Children & Youth
Miss Marian Fletcher of Linthwaite, near Huddersfield in Yorkshire set up a private police force of 25 children aged 7 - 12. She hit on the idea of establishing a junior police force after a boy broke her window. Instead of punishing him she decided to encourage better behaviour by making him a 'police boy'. Before long every child in the village wanted to join. In the picture PD David Taylor, aged 8, and a colleague report to Miss Fletcher after a day on patrol in the village. 1974
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Children race replicas of Formula One racers. Powered by 148cc petrol engines that have a top speed of 30mph. Cars were created by James Rose, an engineer from Dollis Drive, Farnham, Hants who had previously worked for Lotus. Children are aged 6 - 14 and the cars, in 1972, cost £400 each. 1] Race marshal James Rose has a chat with his brother before the race starts. 2] Wining driver is Karl Rose whose father owns the company. Pictures 1976.
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In the countryside at Hatfield, near London, a brigade of black-shirted boys drill, scout and practice unarmed combat techniques under a former British Army officer. The lads wear Army belts and have Army style rank insignia with a ‘Commando’ flash on their sleeve. The fact that also wear black shirts made the group highly controversial and caused them to be banned at times from the local youth centre. “I admit me made a mistake in choosing black for the tunics,” Major Monkman told me when I photographed his controversial ‘private army’ in 1972. “The boys designed them themselves and the reason they wanted black was simply because it is easy to keep clean.” To some in the UK, however, the briskly marching young men in their black tunics seemed blood-chillingly like another generation of young men who paraded through the streets of Germany in the ‘Thirties.
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