Other defendants also got custodial sentences or £50 or £75 fines - at a time when the
average wage for a manual labourer was £12 a week. The speech is so beautifully
written that it must have been pre-prepared. Other remarks Dr. Simpson made to the
defendants are worth recording:
To a nineteen year old plumber's mate accused of carrying a rolled-up newspaper with
coins inside. Dr. Simpson "I don't suppose you were using this newspaper to further
your literary aspirations".
Defendant 'Tm sorry, I don't understand".
Dr. Simpson "Never mind, you'll understand what I am going to say now: £50 ".
To a seventeen year-old grammar school boy accused of possessing an offensive
weapon and using threatening behaviour.
Dr. Simpson "Perhaps your school will consider a framed reproduction of your
conviction" (£75 fine)
As well as being a Magistrate, Dr. Simpson had been a Margate family doctor since
1940. His wife was to tell the Daily Mail (19th May 1964):
"The town was full of grubby teenagers. It must not be allowed to happen again ... I
think my husband did the right thing".
Thirty-six of the forty-four youths had pleaded guilty, some saying afterwards that
they believed that if they pleaded not guilty they would have received a heavier
sentence. The lightest sentence handed down by the court was a conditional discharge.
Contemporary accounts imply that the damage to Margate property caused by the
1964 'riots' was in fact slight; certainly the damage was insignificant compared to the
urban riots of the 1980s and, indeed, last year. Dr. Simpson was defending his town
against what he perceived to be an alien threat. Despite Teddy Boys and Rock and
Roll, Britain in the early 1960s was in many ways still a regimented war-time nation.
Ten years later, this had changed beyond recognition.
Nick Laister
Chairman, The Dreamland Trust
www.dreamlandmargate.com
www.savedreamland.co.uk
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