THE UK WIDEBOYS ?

[ramblinBOB]

where the wide boys after after wwll i have wondered about there suits and there music was it swing or jazz ? do you find that style of suit still what were they like zoot suits i have seen a couple repos that looked like shorter zoot suits ? thanks guys

 

[dr greg]

wide eyed

My father used to describe the suits he wore just after the end of WW2 in london, and they sounded pretty much like zoot suits to me, one feature was an incredibly long watch chain, a lot heavier than normal. which could be used as a whip in a fight, i don't recall him using the term wideboy though, he told me they were called 'spivs', which interestingly has a negative connotation in australian slang where it is still widely used to describe people like used car dealers.
I always thought wideboy to be a 70's post-Minder term, as the next phase in post-war teen culture after his lot were called Teddy-boys.

 

[Salv]

The best source I could find for images of wideboys and spivs is the 1947 film of Graham Green's Brighton Rock which deals with a gang of spivs led by the psychotic Pinky Brown. Shot just after the war it would have used suits as close to the real thing as it was possible to get. There are several stills here which show that the suits weren't extravagant, but were standard mens suits, although they were probably better cut and in finer fabrics than was normally available. I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't have paid any attention to the rationing of fabric.

There was a book published a couple of years ago - An Underworld at War: Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers and Civilians in the Second World War - that I flicked through when I first saw it, and there are plenty of photos of spivs in action - I can't remember them wearing anything out of the ordinary.

The best known image of a wideboy/spiv though is Flash Harry in the St. Trinians films from the 1950s and '60s. The character was played by George Cole, who definitely wore a modified zoot suit - wide shoulders, long drape jacket with nipped in waist, wide chalkstripe fabric - with a trilby and a long overcoat. However, since these films were comedies, with the first being made 9 years after the end of the war, it's likely that WWII spivs didn't dress like that. The modified zoot would have most likely been worn by the post-war wideboys.

This ties in with something my mum once told me: my grandad was apparently a bit of a spiv and my mum once told me that him and his brother had pink suits and lime green suits made up after the war.

As for the music in WW2, I doubt that jazz and swing would have made much impression in a country where the three most popular singers were Vera Lynn, Gracie Fields and Anne Shelton. Music hall was still very popular, and the British forces may have been exposed to visiting US big bands, but jazz would have been a minority interest.

 

[nightandthecity]

The terms “spiv” and “wideboy” were still common currency when I was a boy in the 1950s. They referred to underworld characters and were very loose and overlapping categories. I suppose the core definition of “spiv” would be a flashily dressed character involved in the black market. A “wideboy” is vaguer, it refers to a dodgy character, a n’er do well, maybe involved in crime, maybe not, but definitely NOT involved in conventional work. I’ve always understood the term referred to the wide shoulders of their suits. “Corner boy” was another common term (from hanging about on street corners). But these weren’t clearly defined youth cults like the Teddy Boys.

There’s quite a big literature on the subject if you trawl around…..apart from the book Salv mentions I can recommend “Crime in wartime” by Edward Smithies, a pioneering study from 1982, and quite a few fascinating individual studies and personal memoirs have now been published too (hunt around Amazon. e.g.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gangland-Bo...15/ref=pd_sbs_b_5/026-6296922-0502042?ie=UTF8

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mad-Frank-M...74/ref=pd_sbs_b_2/026-6296922-0502042?ie=UTF8


There were also a couple of excellent oral history based TV series a few years ago “A history of the underworld” and “Forbidden Britain” - try Google, they may be available on DVD.

Like American gangsters the prevailing look was normal smart clothes but bigger brighter and bolder than straight society…wider shoulders, brighter stripes, more glaring colour contrasts. Another common look (like the later skinheads) was an exaggeration of conventional working class clothes - flat cap, collarless shirt, work boots, waistcoat etc, but all top quality and immaculate, often worn with a brightly coloured neckerchief or “dickler”. And if period imagery is to be believed, pencil thin moustaches were much favoured too - though probably a cliche. Here’s a few mages from my 1947 Dick Barton annual!

Re music: American jazz and later swing were actually very popular in Britain from the start. My dad discovered jazz as a boy in the 1920s and he wasn‘t unusual. 1930s and 40s British popular music was heavily jazz influenced. However, the serious hardcore jazz/R&B did tend to be associated with a degree of “outsiderness” or avant-garde tendencies, from middle-class artists and writers to working-class radicals and dissident youth. There was certainly an association between the underworld and first swing music and then R&B (it seems Louis Jordan was especially popular).

US Country music was also very popular among the British working class from the 1930s (it still is) and presumably must have had its followers in the underworld too, though it‘s jazz/swing/R&B that always seem to be mentioned.

 

[BellyTank]

.... Pvt. Walker from "Dad's Army"

He was a Spiv, innit. Or Wholesale trader.

I fink of Spivs as being very East End...

Double Breasted and a wide brim.

B
T

 

[ramblinBOB]

thanks guys this helps alot i saw some repo suits on line called wideboys just wanted to know thanks

 

[BellyTank]

Mad Frankie Fraser

When I was living and working in Walworth, South London, Mad Frankie Fraser was a local and a patron of the establishment I was working in. Talking to him and observing him, he just seemed like a nice, old South London geezer. You would never guess he'd spent 40+ years in prison, been certified insane 3 times, attempted to hang a Prison Warden and been a rival of the Krays- but then again, I guess you would if you lived in South London. He's somewhat of a celebrity and now does "London crime tours". He dresses well now too- must be in his mid 80s- maybe he's passed away by now...

I used to stop in for a pint or two at The Blind Beggar, after visting Peticoat Lane, Brick Lane and Silvermans in Mile End... ah... those were the days.

B
T

 

[Salv]

Frankie Fraser is still very much alive
http://www.madfrankiefraser.co.uk/frankiefraser.htm

 

[dr greg]

relevant

I suppose we should mention here the name of one of the Kray's unlucky associates, Jack "THE HAT" McVitie

 

[Salv]

I've ordered a copy of An Underworld At War from an Amazon UK seller - a bargain at £3.95 + postage - so I'll scan some photos when it arrives.

 

[BellyTank]

Frankie Fraser is still very much alive
http://www.madfrankiefraser.co.uk/frankiefraser.htm

Hi Salv- I saw his website. I haven't lived in London since 2000, he's getting on a bit. I was just wondering.

B
T

 

[nightandthecity]

thought I'd resurrect this thread just to mention that I have finally picked up a genuine wideboy suit.

It was bespoke made by a West End tailor and has CC41 utility labels despite breaking every utility rule re conserving material!

The jacket is of course DB. The shoulders are heavily padded and really wide - I'd say 2"-4" wider than normal for a 40s suit. Not only that but the chest is padded too! All this combines with the heavily nipped waist and tight bottom to give you a kind of Charles Atlas figure, rather like "the vulture" in the picture above but actually more extreme.

No pocket flaps, making access easier, and from the wear he obviously spent a lot of time with his hands in the jacket pockets, which I remember from my boyhood was always considered a sign of "bad attitude". One has the usual small inset ticket pocket, but it's much longer than usual....I might be letting my inagination run away with me, but its just the right length for a cut throat razor, the 40s gangsters weapon of choice!


As for the trousers, they have 24" bottoms!! That is they measure 12" across the turn up, as opposed to the period default of c.10". I don't think I have seen wider than 11" before. The actual effect when worn is of light flares.

The trousers also have double pleats and no rear pockets to spoil the outline.

The material is a powder blue lightweight summer gaberdine. Its actually quite tasteful, but would have stood out like a sore thumb among the usual period suit colours - greys, dark blues, blacks and browns.


I'll be wearing it to a gig this weekend and I'll try and get someone to take some photos.

 

[H.Johnson]

There was a suit very much like that for sale at Malvern yesterday...