton slacks the colour of over ripe Seville oranges. Then we had the rather enjoyable Hush Puppy period, worn with candy coloured seersucker jackets, casual jumpers and the aforementioned Fred Perry shirts. I followed all this slavishly. Sadly very few photographs exist of the various ensembles.

Mod girls were also expected to respect the sartorial rules. Their dresses, skirts, coats, hairstyles also changed from month to month. I remember them all as pretty and petite, little Mary Quant clones. Of course this was long before Mods transformed into those fearsome skinheads of later decades when the girls were just as tough as their manic male boyfriends. We Mods were listening to ska and bluebeat music and for awhile I wore the hat of the moment: a small neat Trilby with a rim that had been cut down to within a half inch of its life. This was pre helmet legislation and riding a scooter with one of these tiny hats perched on the front of yer bonce at fifty miles an hour was a difficult skill to master. It required you to angle your head down into the wind so the bloody thing wouldn`t fly off. There were even fashions in the way one sat on the scooter. For a few months everyone sat way back on the seat if riding without a girl or mate on the back – then all the guys were riding sat on the front tip of the seat with knees and shoes stuck out into the wind. Scooter attachment fashion was vicious. There were periods of chrome carriers just at the back, sometimes with a lengthy aerial with foxtail attached. Then all the carriers were at the front. For a time we all removed our front bumper. Some stripped their machines down to the skeleton with no side panels. Then panels had to be expensively chromed. Wind screens were de rigueur one week then out the next. As you can see from above my Lambretta eventually morphed into this wonderful creation: a racing green paint job with English mustard yellow stripes and white racing number, a single neat chrome front carrier and just one spotlight. My dream machine. But once these new-angled teenagers had shrugged off the drab grey war-weary Fifties forever a realisation dawned that we could take fashion further, push it to places it had never been before. And with music leading the way we finally entered what would be retrospectively labelled `The Sixties`. It was 1963/64 and this youth revolution was led by four scruffy rockers from Liverpool. Four boys who changed the world forever, who made London the centre of the universe. The Beatles. Life could never be the same again. I remember queuing with hundreds of other eager youths outside Anello & Davide`s Drury Lane shop to buy my first pair of `Beatle boots.` The Cuban heel was a particular delight for me as I`ve always been a short-arse and the extra inch and a half boosted my confidence immensely. As the Beatles discarded Epstein`s establishment suits and ties and stepped out in multi–coloured clobber we eagerly followed in their regal wake. I joined a band and never looked back….

Kaleidoscope was born out of two earlier incarnations as The Sidekicks and The Key. The former wore matching pale slacks and sports shirts; the latter adopted the foppish frilly shirts of Victoriana. But with the dawn of psychedelia in late 1966 that had fully developed by mid 67 – the so-called `Summer of Love` – the band embraced the style musically and fashionably.

The Beatles dictated all fashion trends in music, clothes and hairstyles from now on – and everyone followed. At the height of psychedelia it was all kaftans and beads, silky scarves and ethnic sandals. We were Indians in all but name. We bought our clothes in Chelsea and Kensington antique markets. We roamed up and down Carnaby Street. Ed, my fellow band member and I, used to work just across Regent Street and would visit this dingy backwater every lunchtime to buy a sandwich from a dodgy cafe. At that time there was not one boutique, just dank doorways into vacant shops and yards. But by 67 it had exploded into the fashion centre of London – along with Chelsea`s Kings Road where at Worlds End Granny Takes a Trip had recently opened their hallowed doors. I think I ventured in just once but was so intimidated by the hyper–stylish snooty staff that I never returned. Not hard tough brave or even bold if you remember… You also recall that I was the dandy in the band so I was the one who tried to lead the group`s style. But we were all aware of how important it was to look current in the fast changing world of fashion. But we were broke and keeping up was prohibitively expensive. So hunting out cheaper alternatives in Portobello Road or the back streets of Chelsea became a necessity. A particularly fab purchase was a weird and wonderful riding jacket found at a second hand – we now call them vintage – stall in Kensington.

I felt like the proverbial bee`s knees strutting about in that. It eventually proved a delicious main course for a gang of moths whilst in storage at my thatched Wiltshire cottage and was flogged on EBay last year for thirty quid. Of course, trendsetting can be a dangerous path to follow. One can take it too far. Evidence for this can be seen in a snap taken at the opening of a boutique in Victoria when we turned up in all our finery. Unfortunately I ended up looking more like a prat than a poster boy having slipped too easily into a theatrical style of which a swaggering Oscar Wilde would have been proud…

It was therefore a relief when the Sixties finally ended and all the hippy garb and the druggy psychedelic music became somewhat passé. Eager to keep up with the changes we embraced the more mature, thoughtful style of music. We changed our name to Fairfield Parlour, spent nights down the pub with the Moody Blues, added a clavinet and flute to our lineup and were soon planning epic albums that were a stylistic world away from the twee collection of nursery rhymes and fairy tales on our previous releases. A new look was required. More sombre, more suited to the darker tones that were now seeping naturally into our compositions. I was more than pleased to go rummaging around the small booths of the antique markets once again. And there I found a Victorian frock coat that fitted the bill perfectly. It was funeral director style for me! Teamed with a white shirt and old broaches, black trousers and boots I could have quite happily walked in dignified procession in front of a pair of black plumed stallions towing a cut glass hearse. The band followed suit and we were soon posing for moody publicity shots in mysterious deserted woodlands.

And there the story ends. Fame and fortune eluded us. The band broke up. And the clothes disappeared. The Mod outfits had been cast aside way back then as each new style appeared. I should have kept them, of course - but none of us knew at the time that future generations would be interested and would want to ape our style. The Lambretta had been sold back in 1965 to buy a second hand yellow Mini. Should have kept that scooter - and the Mini. The rocker blood that once surged through my youthful veins is still there. In recent years I have bought and sold three Yamaha Viragos. Every time I see a Lambretta buzz by a subtle ache begins deep inside my ancient bones. And the love of clothes has never left me. Just last week I was window shopping and came across a Ted Baker shop. I went in and there found a stunning suit: storm sky blue with pale chalk stripes, sharp high lapels, two bum vents, ivory coloured bone buttons – and a price tag of £450.00 I couldn`t resist trying it on. In the changing room mirror I caught a brief and fleeting glimpse of a clothes-loving teenager. A boy who dared to dream. What I actually saw was an old man with vanishing white hair who couldn`t afford the suit.

I returned the suit to its hanger, left the changing room and handed it to the assistant.

"How was it for you, sir...?" he asked.

"Oh..." I replied. "Wonderful -- everything was wonderful..........................."

COPYRIGHT: Peter Daltrey, Wiltshire 2021

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