Skinhead

by Richard Allen

AGGRO - That's what Joe Hawkins and his mates were looking for, with their shaven heads, big boots and braces. Football matches, pub brawls, open-air pop concerts, hippies and Hell's Angels all gave them chances to vent their sadistic violence. SKINHEAD is a story straight from today's headlines - portraying with horrifying vividness all the terror and brutality that has become the trademark of these vicious teenage malcontents.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, 20th Century, Pulp, Cult Classics

128 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1970

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

'Richard Allen' is the name on the front cover of the million-selling Skinhead books. The name was thought of by the editors at the London publishing firm New English Library and given by them to Jim Moffatt, one of a number of hack writers who churned out their books to order.

Born of Irish extraction, Jim Moffatt went to Britain and learnt his trade writing up to six stories a week (thrillers, spies, Westerns) for pulp fiction magazines. He moved on to writing books, and by the mid-seventies reckoned he had produced 250 in the previous 20 years, at a rate of 10,000 words a day when deadlines were approaching. Meanwhile, the managing director of the ailing New English Library imprint was desperate to make inroads into a new audience of younger readers; his editorial board came up with the idea of commissioning a novel set in the emerging skinhead subculture. In six days Moffatt wrote Skinhead. The book was an immediate hit, and many of its youthful readers were convinced that the author was a real hooligan, not a 55-year-old Canadian who always wore a jacket and tie and whose lurid tales of sex and street violence were written from the same seafront cottage in Sidmouth in which he also penned a column for the local paper. Soon after Skinhead Farewell Moffatt's real-life relationship with NEL came to an end.

Moffatt died of cancer in the early nineties, just at the time when the skinhead style was coming back into fashion.

Reviews

[Karl Wiggins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I truly can’t work out whether this book is a cult classic or a comedy, and I’m going to have to place some spoilers in here to demonstrate, so there’s a warning for anybody who didn’t first read Richard Allen’s ‘Skinhead’ 40-odd years ago.

So what have we got? Joe Hawkins, an East End skinhead whose life is ruled by violence, and we certainly read a lot about his reputation and anyone “unfortunate enough to get in his way.” In just the first few pages there’s the suggestion that Roy Hawkins, Joe’s father, gets Joe to sort out a docklands trade union leader who’s got it in for Roy. “I wouldn’t annoy Roy unless you want to meet up with his son, Joe ….. I wouldn’t annoy Joe Hawkins. Not ever!”

Ed Black has apparently taken care of himself in some weird corners of the globe and he hardly goes anywhere without four of his special cronies who act as bodyguards and who he can count on to protect him, yet “the mention of Joe Hawkins sends a shiver of fear down his spine.”

Gosh! Well Joe Hawkins must certainly be a hard-nut if just the mention of his name can strike fear into such a man. I found myself in a cold sweat over the idea of just turning the page, but felt obligated to brave it, praying that simply reading the book wouldn’t agitate this fictional character. Can East End skinhead, Joe Hawkins, really be this tough?

Er, well, not really, I’m afraid. We meet Joe on Saturday and follow him to the pub where admittedly he makes two huge black men back down because they’d heard about his reputation. What reputation? Unless I’m missing some kind of hidden message here, it seems to me that he’s got a reputation for getting a spanking in just about every scrap he gets into.

First of all him and his mates pick on a guy on the District Line. This fellow’s outnumbered and they’re tooled up but he fights back, withstanding everything they’ve got and still fighting back. All in all it’s a bit of an embarrassment for Joe.

West Ham are playing away at Stamford Bridge, and Joe and his mates - believing in their own ‘reputation’ it seems - get into the Shed End and kick off. Now it’s their turn to be outnumbered, but I’m sorry to say they don’t give such a good account of themselves as the guy on the train. Joe gets stabbed and a jagged broken bottle is pushed into his face with savage force.

Now say what you like, but that would be enough for me. I’d be off home to nurse my wounds. But Joe’s not finished getting beaten up yet. Back to the pub to find it full of dockers and other assorted heavies, men who weren’t going to back down to anyone “not even with Joe Hawkins’ reputation.” And they certainly don’t. Joe and his mates kick off and – yes, you guessed it - get punched all around the pub, kicked all over the floor and he ends up with three darts in his backside.

I shouldn’t think that the docklands trade union leader’s got much to worry about, would you? So far, on the first day we meet him Joe’s been punched, stabbed, bottled, kicked all round a pub and ended up with three darts sticking out of his backside! Not a great day for anyone of his ‘reputation.’

Sunday is the day of rest, so Joe and his mates take a vacation from being beaten up in order to head down to Brighton and bash up some Hippies and rape their girlfriend. They only ever seem to win against soft targets, you see, those who won’t fight back. It’s just that not being born too bright and completely lacking in those special survival skills common to most kids brought up on the streets, they seem to always take the ill-advised option of picking on the wrong people.

A case in hand would be the church youth club they attack on Monday night. Joe managed to not get beaten up at all on Sunday, and also for most of Monday, so the church youth club provides a target for him to re-establish his much-valued reputation. Him and his mates stroll in the door, pushing people about, grabbing hold of girls and getting into a fight with one lad who doesn’t like bullies and decides to stand up for himself. He absolutely thrashes Joe, landing several punches to the face – which must surely have opened fresh wounds from Saturday’s bottling – and only stopping when a police offer saves Joe any further distress.

So in the last 48 hours Joe Hawkins – he of the fearsome reputation – has been stabbed, bottled, kicked all round a pub by Dockers, had three darts stuck in his bum and he’s now been knocked about by choirboy.

Hahahahahaha

The copper, no doubt fearing he’s the only person in the whole of East London who hasn’t taken a pop at Joe in the last two days, chops him in the throat for good measure. Joe finishes the night he’d hoped to re-establish his reputation as the most fearsome street fighter in East London by puking his guts up on the pavement outside a church.

You’d think that would be enough for Joe, wouldn’t you? I mean, he can’t even beat up a choirboy!

Have you ever met one of those people, always bigging themselves up, who get into a fight every Saturday night, but who never win? They get a spanking from a different person every Saturday night! Well that’s Joe Hawkins, and by this time I couldn’t wait to read on. Who was going to knock him about next? Was he going to target a lunch club for Age UK, and were a couple of old ladies going to hammer him over the tea and biscuits?

Well Joe’s a coalman and he’s always threatening the pensioners he delivers to after he’s altered the bill in his favour. Somehow news of this never gets back to the coal board, but that’s just one of several inconsistencies in the story. Anyway, much as I’d like to report that a pensioner kicks him all around his front yard, it’s an old couple’s son who Joe comes up against, on leave from the Army. He’s trained in unarmed combat and when Joe aims a kick at him he finds himself on his back in a pile of coal after receiving a punch to the jaw, a chop to the throat – possibly in exactly the same place as the copper chopped him the night before – and a kick in the balls.

I’d give it up, Joe, if I were you. Let’s face it; it’s just not your week mate, is it?

But this soldier’s made Joe feel inferior. Personally I’d have thought that taking a battering from a lad in a church youth club would have made him feel inferior, but then what do I know?

East London is famous for producing hardened street fighting men, but when all’s said and done Joe Hawkins isn’t one of them. He does get revenge on the soldier, but he does it in the dark, without warning and with a gang of about 15 skinheads all armed with bottles, iron bars and an assortment of other weapons.

So although Joe is reputed to have a ‘fearsome reputation’ we’re hardly likely to see him standing toe-to-toe ‘on the cobbles’ taking on Gypsy bare-knuckle fighters in a fair scrap, which traditionally is how East London brawlers earned their reputation.

There’s trouble in a youth club in Ilford, a lad gets shot, and Joe’s involved. When the police come around to talk to him Roy Hawkins is so fed up with his antics that he takes his son upstairs and punches him all around his bedroom. OUCH! Joe’s face, after his disaster of a week must be absolutely black and blue from being punched all over a pub by dockers, punched all around a youth club by a choirboy and being bottled in the face by Chelsea supporters. Not to mention a few cracked ribs at least.

As his dad lays into him, no doubt opening fresh wounds, bruising his already-bruised face even darker shades of black, blue and purple, he must have found himself thinking, “Wasn’t there somewhere else I should have been this week?”

There are a plethora of inconsistencies in the book. We’re told that his idea of a slap-up meal consists of chips with everything, and a couple of pages later he orders steak with boiled potatoes. He comes up against a Hell’s Angel in a leather jacket. Since when did Hell’s Angels wear leather? I thought it was part of their ethos never to wear leather. He goes to a pop concert. A skinhead going to listen to bubblegum pop! Skinheads listened to early reggae, blue beat, rock-steady and ska, not pop. And finally on the way to the concert he feels safe from the law because “his was a face that did not conflict with those around him.”

WHAT!

After all the hammerings he’s taken that week (from dockers, choirboys, his dad and Chelsea supporters) he must looked like he’s just done 12 rounds with Mike Tyson, been run over by a concrete wagon and had a bear chew on his head for a while. Hardly a face to blend in!

All in all, this book is a load of tosh and not the paperback-nasty I remember from my youth. I can’t realistically offer it any more than two stars.

Mind you, I’m still a little nervous of Joe Hawkins. Supposing I got into a fight with him on a Saturday night and by some miraculous feat he beat me!!! Can you imagine how embarrassing that would be? I’d never live it down!

[None Ofyourbusiness Loves Israel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intensely disturbing novel that chronicles the life of Joe Hawkins, a young man deeply embedded in the violent and hate-filled skinhead subculture of 1970s Britain. The book paints a grim and revolting picture of Joe's world, filled with senseless aggression and a disturbing lack of empathy. As the leader of a gang, Joe engages in brutal acts against those he perceives as different or inferior, including immigrants and other marginalized groups. The narrative does not shy away from depicting the raw and often grotesque reality of their existence, making it a challenging read for anyone with a conscience.

In one of many particularly harrowing scenes, Joe and his gang corner a young immigrant in an alley. The tension is palpable as they taunt and intimidate him, their words dripping with hatred. Without warning, Joe lashes out, his fists connecting with brutal force. The gang follows suit, their violence escalating in a frenzy of kicks and punches. The immigrant's cries for mercy are drowned out by the gang's jeers, their faces twisted in cruel delight. Allen aptly and starkly captures the senseless brutality and deep-seated bigotry that define Joe's existence.

The values depicted in Skinhead are profoundly troubling. Joe Hawkins and his gang embody the worst aspects of human nature, reveling in violence and chaos. Their disdain for anyone different from themselves is portrayed with a starkness that is both shocking and repulsive. The story explores Joe's interactions with his gang members and the various conflicts they provoke, both with rival groups and the authorities. Throughout the novel, Joe's actions become increasingly reckless and destructive, highlighting the toxic environment that fuels his behavior.

Moreover, the skinheads' treatment of women, even those they claim to "like," is equally appalling. Women are often objectified and subjected to degrading treatment, reflecting the pervasive misogyny within the subculture. This further amplifies the sense of disgust for the deplorable actions depicted in the novel. These so called humans have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Reading Skinhead leaves one with a sense of revulsion and a deep abhorrence for anything these despicable individuals stand for. The novel is a stark exploration of an absolute garbage subculture that thrives on violence and intolerance, offering a powerful commentary on the dangers of unchecked racism, anger, terror and hatred. It forces us to confront the darkest aspects of human behavior, making it a powerful, albeit disturbing, commentary on the consequences of living a life driven by bigotry and aggression.

[Tony · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like so many others here, I read this when I was ridiculously young. It was passed around, already dog-eared when I got it, with the promise of the sort of delights which... well, delight a growing boy. A very young, growing boy.

It most certainly hasn’t stood the test of time, and thankfully we’ve all become it little more tolerant and understanding of our fellow man (well, with the notable exception of skin heads), and to be perfectly honest, reading this again made me feel ill.

Should have stayed in the past.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was intrigued to read this slice of 70s life in Londons East End. This was quite the hit back in the day but largely forgotten today. The book was crude, and it's obviously dated. But an interesting read nonetheless.

The story centres on Skinhead gang leader Joe Hawkins, who is an odious psychopath. Never mind his working class upbringing and his rough and ready environment, Joe is simply born bad.

His and his gangs exploits do make for compelling reading though. Even though I am usually rooting for Joe's enemies. Well worth a read.

[Rory Irvine-Alyward · Rating 1 out of 5]

For my entire childhood, I had rarely been aware of how I was perceived racially. Growing up with a Pakistani Irish father whose identity was determined by Motorbikes rather than ethnicity, his and other brown skin was more or less a mundanity for me. Besides some direct racist remarks made about him at school, I never noticed any reaction to my dad's race in the few conversations I’d had about it at that age. Any kind of question I got as a child like ‘Where are you from?’, was responded to instinctively and truthfully with ‘Great Yarmouth.' French, Italian, Spanish, Australian, NZ, Cypriot, American, Arab, and Greek are all identities I can recall being falsely recognised within. Individually they mean nothing more than a funny misunderstanding. But as I’ve grown up, a pattern has emerged. Ultimately, I face no systemic disadvantage and am undeniabaly white European passing. But my skin tone seems to create a grey area; a spatially determined question mark; a subtle différance that creates a chasm between how I perceive myself and how others perceive me.

I recently attended a local live music weekender, celebrating and attended by mods, punks, Skinheads, rudeboys/rudegirls and northern soul enthusiasts. Because we are amongst the handful of younger people at these events, my fiancé and I draw a lot of attention from the older members of these communities. Praising our appreciation of the music, dancing and fashion, they ultimately vindicate and inaugurate our existence into their spaces. What struck me at this particular event though, was the response I had from white skinheads. Unlike the mods we usually interact with, a good portion of my interactions included ‘where are you from/ you're English? Really?/ hah! we all thought you were foreign!’ etc. It’s the ambiguous ‘foreignness’ in which my skin tone was received that was the essence of these interactions. So, whilst celebrating the culture I feel most connected to, the music communities of 60s-80s Britain, I found my ‘British’ identity questioned by others more than ever before. Truth be told, I should’ve responded; ‘you don’t get more British than me, a father from two ex-colonies and a quant little Englander for a mother.’ These interactions have ultimately raised the question of what exactly is indicated when multiple skinheads address you as a foreigner in your home town, because of your skin tone.

To answer this we have to dust of the played-out question; were British skinheads racist? Short answer - not always. A smarter answer is given by Daniel Rachel: Skinhead racism was ‘determined not by the colour of one’s skin but by degrees of cultural differences; where black people were often tolerated, Pakistanis were singled out’ (TMTY, 2023: 36). Habitual ‘p*ki-bashing’ was indisputably widespread within the culture - from the idealised 60s era through to the bonehead breed of 80s Oi! The culture's history of racism is undeniable - yet its nuance is muddied by partisan apologia, reactionary international perception and sensationalist media. The most influential example of the latter is undoubtably this novel.

Although merely a cheap pulp novel made to profit from the shock of mild-mannered readers, Skinhead birthed an archetype for young skinheads to aspire to; modelling themselves on the protagonist Joe. Similarly to Quadrophenia's Jimmy who became the hero of the 80s mod revivalists, Joe was not simply a character in a cult novel but became the model that young skinheads aspired to replicate. However, where Jimmy follows an arc and is a complex reflection of post-war Britain whose flaws are attributed to his social conditions and inability to reconcile personal and social change, Joe has one static trait - ‘his appetite for brutality.’
The narrator does nothing but justify this brutality; framing his victims as lascivious women, tax-draining students and hippies or culturally impure people of colour. What is produced is not an honest attempt at social realism, but a novel aimed to strike fear within pearl clutches. But more importantly, it inadvertently produced a hero whose racist and misogynistic violence is both biologically natural and morally just in the protection of white Britain against parasitic invaders. Skins replicating Joe were then armed with an ideological justification - their violence was now a crusade.
The novel ultimately has no redeeming qualities. I expected an interesting artefact of pulp fiction but what I found was a book designed to exploit the fears of a subculture that in turn, provided a mythological justification for its ugliest characteristics. This is England is the obvious but best choice if you want an honest attempt at social realism in regards to skinheads.
Of course, skinheads who still model themselves around Joe are few and far between now, with the skinhead community in Britain being mostly middle-aged people who see themselves on the whole as 'racially colour-blind'. But there still seems to be an undercurrent suspicion of cultural differences that is unique to the community. Hence their disproportionate interest in my heritage. I suppose what is indicated when multiple skinheads address you as a foreigner in your home town is the inherent contradiction of the subculture - whilst celebrating British identity as a hybrid category (i.e Caribbean Brits cultural interactions with White working-class Brits), there remains a white British identity that must be protected against cultural others. A contradiction that writes the tragic failure of the subculture; a militant working class hybrid culture with the potential for anti-racist and progressive collectivisation, instead mobilised majoritively by the white nationalist far right.

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty appalling, but consistently entertaining

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah, this is one of those books that are "classics" because of WHEN they were written more than how they written. It came out at a time when the subculture was begging for any kind of acknowledgment by the world around it. Sort of like the Quincy punk episode, which is also a classic because it exists, not because it's amazingly good.
Ironically you can feel the relish the writer writes about sex and violence the same activities he piously decries. You get the feeling that given the opportunity he'd be worse than what he feels the skinheads are. His cries for law and order are nothing more than a plea for his own side to be the one putting the boot in. His feigned horror at perceived anti-Paki racism from the skinheads also gets undercut by a lengthy screed of his own that is pure out and out anti-Semitism.
If you realize you shouldn't take it seriously, and are old enough to know why it was relevant, it's a humorous read.
If you're a kid wanting to learn about "what it was like" take a hard pass.

[John Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pulp fiction 1970 at the height of the skinhead movement. Reprinted 1992, when there was a skinhead revival and tatty copies of this and other Allen volumes in the skinhead series were fetching big bucks..

The book centres around the brutal and brutish anti-hero, Joe Hawkins, a fifteen year old leader of a skinhead gang in the east end of London, an area of grime and decay which is dying on its feet. Joe has absorbed all the resentment around him towards a system which no longer seems interested in the white working class. Instead, the “outsider” is preferred and benefited at its expense. Joe and his mates single them out for their own special treatment. Written in the vernacular of the east end before the advent of political correctness.

The book is of its time. It is shocking in its directness. I suspect the shock is greater today than it was back then. Written around the time the film of Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange was being made

[Ben Hall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really shit, but an interesting look at the opinions of the 1970s. Kind of Russell Crowe’s Fighting Round the World, but with added racism.

[Bieiris · Rating 1 out of 5]

De tan malo que es inspira ternura.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like A Clockwork Orange minus any artistic or literary merit.

[Terry Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book first came out in 1970, the first and most well-known of a series of cult novels by Richard Allen. I went to a fairly rough school from 1970-1972, where the (scary) skinhead girls of the 3rd and 4th years would lend it to we 12-year-old babies. It got passed round the whole class, and I remember it used to fall open at Chapter 8, the dirty bit. When I spotted the new digital version during an Amazon browse, I had to buy it to see how it had stood the test of time, and if it was as bad as people said it was, even then.

Briefly: A couple of weeks in the life of Joe Hawkins, the 16-year-old leader of a skinhead gang from Plaistow, East London.

Violence - tick
Sexual content - tick
Nudity - tick
Bad language - tick
Racism - tick
Sexual violence - tick

It's hard to give this a star rating as there are so many elements to take into consideration. As a piece of pop culture history, it's a gem. The characterisation is pretty good, and it certainly kept me turning the pages. Now and again clever insights are succinctly delivered, and the atmosphere of the time - the post 1960s, pre-decimalisation years, when the East End no longer ruled, is so well illustrated I almost felt nostalgic for a time and place about which I know little. A soldier, Jack Piper, who falls foul of Hawkins' bovver boots, talks about the fate of his working class parents in the dreariest part of London in a way that is quite heartbreaking. The attitudes of the older working classes, particularly the police, to the new liberalism of the 1970s is, I daresay, spot on.

...but then there's the exposition, the bad punctuation (the proofreader from the New English Library, its first publisher, must have thought that a semicolon is a random alternative for a comma, whenever you feel like it), the exclamation marks, the lazy grammar... and, in places, lack of research/realism. 'Richard Allen' (pen name) was nearly 50 when this was written, and it's clear he doesn't know what the effects of 'pot' are, or even that it wasn't called that by anyone other than newspaper reporters. He appears to think that all hippies, or 'hairies' (haven't heard that word since 1972!) are unemployed and indulge in regular orgies. Joe Hawkins and his band of thugs never use the 'f' word, and call people things like 'stupid idiots', though the 'c' word does appear once or twice.

It's really quite a horrible book, depressing and nasty, from Joe himself (who, Allen makes clear, is not the victim of social deprivation or an abusive childhood, but was born a psychopath), to the way women are portrayed (old bags or total slags), to the way in which the older people worry about the lack of control over the new breed of thugs. Yet I kept turning the pages. Go figure, as they say.

Oh, and by the way, the Chapter 8 'dirty bit' is no stronger than anything you might read in one of today's mainstream 'steamy' romances. In an age when you see more explicit stuff in network TV dramas than would have been included in under-the-counter soft porn in Joe Hawkins' day, it is quite tame.

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very dated novel that was probably interesting in the 1970's but not now.
I can see that the younger generation might find it more appealing.
It was an attractive read when I was a young boy growing up learning about life but certainly not the sort of novel I would read these days. More suited to a teenager than someone my age,

[A gin and orange, a lemon squash, and a scotch and water, please! · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not much to say really. Read it when I was fourteen, thought Joe Hawkins (the protagonist) was a twat and an idiot, read it when I was in college, thought he was a total prat, had a look through it a few years back and thought what a shit book. Nothing in its favour but the writers imagination, and that's debateable.
Avoid.

[John Treanor · Rating 2 out of 5]

As other have said, it's a fairly shallow exploitation book. Still offers a little peek into a different subculture, without exploring it much, giving it context, and focused mainly on one particular element of the subculture. Lots of moralizing, too, haha.

[Ian Coutts · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really want to give it both one star and five stars. Hugely influential novel by the best-selling Canadian novelist no Canadian has ever heard of.

[Barry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Significant content warnings: Sexual violence, racism

Well that was garbage.

I mean, I kind of expected it to be garbage, but having recently discovered the pulpy novels of the 1970's and being somewhat allured to their trashy nature I wanted to pick some up. In many respects there is no excuse because I knew this book was filled with racism, misogyny and violence before I went in but this book in particular had a certain degree of notoriety.

Indeed, years ago I discovered a song by the anti-fascist Oi band 'The Oppressed' called 'Joe Hawkins' and had no idea who he was until I heard about this book. In the early 70's this book sold hundreds of thousands I believe and has been described as 'speaking to a generation'. Skinheads of the time were convinced that Richard Allen was a skin who 'understood' and not a hack churning out garbage at a monstrous rate.

So there isn't much of a story. Joe Hawkins is a 16 year old skinhead who basically gets pissed, shags around and viciously attacks people indiscriminately. In some ways the novel is clever because it's writing 'for the kids' but also writing for the adults to be absolutely terrified of youth subcultures going wild - a treatment of young people continually replicated every generation.

There is explicit random violence both against racial minorities, strong racialised content, explicit sexual violence and sex with teenagers under 16 and frequent indiscriminate violence throughout.

Hawkins as the lead may have been an anti-hero to his readers but he is absolutely devoid of depth, motivation, empathy or ANYTHING that makes the reader understand. The book is exceptionally naïve about Hawkins getting caught - sure there was youth subculture violence but there are several attempted murders and publicly witnessed rapes and the protagonists are a teenage skinhead gang - we're led to believe that every one is so badly beaten or scared there is never a witness even when it's known skinheads are responsible and one can directly link Joe and his gang to the scene. It's a load of bollocks.

Throughout the 70's and 80's reactionary cultures like right wing boneheads (not skins!) are justified as 'working class people left behind'. There is a certain irony that those people are now in their 50's and 60's and part of the right wing working class 'Brexit' 'anti-woke' brigade who feel they have 'been left behind'. Mad really as they are the generation who had the most post-war really compared to their children and grandchildren. This is the thread that runs through the book, but Hawkins hasn't been 'left behind' - he's in a home with an income, he works, he has access to money and resources and leisure. He isn't a victim, he's just a dickhead.

I've seen a lot of commentary that Allen stopped writing the books (a decade later it has to be said) because he and his character didn't wish to be associated with the National Front. Having read the book, I think this, and defences like 'Hawkins is a patriot, not a fascist' wear thin. He may not explicitly support the far right, but his attitudes to race, street violence, women, other cultures, the role of the state (particularly around unions and the welfare state) explicitly mirror the forces of reactionary conservatism. And what pissed me off most about the book isn't Joe Hawkins viewpoints which I accept as his character but seemingly every other character from doctors, to workers, to police officers virtually all mirror this agenda, particularly around the welfare state, unions, capital punishment. It's like there is a character who EXEMPLIFIES extreme selfishness, me-first, bigotry and dictatorship leadership - and the response of society for all the characters Allen writes is we need less social support, less community and MORE extremes of state authoritarianism. It's frankly bollocks.

I also wonder, considering how in later books Allen seemingly invents or subverts youth cultures how mass market and popular media that sensationalist garbage like this shapes and creates - like books like this that have somehow reached a mythological status within some communities acted as a blueprint, rather than a reflection of 'skinhead' behaviour.

It's a mercifully quick read. I did buy the second and third books at the same time but I may park them because this is meant to be the 'best' one. I read it because I was curious but gosh it's bad....

[Bernard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Readable, compelling in its own way, whilst acknowledging that it is also somewhat episodic, and not always well written.

The first in a series of Skinhead books, we are introduced to Joe Hawkins and his mates - thugs who are full of hate - their biggest targets of course being immigrants, rival football fans, and being a 1970 publication, hippies, or 'hairies' as they are sometimes called.

The chapters show a series of events with Joe and his goons looking for trouble on trains, pubs, at the seaside, and at Christian-like social events. Joe's body takes a lot of beatings but only the next day he is ready for more action.

And that's mostly it for the book; few likable characters are to be found. One does come close - an army guy at home on leave. An attempt by Joe to scam the soldier's parents goes wrong - and Joe cops it bad from the soldier. Down, but not out, Joe plans a revenge attack on him the next day.
But the following attack is not the real beginning of the end for Joe. An attack on a policeman is where he went too far, and the law finally comes down on him.

As said before, few likable people are in the book. The barmaids are little more than sex objects with a lust for skinheads, what they see in such people only they could know. The author I think aimed for shock value and sensationalism, that's what he was paid for and he mostly delivered.
He couldn't hide his distaste for the people he was writing about though, and from time to time would wander from the story and give some opinions about the state of the nation and some of the parasites (his term) living off the welfare state - I don't think he liked hippies any more than the skinheads did. He was something of a right-wing conservative who would most likely have been viewed as a fuddy duddy to the skinheads he wrote about.

Needless to say, the book isn't politically correct on many issues and will offend the easily offended. One sex scene made me wince, not because of some explicitness reason, but for another reason I won't mention just for now. The book is more gritty, explicit and in your face with things, than SUEDEHEAD, the book that followed. There the author toned down things a bit with his writing style.

Overall, worth a read for curiosity's sake, but I don't know if I'll read too many more books in the series -if only because they would seem repetitious after a while. There's only so much plot or story an author can come up with regarding these characters.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

My readings on the right have brought me to this underground cult classic. It is part of the “youthsploitation” wave of pulp novels of the era, where cheap publishers rushed out material on the range of youth subcultures then making the news. Many of them were written by a middle-aged alcoholic Canadian hack named James Moffat, who wrote under numerous psuedonyms, including Richard Allen. As Allen, he wrote a dozen-odd skinhead novels that became quite popular within the subculture and became both passed-around artifacts and subjects of artistic parody.

No one has ever accused skinheads of being the most sensitive readers, and part of me is a little surprised they took to these books the way they did, given the undisguised contempt the author has for the subculture. For Moffat/Allen, skinheads were a symptom of modern culture gone awry, barbarians at the gates of a civilization too weak (due to egalitarianism and the welfare state) to fend them off. At the same time, he has a sickly fascination with the virility and violence of Joe Hawkins, his skinhead main character. Joe is something of an East End ubermensch, who takes what he pleases, be it blood, money, or sex, with violence and cunning. He does lose a fight or two but always gets revenge. One can see how the character would appeal to a certain type of young man.

This book was published in 1970, relatively early in the career of the skinhead subculture. As such, the politics involved were much more muted. Joe and his friends are racist and hate hippies and radicals, to be sure, but they care about beating up black people and Asians about as much as they care about beating up rival soccer fans. Moffat/Allen doesn’t seem to really make the connection between his preferred social order, where men are real men, hierarchy is gladly accepted, and Britain is great again, and the sickly fascination he has for Joe’s violence against shared enemies, but others would, and I wonder if the author does in later books.

Moffat/Allen clearly had some pulp writing chops and the novel zips right along. I don’t think I encountered a single sentence where the only verb was a variation of “to be,” a good sign for pulp. But there’s two major problems here that prevent me from recommending it as (highly, highly “problematic”) fun. The first is the author’s ideological hectoring. No one was (is, afaict) as attached to orderliness and The Rules as the Anglo-Canadian pedant, and Moffat/Allen makes sure to point out for every bad thing happening (which he leers and drools over), there is a social welfare policy encouraging it. This attachment to order, presumably, is what prevented him from seeing the Joe Hawkinses of the world as allies, as later far-right nerds would. More importantly, there basically isn’t a plot. The book begins with a depiction of Joe’s father and his corrupt docklands milieu, where faux-radicalism and pilfering go hand in hand and dock leaders plan strikes for malicious reasons. I thought that it would end with the skinheads attacking strikers. That would have been interesting and have dramatic unity, but no. Instead, Joe just does a bunch of crimes and gets away with them, the end. I guess that’s all you need for “youthsploitation,” but I prefer my voyeurism to at least have the decency of a plot. This is an interesting literary artifact but that’s about it. **’

[Michelle Skelton · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Skinhead" by Richard Allen is often touted as a countercultural cult classic, representing the violent and rebellious skinhead subculture of 1970s London. However, despite its provocative reputation, the book falls short in delivering the depth and insight expected from such a work.

The protagonist (antagonist?), Joe Hawkins, is more a caricature of a psychopath than a nuanced anti-hero. The narrative is a relentless series of violent encounters, interspersed with drinking and poorly written sex scenes. Female characters are stripped of agency, with disturbing and unrealistic depictions of sexual violence, such as a rape victim expressing indifference to the act itself.

Unlike other cult classics that offer profound explorations of their characters and settings, such as "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac or "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess, "Skinhead" provides little context or analysis. It presents a monotonous laundry list of brutality without delving into the motivations or societal factors driving the behavior.

What truly diminishes the impact of "Skinhead" is its subpar writing. The book's sensational content might have garnered attention, but its execution feels juvenile and lacks literary sophistication. Compared to the layered storytelling and thought-provoking themes in classics like "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller or "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson, "Skinhead" offers little beyond shock value.

While "Skinhead" might have captured the imagination of some readers in its time, its legacy is hard to justify given its shallow portrayal and lack of substance. For those expecting a cult classic that challenges and engages, this book disappoints on multiple fronts.

[Menno Pot · Rating 2 out of 5]

A 1970 cult/pulp novel about U.K. skinhead culture, violent like A Clockwork Orange: right up my alley, I thought. I can't even say I found it disappointing. It wasn't. It was... intriguing.

But GOOD...? No.

It's very dated stylistically, but that's fine: it's from 1970 and it's *about* 1970, so it being 'dated' is not necessarily problematic. More problematic is that it's very one dimensional. All the women want sex with bad boys - and have nothing else to say than that. Every bored housewife wants to get shagged by the coal delivery men. All skinheads are dumb and looking for aggro 24/7. All hippies are work shy and waiting for their unemployment benefit. The main character, Joe Hawkins, is violent - and there's not much more to him than that. The characters remain flat, sometimes bordering on comedy.

We don't really read much about skinhead culture at all. What we do read is a simple story full of violent and casual sex, interspersed with very odd moralistic passages from the author (as if he's thinking: 'and now it's time for my opinion!').

Let's keep it at this: glad to have read this classic pulp novel. It was 'interesting'. I might actually read the follow-up, Suedehead, at some point in the future, just to see what happens to young Joe in the next phase of his life (so Skinhead must have entertained me in some way).

[Jas Gra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skinhead by Richard Allen is a 1970s pulp novel that i first read in my early teens in the '80s. Its a violent and gritty look at the subculture of British skinheads.

Fast-paced, filled with graphic depictions of violence , racism, sexual assault and gang culture.
Difficult to recommend and mainly reread for nostalgic reasons. Glad I revisited it but won't be doing it again for another long period.

[Keiron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very much a product of its time language and setting wise- often promoting the violent side of the subculture, it's highly doubtful it'd get a repress these days. Suedehead is the far better title in my book. If you must read these, get the ST Publishing books, which includes 3 of NEL titles and ongoing "adventures" of Mr Hawkin's world of sex, violence and racism.

[Chris Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read,
an honest look into the skinhead mindset,
I would not say in a pro way even,
more like looking at the world from Alex's,
of Clockwork Orange,
but with a real sociological prospective,
unemployment and poverty,
create hate, blame and sadly ignorance.
This classic is still very relevant to the modern world of Trumpism.

[Phil Altimas · Rating 3 out of 5]

its a book of its time and when you read it you have to accept that
its the story of a lad who has taken on the culture of the skin head and all that goes with it
there is violence , racism etc but i found it a good read but quite short

[Richard Gilbertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short book, not a lot to it but an interesting read as a social commentary on how going soft on criminals is a bad idea. Amazing that after 50 years we still haven’t learned that. Thanks liberals

[kevin taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A blast from the past!

[Scarlett O.H. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Truly nasty book filled with nasty people and the writer’s nasty opinion full of prejudices and discrimination shinning true. Horrible.

[Jason Motz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Even by pulp standards, this is just terrible. So how did this, THIS, become a cult classic? Shite.

[Telhayestalktalk.Net · Rating 1 out of 5]

Crap