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The 'Green Jacket' Panic, Merseyside

Zeke Newbold

Carbon based biped.
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Apr 18, 2015
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Calling all Sandgrounders (Southportians) (I know there are some on here).

So I remember growing up in Southport in the early seventies, possibly even late sixties, when there was a short mass panic amongst parents of young kids. This panic centred around `the Greenjackets` - a supposed street gang in the area who had a penchant for threatening and maybe even stabbing young kids.

It was very short-lived and there didn't seemed to be much real evidence for the existence of this gang, but it resulted in parents actually driving to their local schools to come and take their kids home* - and things like that.

In my child's imagination the `Greenjackets` wore what looked like school blazers - but which were bright green, which seemed somehow sinister to me. In retrospect, the jackets would have been those collarless anorak-jacket things favoured by skinheads. (There was indeed a bit of a skinhead subculture in the area - but I doubt they were given to menacing young children).

Funnily enough, this question has been raised before -in the hard copy of Fortean Times about ...oh...maybe fifteen years ago now, a woman had a letter published about this. Alas, I never replied and never got to see if anybody else did.

Anyone else recall the `Greenjackets`?

* Note to younger readers: in those days it was common for kids to walk to school, if it was within three or four miles distance, and do so unattended. (Please try to believe that!)
 
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