Friday on My Mind: Mod, Scooter Boy

By Don Hughes

As the first generation of teenagers to find themselves with money in their pockets and a will to throw off the gloom of post war Britain, the Mods created a style explosion.

Truly multi-cultural, they absorbed their soundtrack via imports from America and Jamaica, dancing to soul and ska along with homegrown British beat. Arising from the south east of England, with their legendary coastal excursions, they looked out across the sea to Europe for their style, the boys to Italy for their sharp suits and scooters and the girls to France, aping the eternal cool of the French girl.

Original Hounslow Mod Don Hughes gives a wonderfully authentic, first-hand account of his evolution from working class lad growing up in a suburb of London to fully suited and booted, scooter owning member of the first great youth cult to hit Britain. An engaging and enterprising spirit, he finds work locally while still at school and begins to invest in the imported records coming in from America, and, crucially, in his wardrobe.

The Mod phenomenon, with it’s fusion of music and fashion, set the template for all the youth cultures that would follow and their influence still reverberates today. This is a tale of how the cult evolved from a true insider, and also a refreshingly frank, original coming of age story, told with warmth and humour.

Don Hughes was born and grew up in Hounslow, west London in 1949. As a schoolboy he began a paper round and invested his wages in his record collection, going to the local record store to order rare imports from America. He became a well known Face on the Mod scene and a regular at legendary west London nightspots Eel Pie Island, The Zambeesi, The Attic and The Ricky Tick. He continued to collect records throughout his life, buying and selling alongside his day job running a courier business. When he retired he decided to put his exploits on paper, resulting in the engaging, authentic memoir of Mod life, Friday on my Mind.