A Degree of Swing

The period 1958–64 saw radical changes in the lives of most young people and the establishment of a popular culture for the young based around music and fashion. Colin Miller’s memories of his life as a working-class student in the city of Leicester highlight the many personal and social issues and challenges that confronted most young men maturing into adulthood at that time. While describing the youth culture of Leicester in some detail, Colin Miller also recalls the people and events that shaped his musical development and his eventual involvement in the beat music scene of the city and its university.This book will bring back many memories for anyone who grew up in the early 1960s, and will not only illustrate to later generations how very different personal experiences and expectations were for young men and women 50 or more years ago, but also show that the supposed excesses of the ‘swinging sixties’ were confined to a privileged minority.


Colin Miller was born on the 5 August 1940 at Rollesby, a village on the Norfolk Broads. After education at Great Yarmouth Grammar School and the Universities of Leicester and Bath, he pursued a career in teaching which led eventually to the post of Senior Lecturer in Mathematics in the Faculty of Education at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Following retirement in 2002, he returned with his Leicester-born wife to live once again in his native East Anglia. As well as writing, he enjoys all forms of sport and the music of the 1950s and 60s. His other publications include Country Boy and The Fifties Replayed, in which he recalls his experiences of growing up in the small Norfolk village of Rollesby.