While I had occasionally listened to transistor radio in the pre-teen years which played rock music mostly from American singers or bands such as the Four Seasons and Elvis Presley and Dion and the Belmonts and more (acts that my older brother liked), it was the Beatles and the so-called ‘British Invasion’ beginning in 1964 that hooked me to rock music (same with all my friends and classmates). Yes, the American acts continued to make hit songs, but it was the Brit bands and singers that ‘owned’ rock radio stations and record sales starting in 1964.
It was around this time I created what would become my novel characters, boys and girls, teens, in a high school clique which evolved into a gang of sorts. At this time the characters were Americans; after all, I knew little about England, so how could these ‘kids’ be English? I watched movies set in what was 1950s and 1960s England (mostly London), but still… However, reading pop culture ‘fan’ magazines, including one from England I don’t remember the name of, helped me learn what being a teen in England was like (living in cities, not the rural areas…I myself lived near New York City, in the Long Island suburbs). Also, during the latter 60s England was going through economic turmoil, possibly joining what was called ‘the Common Market’ (consisting of France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg), and changing the currency somewhat (the value of the British Pound Sterling had been over five dollars per pound, but it devalued to about half of that over time as the US dollar gained value). Further, a politician named Enoch Powell was heading up a form of nationalism that wanted to end or curtail immigration from India and Pakistan (and his followers were called ‘Paki Bashers’). All this during the US incursion into the Vietnam War, which I hated! (I hate war, period!) This terrible war was another reason I decided to make my characters Brits-while the US was at war, Britain was not—and many songs from these Brit bands were antiwar.
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