No longer children and not yet adults – perhaps this was the dilemma for the youth of the 1940s that led them to problem behaviour?
Before we look at what youngsters were getting up to during the 1940s let’s consider some of terminology that we are so familiar with today – words that we tend to associate with young people…
Hooligan
Origin late 19th century, first found in British newspaper police-court reports in the summer of 1898, almost certainly from the variant form of the Irish surnameHoulihan, which figured as a characteristic comic Irish name in music hall songs and newspapers of the 1880s and ’90s.
Oxford English Dictionary
What about ‘vandal’? Well, that goes way back to the fourth or fifth century…
Vandal
A member of a Germanic people who ravaged Gaul, Spain, Rome and North Africa and more recently (since mid 17th century) a person who deliberately destroys or damages public or private property.
Oxford English Dictonary
In their original form neither term seems to refer exclusively to young people and…
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Isabella Muir 