We produced the first edition of The Mod Years this time in ’05, and more than a few people seemed to like it. Fair enough, we thought, let’s do it again. So we did . It’s been easier this time in that I’ve had rather more time – more time to plan it and more time to get out and about, see more people and broaden the whole thing a bit.
Once again there are features on the very best Mod scooters around, and lots and lots of faces. Faces in crowds, faces in discos, faces on seafronts, faces on shoulders. You’ll also find masses and masses of music stuff in here too – class Mod music; Tam la rather than Stax this time around -and a lot of very impressive contemporary Mod music too. And classic Sixties style icons too – Patrick McGoohan as John Steed, Terry (Stamp) and Julie (Christie), Michael Caine and his modern-day clone Ray Winstone.
Somewhere in here you’ll find a feature on Anthony James’s really lovely Series II TV, which he describes as the ultimate Mod scooter. A lovely bike, just right. I’d been listening to him raving about the Series II though, and then, later, started thinking ‘Yeah but I had a Series Ill when I was 16 so that’s always been my favourite’. And it all came flooding back to me; how I bought that bike, my first scooter, through the small ads in The Manchester Evening News and paid just £45 for it- sounds like nothing now but it was a fortune to me back then.
Author: Steve Myatt