"In early '79 I was already engaged in what eventually turned out to be a length
y photographic study of the New Romantics (though back then they were not known
as such). I'd been documenting this nascent scene in the Soho nightclub 'Billy's
' and, one evening, a group of about half-a-dozen skinheads turned up. They saw
me taking photographs and one of them, a guy called Wally, asked me if I'd like
to take some photos of them too.
They seemed pretty friendly and not at all c
amera shy. I took a few snaps, we got talking and Wally suggested I go with the
whole gang on one of their Bank Holiday jaunts to the seaside. That was what led
, eventually, to five years of photographing skinheads.
In those five years I
got to know some of the skinheads quite well and liked many of them." Derek Rid
gers All the photos were taken between 1979 - 1984 in either London or nearby co
astal towns. Over 100 photos including 32 pages of colour.
