Rave On… But Be Careful

IT IS EASY TO forget how grey and grim Britain seemed in the late 1980s. The Tories had been in power for ever; young men had died in a vaguely pointless war in the Falklands that we all felt powerless to stop; unemployment was high; youth culture was fragmented into exclusive, warring tribes who prided themselves on giving everyone else a hard time. The rave scene offered a welcome injection of colour, fun and unity as it blossomed out from a handful of clubs and began provoking police operations, questions in Parliament and outraged headlines in the national press.