Gavin Watson: Oh What Fun We Had!

Taking its name from the Madness song of the same name, British photographer Gavin Watson’s (born 1965) Oh What Fun We Had! disrupts the popular notion of skinheads and council-estate residents as problematic figures, while still preserving the subversive character of the cult of youth.

Watson’s previous books on the subject, Skins (1994) and Skins & Punks (2008), established him as the great chronicler of skinhead culture. This new volume delves into his previously unseen archive to take on the gargantuan task of shifting the collective memory around key moments in British youth culture history, with a mesmerizing force of honesty and humanity.