July 22, 1964 - Many British girls have snipped off their hair during the hot weather, and a larger number of young men have let theirs grow and grow.
The most commonly seen teenage hairdo in London is marked by a thick Beatle fringe over the forehead, long sideburns, and a shaggy shingle effect in the back.
More startling are the shoulder-length hairdos worn by other young men and their girlfriends. The girl’s hair is invariably cleaner, but not necessarily neater.
Grownups in Britain — not prone to panic even if an increasing number of their male offspring are looking like Henry VIII — have shown mixed reactions. Some smile wanly and blame the influence of popular singers such as the Beatles (the best groomed), the Rolling Stones, the Pretty Things, the Animals, the Kinks, the Dave Clark Five, and the Daisies.
Britain is still a nation where an individual’s eccentricities are considered his own business. In fact, one of Britain’s most respected and experienced psychoanalysts, who works mainly with delinquent children, sees nothing sinister or fearful in young men’s letting their hair grow.
Dr. Derek Miller, psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic Adolescent Unit in London, pointed out that long hair used to be customary among upper-class Englishmen. He does not find it unusual that this tendency has filtered down through England’s middle and working classes.
“Boys with long hair have simply chosen a way to be different, to stand out,” he said. “One other way for an adolescent to be different is to be a delinquent.”
The psychiatrist said he preferred long hair and did not equate it with violent or anti-social behavior.
Some others are less tolerant of the craze. Mick Jagger, lead singer for the Rolling Stones, said: “They seem to have a sort of personal anxiety because we’re getting away with something they never dared to do. It’s a sexual, personal, vain thing. They’ve always been taught that being masculine means looking clean, cropped, and ugly.”
Reports of confrontations between teachers and long-haired students appear almost weekly in the newspapers. Students have been threatened with suspension, forbidden to play in interschool athletics, scolded, forced to tie their hair back with ribbons, and in several instances made to submit to barbers.
But the resistance continues.
“My hair is clean and healthy, and I like it this way,” said one 15-year-old boy. “Mum and Dad go along with it, and my girlfriend things it makes me look different. Who is it hurting?”
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