Milk-bar cowboys

[R6_kid:Me]

im shaking in my boots.











no really i am!

[Dadpole]

So Oldrider was responsible for the famous Mazengarb Report. You dirty, dirty pervert.

It even gets a mention in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazengarb_Report

[Ixion]

I have progressed from being a juvenile delinquent to being a senile delinquent. Is this progress?

[Skyryder]

That kid who robbed the train and handed out choclolate. Wasn't he the 'Last of the Milkbar Cowboys?"

Skyryder

[MSTRS:Me]

Level one history is really quite pathetic, all history is pathetic. WWII, Black Civil Rights, NZ Diplomacy etc etc

Really? I feel sorry for you then. Since you are unable to learn from history, you will be doomed to repeat it. Sad.

[slowpoke]

I have progressed from being a juvenile delinquent to being a senile delinquent. Is this progress?

It means you've progressed from stealing the other kids' lunch money to stealing your fellow lawn bowlers' shandy money, topped off by the fact you can't remember where you've stashed it.........

[Madness]

I'm definitely not of the era of the Milkbar's, but do have a strong personal connection. The Mazengarb Report was prompted by happenings in the Hutt Valley, more precisely, happenings at the Elbe's Milkbar. I'm an Elbe, it was owned by my Great Uncle & my Grandfather also helped out with the manufacturing of the famous Elbe's Ice-Cream. This might help explain my interest in Motorcycles & love for sugary treats. Over the years in previous sales-repping jobs I have met a few of the "Elbe's Cowboys" still living around the Hutt, Ron Hardgrave comes to mind, he seemed to have very fond memories, the sparkle in his eye when recounting those memories may have been explained by the content of the report in hindsight??. the Elbe's Milkbar was at the southern end of high Street, I think in the building now occupied by Amalgamated Video. The local paper, The Hutt news, did a series of reports on the era a few years ago, this is where I learn't of the shadowy aspect of my family history, we were proprietors of a place of much depravity, hehehe.

[Skyryder]

I'm not old enough to be a MBC, but my father started calling me a Milkbar-cowboy so had to ask him what the hell one was, and that led me to reserve the domain name milkbarcowboys.com which me and a bunch of mates were toying with for a bit, kinda stalled, as these things do. Open for suggestions as far as using it tho?

Did that Milkbar Cowboy run ever take place??

Skyryder

[merv]

I'm of the plastic era myself having not started riding until 1969 and have ridden mainly Jap bikes so wasn't a real milkbar cowboy, but I did frequent the milkbars in Napier in my day. Who remembers the Californian? You'd have to remember the Mayfair Theatre too!! In those days the milkbars were close to the movie theatres and at "half time" you'd duck out of the theatre to the milkbar.

Now some of my mates here, they were slightly older and in particular the boys about town in Wellington were the 25 Club. See this link http://britishspares.com/funstuff/pastblasts.htm it all pre-dates me living in the Welly area.

[eliot-ness]

I think our own Elliot Ness hails from that time period too judging from some of his infrequent but enlightening posts. John.

No good asking me John, I'm from the right era but the wrong place. In Yorkshire we didn't have milk bars or coffee bars. Pubs and fish and chip shops yes, plenty of them but somehow fish and chip shop cowboys didn't have the same appeal. I did visit the Ace cafe a few times but my Barbour riding gear didn't have the image required. The Coffee bar guys were mainly based around London, not many in the northern counties. The only lasting things to come from that era were cafe racers, Tritons and other specials. Rickmans, Dave Degens and Paul Dunstall started their business at that time and are still going strong. The Mods and Rockers era was a farce from beginning. It came to an end when a group of reporters were found guilty of incitement after paying a bike gang to race their bikes around a graveyard. Investigations into other incidents like the fights at Brighton showed that other newspapers had been involved in the same thing. The Rockers were always painted as the bad guys which I suppose was right, they took the cash and caused the problems. The Mods were portrayed as clean living, upstanding citizens, second only to car drivers, whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but bikes then, as now were in for the long haul. Scooters faded from the scene, peace returned and newspapers had to invent other stories to fill their pages

[Motu]

Those were some good photos on that link Merv - but that was the Bodgies,Milkbar Cowboys were earlier.When I was a kid the Bodgies hung out at Bucklands Beach,where I spent all my holidays and nearly every weekend at my grandmothers.On saturday nights in summer they put chairs down in the hall and had movies,and the bodgies would always turn up for an Elvis movie.My grandmothers place was only a couple of doors up the road,so it was our area.In the corner of the hall was a little shop,kind of a dairy...and we called it The Cabaret.Every year was the Yacht Club Ball...and when I was older figured out why the name Cabaret,because the shop opened into the hall,you could get icecreams in the interval of the movies there.

Anyway,the Milkbar Cowboys were earlier,my foreman who was my father's age used to tell me what they got up too.It was pretty cool being a young British bike rider in the early '70's and having a mentor who was riding the same bikes and doing the same things nearly 20 years earlier.

[Ixion]

Yes, they have Jet type helmets. The Milk Bar Cowboys were pre helmet.

[Skyryder]

The Milk Bar Cowboys were akin to the bodgies. About the only difference between the two was the MB C's rode bikes. Take away the leather bomber jacket and you would be hard pressed to tell the two apart. But at night if he was no riding and got into his 'threads' they both became 'Teddy Boys.' All three types were one and the same from the same era. Not all Teddy Boys were MB C's. The Bodgie and the Teddy Boys could be one and the same. It just depended on the dress. Most had DA's and tried to look like James Dean.

The biker British culture faded with the import of the Jap bikes. At least here in NZ. Harleys were associated with the Hells Angels and the 'bikie' gangs. It was the chopper's that bought biking into the mainstream of American concouncisnes with Eassy Rider. That movie expressed the Hippie culture not the biker culture. Hooper and Fonda were essentily hippies with choppers.

It could be argued that the chopper thing in the states derived from the American Hot Rod culture but that is another story.

Skyryder

[Toaster]

That would make agreat Gay website...I imagine.

nice one dude, classic comment!

[oldrider]

So Oldrider was responsible for the famous Mazengarb Report. You dirty, dirty pervert.

It even gets a mention in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazengarb_Report

The girl in question lived just down the road from me and yes I used to frequent Elbe's milk bar among others but I was not responsible for the Milk bar Cowboy saga but I was a definitely a member of that group of guys and gals so named.
That was a great bunch of people to associate with, many of them are dead now but I know of a few still around.
I was a younger cling-on I suppose following the big guys round and as an apprentice money wasn't as ready in my pocket as some of the major players.
Rock and roll and Elvis were only just kicking into gear around then and it wasn't only milk bars that were frequented either.
Fond memories of those days. Cheers John.