Teenage Kicks: Girls growing up in Britain 1956-1974

This zine tells the stories of teenage girls growing up in Britain in 1956
to 1974. It was inspired by a research project called ‘Girlhood and Later Life’ (see
www.manchester.ac.uk/girlhood-and-later-life). As part of this project, we interviewed women born between 1939 and 1952 about their experiences as teenagers and young women.

The stories in Teenage Kicks are based on some of the stories they told us, though we have changed some details and added others.

All these stories take place between the mid 1950s and the mid 1970s, which we often look back on as a time of great social, political and economic change. But change does not happen instantly, or equally. Some girls manage to take advantage of new opportunities and freedoms, but others get a taste of freedom that quickly dissolves or find themselves pulled into the same lives as generations of women before them.