June 5, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode, Matthew talks to Professor Simon Winlow. Simon explains his ethnographic research on bouncers and the nighttime economy. Simon explains some of the practical and ethical issues of such research as well as some of his incredible findings and amazing events that took place along the way.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to the Sociology Show Podcast. My guest
for this episode was Professor Simon Winlow, talking all about
his famous ethnographic research looking at bouncers and the nighttime economy.
Before we get stuck into the episode, though, just a
couple of messages from me. Firstly, if you're looking for
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the Sociology Show. Thank you very much for your time,
and without further ado, let's go over to the interview
with Professor Simon Winlow Enjoy Hello and welcome to the
(01:05):
Sociology Show podcast. Would you like to start by telling
us a little bit about who you are and what
you do?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Please? Hello everyone, My name is Professor Simon Winlaw. I
am a professor of social sciences at Northumbria University.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Thank you very much, Simon, and we're going to talk
about your study, which which my students just know is
the Bouncer Study. But yeah, we just wanted to find
out a little bit more about about the research, very
famous piece of research. So do you mind telling us
about how it all started to begin with a little
bit of background about the study.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Sure. Well, in the dim and distant history, I the
first of my family to head off to university and
went to Durham University, which was then very posh and
is still quite posh, and here did it really didn't
(01:57):
enjoyed it all, didn't fit in. Took every opportunity that
I could do to get back home to environments that
seemed a little bit more comfortable to me. But during
the process of doing my sociology degree Derrim I encountered
Professor Dick Cobbs, who was one of my letturers there
(02:20):
and we got on well, and he obviously saw something
in me and encouraged me, which was very good of him.
And I made it through my degree amazingly and started
a PhD that he supervised. So I started to look
at a world I knew quite well, which was the
(02:42):
world of illegal trading. So I was interested in professional
criminals who were buying and selling stolen goods. The drug
markets at the time were absolutely exploding. As a ray
of music it took hold. Night clubs were springing up
(03:03):
all over the time place, and the nighttime economy was
growing incredibly quickly. And so how did bounce of stuff started? Specifically?
Dick got a grant from the Economic ESRC, which is
the Economic Social Research Council along the Stavehoul that investigates
bouncers specifically, and he kind of tagged me onto the
(03:26):
bill bid. I was appointed as a research assistant and
he said, can you can you extend your study into
the world of bounces, which which I could. I knew
that friends of mine were involved in that work, and
that's how it all got going. I worked alongside Stuart Lister,
(03:46):
who's currently at University Elites, and Phil Hartfield, who's no
longer an academic, and we kind of divvied up the
research and Stewart phil did you know, interviews, various interviews
that went in the Bounces boat, and I did the
participant observation.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Stuff, right, So what was the I'll come on to
that there, because that's really interesting. What was the kind
of overall aim or hypothesis of the study? What was
it you were trying to identify?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well, I mean, as part of my studies there, I'd
done anthropology, and I had this idea of participant observation
as kind of joining a culture and trying to see
the world through the eyes of those who were actively
involved in it. And I approached it with a kind
of very youthful, evangelical zeal to kind of to really
(04:34):
understand the complexity of a culture and not simply to
ask questions of participants, but to try and understand how
their representations of reality matched with what I saw with
my own eyes. So I observed the legal trading, I
observed Bounce, private security companies and whatever else, and I
(04:56):
wanted to see, you know, what we could make that,
how we could use that information to really pull back
the curtain and submit to the cold light of the world,
which for most people, you know, they would never say
and certainly never understand.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
And let's get stuck into that, you know, the participant observation,
because you know, we often talk about sociologists characteristics being
right for the job as it were, So did you
look the part Simon? Did you meet the criteria of
what we imagine about to debate to be able to
do the research?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yes? So I was kind of young and fit and
like then I would have been like six foot two
and maybe had a seven in stone and had boxed
and you know all that kind of stuff and just
part of you know, I kind of had all the
scripts that rough and tumble of growing up in a
(05:53):
working class neighborhood and you know, all those issues that
one encounters in those environments. And yeah, I could get
a job. I boxed, and I knew people who were
working on doors. I knew a couple of people who
could get me access to private security companies. So, you know,
a lot of friends, lots of acquaintances, and use my
(06:18):
friendships with those men very very instrumentally get them to
introduce me to people who could help push things along.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And then if we just build on that methodology a
little bit more, was it covit observation? Did you want
to remain anonymous? How did you actually approach that?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Well, to be perfectly honest, as I understand it looking
back now, I had a very open attitude towards revealing
why I was there, and I didn't go in with
a very clear idea of what I was willing to
talk about and what I wasn't. I let the that
the situation dictate as people who would help me. The
(07:04):
geatekeepers obviously knew that I was working for a university
and I was there to gather research. But I went
in there started the research. And the only real thing
that I strategy I had with was that I would
never lie, So if I was asked, I would always
(07:27):
tell the truth. So the covert aspect of the research
was simply withholding that information. But as soon as anyone
solicited information that would lead the truthful disclosure, I simply
told them. And I think this is one of the
kind of bursting the bubble here a little bit. But
(07:49):
this is not Donald mcantyre, This is not police undercover
or any of that stuff. These are just men. This
is like twenty odd years ago. These are men who
were engaging in legal trading, you know, to get a
little bit extra money for themselves and their families. There's
no there. There were gangsters, and there was very serious violence,
(08:11):
and there were very lugrative criminal markets operating in that world.
But most of the people I encountered really couldn't care
too much about who was there, who was observing place
investigations of this kind of cultural environment was still in
(08:33):
their infancy. There was no consideration of why attacks or
you know, grasses hadn't been used in any major criminal
cases up where I was doing the research. And people
really didn't care too much whether you watched them buying
and selling bit Ralph Laurent shirt so you know, counterfeit
(08:56):
perfume and whatever else. They really didn't care too much.
Here was watching because I had people that vouch for me.
I was just a face and a crowd in most cases,
and I could cult the their friendships and never no
one really asked what I was doing there, And the
occasions where they did ask why I was there, I
told them the truth, yea, and sometimes they loved it,
(09:17):
you know that you know, guy's going to write a
book about this, you know, and they thought it was
funny and everything else, and it's possible that some people
clammed up around me. I didn't really see it, and
there's no way of knowing, but I didn't want to
get caught in a lie. Yeah, and obviously I didn't
(09:37):
want to go through and kind of begin my project
with that kind of moral failure of kind of manipulating people.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, was there anything ethically that you think was perhaps
on dodgy ground or do you think you're always open
no deception, safety harm, those sort of issues.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Well, you've opened up a whole kind of worms there,
because they have to ask ask the academic question is
what do you mean by ethics? Whose ethics? Which ethical
system you're talking about? I certainly don't have a great
deal of respect for the dominant ethics of research practice
as it is understood in the contemporary university, which is
(10:18):
basically make sure that you protect the university from litigation. I,
you know, totally disinterested in that. And the obsession with,
for example, accumulate and consent forms just seems nuts to me.
Just seems a complete waste of time and an abdication
(10:38):
of our ethical duty to our research subjects, rather than
you know, some kind of ethical Uh, get out the
Jill free card or you know, the kind of top
quality research studies always have the you know, comprehensive forms,
building and triplicate whatever else. I don't go along that.
(11:00):
I think ethical research involves acting ethically. It involves treating
people with respect and humility and you know, engaging with
them honestly. And I think you don't need a form
to do that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I like that answer. I like that answer. That's great.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And what about that movement perhaps away from ethics, but practically,
what were the kind of obstacles that you really faced
with the research practically?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Well, I mean that the obvious one is, especially with
regard to the bouncer side of this subject. I was
employed as a bouncer, so I had to do the
job that you can't just stand there and say, well, actually,
i'm an academic, so in this case, I'm not going
to get involved in And so I was, you know,
whenever there was a violent incident, or when there was
any incident that needed the attendance of bouncers at any
(11:54):
of the pubs or nightclubs I worked at, I was
present and involved. So I dragged lots of people out
I threw them roughly. I had punches in at me,
all kinds of things, you know, just the usual stuff
of I've interrupted a couple having sex in the corner.
(12:19):
I threw out people who were urinating on a gambling machine,
all kinds of stuff. Jesus. It was just these were
kind of very wild environments where everyone was crammed in.
You know, these places really were. I don't think there
was much pretension paid to all the crowding in these
bars and nightclubs, and everyone was pissed, and so they
(12:42):
were dangerous, edgy environments. And when you're working as a
bouncer in a place like that, you've got to keep
order as best you can. And that's certainly what I did.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I mean, what you've just described there is and I
think this is why your research is so famous and
used throughout sort of available sotologies. You're describing the classic
ethnographic research, you know, getting stuck in being involved. For
the students listening, do you mind just describing what you
interpret or what you mean by ethnographic.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Research, Yeah, it means actually getting involved. I prefer the
term participant observation because it suggests you're actually participating in
the research culture, and that is what makes this particular
method particular methodology distinct. So I interviewed people as well,
(13:31):
and of course when I interviewed them, it became obvious,
you know, I was divulging my actual occupational background, and
there was all that mixed in with it. But I
actually did the job. And because I did the job,
I saw the problems that my colleagues had to deal
with on any given night. I saw up close and
(13:54):
personal who the you know, the cast of characters were
gangster's coming in, those suggestions of you know, protection rackets
and things like that. But you also got lots of
drunken teenagers trying to sneak in. You've got all the people,
some of whom may be carrying knives. All of that.
(14:15):
That the kind of the job as it's understood by
the people involved doing it. You get a kind of
really a kind of up close and personal understanding of
the problems they have to deal with and how they
respond and why they respond in the way. There's wiz
that they respond.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And talking about those problems, the word that keeps on
coming out over and over again, it's word alcohol.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
The word alcohol.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I mean, this might sound really obvious to put it
this way, But is that the root cause that we're
seeing behind this violence is helf break of antisocial behavior.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
No, it's always more complicated than that. Yeah, I think
the first thing to say is that the like the
nighttimeomy today has shrunken significantly from when we were doing
the research, and younger people are now less attached to
alcohol as a drug of choice and also less like,
(15:14):
less interested in inebriation. Generally speaking, it seems I think
it's trying to kind of grasp how cultures have changed,
and lots of young people at the turn of the
century would rush towards adulthood in a way that young
people that they tend not to quite the same degree
(15:37):
they want to wanted to grow up quickly. They wanted
to leave the parental home, establish themselves as adults, you know,
choose for themselves. And part of that was a traditional
part way to do that was to get pissed with
your friends and to kind of to act out in
ways that were in your normal everyday life. You know.
(16:00):
This allowed so alcohol gave you the opportunity to talk
to men or women that you normally wouldn't be able
to kind of summon up the carriage to talk to them.
Alcohol was the opportunity to dance around like an idiot
in ways that you never would think to behave, in
(16:21):
ways that were off the rear door. And that's what
the nighttime economy was. It encouraged, It invited people to
ditch their normal persona, to set aside their usual rules
of behavior and engage in this kind of hedonistic, alcohol
fueled environment, which for a lot of people at least
(16:43):
that going through it for the first time was just
incredible fun and really quite liberating, because I was really interested.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
You mentioned right at the start about the rave scene.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I just wondered if there was this change, because you know,
late eighties nineties you kind of had the rave scene where,
let's be honest, drug of choice was not alcoholics ecstasy,
and many people said the problems and the fighting reduced then.
And then by the late nineties, I guess you get
that real lad culture, drinking culture, even sort of ladd
aut culture was there, kind of almost like a peak
(17:16):
of alcohol consumption around that time.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I think it remained fairly steady over you know, if
we look back at the twentieth century, but the ways
in which alcohol was consumed changed significantly. So the major shift,
especially the growth of nighttime economy, is a shift from
from the local boozer to city center drinking strips where
people would imbibe alcohol in a very different way. So
(17:41):
people got pissed. And then sixties and sixties and seventies
and now there were there were dance halls and whatever
else and venue places that they could go to, but
a lot of it was done in situe. So they'd
go to a pub and they'd sit and drink and
get drunk in that one place. But these the places
were we were doing the research. It produced these kind
(18:03):
of drinking strips where people would have one drink in
one venue and then move on to the next, and
that kind of environment changed drinking practices quite considerably. I'm
not sure. I think it was probably an increase. And
as you say, you know, the rave culture kind of
for some people at least, they kind of a kind
(18:24):
of suppressed alcohol consumption at least for a little bit.
But it's strange. I don't think, you know, during the
nineteen nineties they may have been an upturn, but I
think alcohol has always been a fairly significant feature of
working class popular culture. The you know, going back, you know,
(18:46):
more than one hundred years. It's a part of especially
part of British culture, part of how we do leisure,
a part of how we kind of come together in
community settings, how we get over difficulty in our lives,
how we rushed towards pleasure in our lives, how men
negotiate friendship. It's often very difficult. It certainly was very
(19:08):
difficult the time of the research to have any kind
of contact with friends that wasn't in a sporting capacity,
or wasn't didn't involve alcohol in some respect, lubricate dose,
difficult interactions, and it had a function greatly appreciated function
in common culture.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And if we could move on a bit more about
about your findings, then I know this is very difficult
to condense a whole study into a small amount, but
what was there kind of a classic story of the
average person that became a bouncer in terms of you know, background, ethnicity, upbringing.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Well, where I did the research principally is certainly was
then and still is now dominated by the white working class.
So all bouncers not at all. There were some ethnic
minority bouncers who worked for the security company that I
worked for, but overwhelmingly big white working class men, and
(20:14):
the overwhelming audience the people coming into the bars and
clubs and whatever else, they were also working class. This
research was done in working class cities. In order to
get a job, you had, well, this is not a
job that you would want to do if you didn't
think you were capable of carrying it out. At the time,
(20:36):
things were a little bit wilder than they are now.
They were less regulated. There was a broad awareness that
violence was You would face violence if you took a
job as a bouncer, and if you're going to take
that job, you better be ready to face it head on.
Nobody wanted you there if you were just going to
kind of roll up a curlub in a ball when
(20:57):
faced with you know, all the problems that bouncers have
to engage with on any busy night. So I guess
it's the willingness they give it a goal that is
the real key. But obviously that in order to give
it a go, you have to have a sense of
confidence when it comes to kind of physical aggression. You
(21:18):
have to have a kind of general sense that lots
of people will, you know, challenge you verbally and then
go no further. And so it's just about being you know,
not falling to pieces in the face of violence, being
able to I mean, there were plenty of bouncers who
(21:38):
would become violent if they were faced with violence, but
most of the bouncers I worked with would kind of
shrug it off, and they were comfortable with it. They
didn't start crying, they didn't run away, They weren't incredibly
nervous or anything like that. It was just part of
their life and they were confident in dealing with people,
(21:58):
especially drunken people. One of the obvious things with alcohol
consumption and violences, your confidence goes up, tends to go
when you've imbibed alcohol, but your ability to carry it
out goes right down hill rapidly. And all of the
guys I worked with, lots of them were working out
regularly in gym's. Some had come from boxing, but most
(22:22):
were just kind of gyms. There was an element in
the UFC which is just starting the crab in at
the time, and they were confident. Some hard established reputations
for violence come from local communities, come from in some
cases criminal families, and they were you know, had a
degree of confidence in their bodily ability to face down
(22:45):
these challenges that they would face. So this is the
kind of people that we're talking about. Often, you know,
nice moral family men, occasionally trading in the illegal economy.
There was lots of kind of you know, everyone had
a kind of side hustle as it's called now going
on somewhere important cigarettes and alcohol, which is common at
(23:10):
the time, lots of trading in faith designer goods, lots
of trading in counterfeits, and of course, as the research progressed,
just a massive amount of drug dealer some of which
was really quite small, hand to hand stuff, but some
of the people involved that involved in the research was
(23:33):
certainly trading at the level above the street.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I did one that you know, you said about confidence,
and so I wondered how much it was about status masculinity.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
So the terms that we use in sociology.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Well, I certainly wouldn't want to bandy around that fridge
toxic masculinity, which really kind of is just a grotesque
simplification of how and why people behave for it kind
of takes a phrase which is antagonistic to any reasonable
sociologist who you know, wants to look at nuance and complexity,
(24:10):
rather than simply denigrate, you know, particular forms of behavior
that they don't like, rather than seeking to understand them.
So I don't think that had anything really they do
with the study. I think there was a form of
robust masculinity which is rooted in working class culture and
goes back through the Industrial Revolution and back into the
(24:33):
mists of history, which you know, there were work classmen
were bred with that kind of sense of stoicism, desire
for autonomy, and these characteristic characteristics found an outlet in
this particular new context, very old characteristics and the new context.
So they were just kind of you know, I mean,
(24:58):
it wouldn't be They looked as if they would handle
themselves because they've been around violence a lot in their lives.
They were confident in the face of it. They were young,
they were generally bigger than the average man. They worked
out a lot more so, they had more muscle m
and some of them boxed and were very good with
their hands. Some of them were on UFC, and they
(25:20):
were judo enthusiasts, wrestling enthusiasts, you know, quite a broad gamut.
But they were all kind of men who were bodily
quite confident in their ability to face down challenges in
terms of masculinity. Obviously their men, and they're enacting particular
scripts about around masculinity. But I don't think there was
(25:43):
anything particularly negativistics. There was elements of sexism which were
far more common then, So they were, you know, kind
of they would comment on women passing in the street
and things of that kind. But they were also subject
to sexual assault themselves, and they would laugh about I
(26:07):
kind of. I mean, really they were grabbed and man
handled by women all the time. And I can remember
a group of male strippers who were working at this bar,
this kind of disco bar with a capacity about like
a thousand people were in there and meals. They had
mail strippers on and one of the jobs for the
(26:28):
for the bouncers to keep ordering this very difficult environment
was to get the strippers from the manager's office, which
is where they got changed, onto the dance floor, which
is where they did the act. And this was incredibly difficult.
And these these strippers, these poor guys, Jesus Christ, they
were sexually assaulted. It was impossible to keep them safe
(26:50):
between the two places, and they were grabbed and whatever else,
and the bouncers were also grabbed, but because of their
cultural background, they kind of shrugged all that stuff off.
They didn't start crying about being the victim of sexual assault.
So these are very quite old fashioned cultures. A lot
(27:10):
of the discourse we have about inappropriate sexual talk, inappropriate
interactions between men and women, it was all there, but
it was often going in both directions.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I wonder even if that word would have been used,
you know, would they have even considered that they had
been sexually assaulted at that time?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
That's just ask grabbing them and mostly, you know, they
kind of shrub it off and they'd make a joke
about it. You know, in some cases they would considered
a sign of flattery. It was all comedy to them,
and you know, they'd make light of that kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
I just made a note of the robust masculinity. I've
not had that one before.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I like it.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
I like it, Simon. I just wanted to ask you.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
You just mentioned an event there, but I wondered if
there was any other events or perhaps individuals that really
stand out from that piece of research.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
They're kind of really stick in your mind.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Sure, Yeah, well I'll tell you about the hardest thing
that I had to deal with is I was working
at a bar. It was actually quite a way away
from where the majority of the research was conducted, and
I was working with a friend of mine and we
traveled down to worked the door and there was just
a two of us working on. This wasn't a particularly
loud pub. It was in the city center, didn't have
(28:31):
a lot of music, and it wasn't particularly orientated towards
younger duringism, and it was quite an easy gig, really
bit boring, you know, not much going on. So we
were watching the street traffic as people trailed up and
down going about their business, lots of people out after
dark in the city center, and a crowd had gathered
(28:52):
just outside the bar that we were working, and girls
were arguing and raised voices attracted a crowd out, and
people kind of stopped going about their business and started
to watch what was unfolding. And we kind of had
a kind of ringside seat almost as we looked out
from our place at the door to the pub under
(29:15):
the main main street, and an argument there was two
antagonists shouting at each other, and you know, there was
all that kind of being, you know, from the crowd,
you know, making noise, trying to you know, seem shocked
by what was happening. And the argument stopped and one
(29:39):
of the girls turned away, and it seemed as it
was all over, but she picked up a bottle, a
brown alcohol empty alcohol bottle that was on the curb side,
and turned around immajorately and smashed off the girl who
she was arguing in the face with it. And this
changed the atmosphere and majorly on the street. It was
(30:01):
a terrible act of violence. Just the sound, you know,
everyone made a kind of intake of breath, which was
obviously a very serious act of violence from the moment
the blow was delivered. And so we'd rushed out from
our place to kind of catch this girl who immediately
(30:22):
had a hand clutch to her mouth, and caught her
and kind of brought her into the pub, and the
guy I was working with had first aid skills and
kind of gradually persuaded the girl and let her hard
come away from my mouth. And it was just the
most awful injury, ripped from nostril to mouth, teeth missing.
(30:49):
She was still fully conscious and wasn't crying. It was
just shocked and hadn't really come around from the you know,
the shot of the incident, and the police were there
quite quickly. I agreed to give a statement, which is unusual.
(31:09):
It was the only time that I agreed to give
a statement of police. And I was just reflected my
own cultural background, because if this had been a man,
I probably wouldn't have done that, and because I was
so shocked by what had happened, I, you know, I
wanted to do all I could have to help the
(31:29):
police in this in this incidentt And it turned out
this girl was fifteen years old and the case didn't
actually come to court, so I didn't have to do
anything really give a statement. Place came around a couple
of nights later and told us the fatter the matter,
and I lost sleep over that was That returned to
(31:52):
me quite a few times, and it prompted quite a
lot of rumination around ethics. H Could I have intervened sooner?
Is there anything I should have done differently? You know?
And this is real efforts, I think, not feeling in
a consent forms, trying to work out how one can
(32:15):
assist one's fellow human beings, rather than how satisfy a
kind of committee sitting in a university lecture theater.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Was that the kind of was that a point where
you stepped away from it? I mean, you know, we
often talk about getting into a group, but you know,
walking away from that study with a particular moment when that.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Happened, I don't think I continue to work after that.
The real end point came when I was working with
a security company there was also involved in protection rackets
and they got called out, we got called out. I
was in the night club after the fact, after finishing
(32:56):
work at a pub, and we all got in cars
and flew out of this pub, which was on the
end edge of town, and the head of the security
company kind of attacked this guy who he believed was
responsible for smashing up his public he's supposed to be protecting.
(33:17):
And then the other guys that I was working with
kind of joined in and he was getting hoofed around
the floor. This this guy, this this young guy. And
I said shouted immediately stop because how could you not write?
I mean, there was every these a big guys, powerful guys,
and there was every opportunity that this could have been
(33:39):
a fatality. So I had I had went to vein
at that point, and I did in the vein and
told them to stop, and they did stop. But from
that point onwards it became played and made it to
continue on with that kind of stuff was unsustained of them,
(34:01):
and it was best at that point. We had more
than enough data to write the book at that stage,
and I kind of backtracked a little and exiting was
far harder than entering the field. But that was the
end point for me.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
This is going to sound a bizarre question based on
the last two stories you just told, but did.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
You enjoy it?
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Did you enjoy the work?
Speaker 2 (34:24):
H There were moments of you know, fun, Like some
of the guys I worked with a really good company
and they'd make great jokes and I'd spend a lot
of time four hour shift or whatever. It was just
just laughing, right, you know, just great, great fun. I
was still a young guy at the time, you know,
it was a nice environment to spend timing. I didn't
(34:46):
enjoy the violence at all. And you know, some of
the professional criminals that spent time with were we're pretty
good company, and I enjoyed that aspect. But it's u
you know, I think this is the thing kind of
research project you do on the weekend, but this was
a like a full time this was my life, but
(35:08):
kind of the best part of the year. And then
there were interviews and whatever. Old that stretched it out
around two years of worth of research. And so it's
like any you know, if you look back on your youth,
there will be high points and down points and points
of regret and you know, points that you return to
(35:28):
as you get nostalgic, you know, all the rest of
that kind of stuff. So it's just I've integrated all
of that into my biography, and you know, I'm content
that I did a good job. But the research that
we conducted was worthwhile and we extended knowledge, which was
the reason why we did it in the first place.
(35:49):
I think I did reveal some important truths about how
people live and how illegal markets are organized and the
role of violence in those markets. And I'm quite kind
of quietly confident that I did my part in contributing
to the development of our intellectual life and no disciplines.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Definitely, definitely, And in that respect, you know, if if
listeners want to find out more about the research, and
how can they find out more about the study.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Well there are two books. Uh, you should be able
to get them at any college university library. You get
them for very cheaply on the on Amazon these days
because they're quite all books. But the book that I
wrote is called Badfellas, and the book I wrote with
Dick Hobbs Stuart Lister in Phil Hartfield is called Bouncers.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
And yeah, is what you're working on at the moment?
On what what's your current research.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I've just written a book about nostalgia and how people
experience nostalgia and the role of nostalgia in develop in
forms of working class politics. I'm especially interested in how
people on the far right utilize nostalgic imagery in formulating
their politics. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
And if people want to find out more about you,
can they follow you on x or instacrat.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah, I'm on Twitter. I don't tweet much, but whatever
it is. Yeah x now, yeah, you can get me
portion a few things that I've read and think we're interesting,
So please do well.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Thank you very much for your time, Tim, and I
really really appreciate it lovely.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Thanks nice to make you.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
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Hello, and welcome to the Sociology Show Podcast. My guest
for this episode was Professor Simon Winlow, talking all about
his famous ethnographic research looking at bouncers and the nighttime economy.
Before we get stuck into the episode, though, just a
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the Sociology Show. Thank you very much for your time,
and without further ado, let's go over to the interview
with Professor Simon Winlow Enjoy Hello and welcome to the
(01:05):
Sociology Show podcast. Would you like to start by telling
us a little bit about who you are and what
you do?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Please? Hello everyone, My name is Professor Simon Winlaw. I
am a professor of social sciences at Northumbria University.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Thank you very much, Simon, and we're going to talk
about your study, which which my students just know is
the Bouncer Study. But yeah, we just wanted to find
out a little bit more about about the research, very
famous piece of research. So do you mind telling us
about how it all started to begin with a little
bit of background about the study.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Sure. Well, in the dim and distant history, I the
first of my family to head off to university and
went to Durham University, which was then very posh and
is still quite posh, and here did it really didn't
(01:57):
enjoyed it all, didn't fit in. Took every opportunity that
I could do to get back home to environments that
seemed a little bit more comfortable to me. But during
the process of doing my sociology degree Derrim I encountered
Professor Dick Cobbs, who was one of my letturers there
(02:20):
and we got on well, and he obviously saw something
in me and encouraged me, which was very good of him.
And I made it through my degree amazingly and started
a PhD that he supervised. So I started to look
at a world I knew quite well, which was the
(02:42):
world of illegal trading. So I was interested in professional
criminals who were buying and selling stolen goods. The drug
markets at the time were absolutely exploding. As a ray
of music it took hold. Night clubs were springing up
(03:03):
all over the time place, and the nighttime economy was
growing incredibly quickly. And so how did bounce of stuff started? Specifically?
Dick got a grant from the Economic ESRC, which is
the Economic Social Research Council along the Stavehoul that investigates
bouncers specifically, and he kind of tagged me onto the
(03:26):
bill bid. I was appointed as a research assistant and
he said, can you can you extend your study into
the world of bounces, which which I could. I knew
that friends of mine were involved in that work, and
that's how it all got going. I worked alongside Stuart Lister,
(03:46):
who's currently at University Elites, and Phil Hartfield, who's no
longer an academic, and we kind of divvied up the
research and Stewart phil did you know, interviews, various interviews
that went in the Bounces boat, and I did the
participant observation.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Stuff, right, So what was the I'll come on to
that there, because that's really interesting. What was the kind
of overall aim or hypothesis of the study? What was
it you were trying to identify?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well, I mean, as part of my studies there, I'd
done anthropology, and I had this idea of participant observation
as kind of joining a culture and trying to see
the world through the eyes of those who were actively
involved in it. And I approached it with a kind
of very youthful, evangelical zeal to kind of to really
(04:34):
understand the complexity of a culture and not simply to
ask questions of participants, but to try and understand how
their representations of reality matched with what I saw with
my own eyes. So I observed the legal trading, I
observed Bounce, private security companies and whatever else, and I
(04:56):
wanted to see, you know, what we could make that,
how we could use that information to really pull back
the curtain and submit to the cold light of the world,
which for most people, you know, they would never say
and certainly never understand.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
And let's get stuck into that, you know, the participant observation,
because you know, we often talk about sociologists characteristics being
right for the job as it were, So did you
look the part Simon? Did you meet the criteria of
what we imagine about to debate to be able to
do the research?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yes? So I was kind of young and fit and
like then I would have been like six foot two
and maybe had a seven in stone and had boxed
and you know all that kind of stuff and just
part of you know, I kind of had all the
scripts that rough and tumble of growing up in a
(05:53):
working class neighborhood and you know, all those issues that
one encounters in those environments. And yeah, I could get
a job. I boxed, and I knew people who were
working on doors. I knew a couple of people who
could get me access to private security companies. So, you know,
a lot of friends, lots of acquaintances, and use my
(06:18):
friendships with those men very very instrumentally get them to
introduce me to people who could help push things along.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And then if we just build on that methodology a
little bit more, was it covit observation? Did you want
to remain anonymous? How did you actually approach that?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Well, to be perfectly honest, as I understand it looking
back now, I had a very open attitude towards revealing
why I was there, and I didn't go in with
a very clear idea of what I was willing to
talk about and what I wasn't. I let the that
the situation dictate as people who would help me. The
(07:04):
geatekeepers obviously knew that I was working for a university
and I was there to gather research. But I went
in there started the research. And the only real thing
that I strategy I had with was that I would
never lie, So if I was asked, I would always
(07:27):
tell the truth. So the covert aspect of the research
was simply withholding that information. But as soon as anyone
solicited information that would lead the truthful disclosure, I simply
told them. And I think this is one of the
kind of bursting the bubble here a little bit. But
(07:49):
this is not Donald mcantyre, This is not police undercover
or any of that stuff. These are just men. This
is like twenty odd years ago. These are men who
were engaging in legal trading, you know, to get a
little bit extra money for themselves and their families. There's
no there. There were gangsters, and there was very serious violence,
(08:11):
and there were very lugrative criminal markets operating in that world.
But most of the people I encountered really couldn't care
too much about who was there, who was observing place
investigations of this kind of cultural environment was still in
(08:33):
their infancy. There was no consideration of why attacks or
you know, grasses hadn't been used in any major criminal
cases up where I was doing the research. And people
really didn't care too much whether you watched them buying
and selling bit Ralph Laurent shirt so you know, counterfeit
(08:56):
perfume and whatever else. They really didn't care too much.
Here was watching because I had people that vouch for me.
I was just a face and a crowd in most cases,
and I could cult the their friendships and never no
one really asked what I was doing there, And the
occasions where they did ask why I was there, I
told them the truth, yea, and sometimes they loved it,
(09:17):
you know that you know, guy's going to write a
book about this, you know, and they thought it was
funny and everything else, and it's possible that some people
clammed up around me. I didn't really see it, and
there's no way of knowing, but I didn't want to
get caught in a lie. Yeah, and obviously I didn't
(09:37):
want to go through and kind of begin my project
with that kind of moral failure of kind of manipulating people.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, was there anything ethically that you think was perhaps
on dodgy ground or do you think you're always open
no deception, safety harm, those sort of issues.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Well, you've opened up a whole kind of worms there,
because they have to ask ask the academic question is
what do you mean by ethics? Whose ethics? Which ethical
system you're talking about? I certainly don't have a great
deal of respect for the dominant ethics of research practice
as it is understood in the contemporary university, which is
(10:18):
basically make sure that you protect the university from litigation. I,
you know, totally disinterested in that. And the obsession with,
for example, accumulate and consent forms just seems nuts to me.
Just seems a complete waste of time and an abdication
(10:38):
of our ethical duty to our research subjects, rather than
you know, some kind of ethical Uh, get out the
Jill free card or you know, the kind of top
quality research studies always have the you know, comprehensive forms,
building and triplicate whatever else. I don't go along that.
(11:00):
I think ethical research involves acting ethically. It involves treating
people with respect and humility and you know, engaging with
them honestly. And I think you don't need a form
to do that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I like that answer. I like that answer. That's great.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And what about that movement perhaps away from ethics, but practically,
what were the kind of obstacles that you really faced
with the research practically?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Well, I mean that the obvious one is, especially with
regard to the bouncer side of this subject. I was
employed as a bouncer, so I had to do the
job that you can't just stand there and say, well, actually,
i'm an academic, so in this case, I'm not going
to get involved in And so I was, you know,
whenever there was a violent incident, or when there was
any incident that needed the attendance of bouncers at any
(11:54):
of the pubs or nightclubs I worked at, I was
present and involved. So I dragged lots of people out
I threw them roughly. I had punches in at me,
all kinds of things, you know, just the usual stuff
of I've interrupted a couple having sex in the corner.
(12:19):
I threw out people who were urinating on a gambling machine,
all kinds of stuff. Jesus. It was just these were
kind of very wild environments where everyone was crammed in.
You know, these places really were. I don't think there
was much pretension paid to all the crowding in these
bars and nightclubs, and everyone was pissed, and so they
(12:42):
were dangerous, edgy environments. And when you're working as a
bouncer in a place like that, you've got to keep
order as best you can. And that's certainly what I did.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I mean, what you've just described there is and I
think this is why your research is so famous and
used throughout sort of available sotologies. You're describing the classic
ethnographic research, you know, getting stuck in being involved. For
the students listening, do you mind just describing what you
interpret or what you mean by ethnographic.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Research, Yeah, it means actually getting involved. I prefer the
term participant observation because it suggests you're actually participating in
the research culture, and that is what makes this particular
method particular methodology distinct. So I interviewed people as well,
(13:31):
and of course when I interviewed them, it became obvious,
you know, I was divulging my actual occupational background, and
there was all that mixed in with it. But I
actually did the job. And because I did the job,
I saw the problems that my colleagues had to deal
with on any given night. I saw up close and
(13:54):
personal who the you know, the cast of characters were
gangster's coming in, those suggestions of you know, protection rackets
and things like that. But you also got lots of
drunken teenagers trying to sneak in. You've got all the people,
some of whom may be carrying knives. All of that.
(14:15):
That the kind of the job as it's understood by
the people involved doing it. You get a kind of
really a kind of up close and personal understanding of
the problems they have to deal with and how they
respond and why they respond in the way. There's wiz
that they respond.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And talking about those problems, the word that keeps on
coming out over and over again, it's word alcohol.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
The word alcohol.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I mean, this might sound really obvious to put it
this way, But is that the root cause that we're
seeing behind this violence is helf break of antisocial behavior.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
No, it's always more complicated than that. Yeah, I think
the first thing to say is that the like the
nighttimeomy today has shrunken significantly from when we were doing
the research, and younger people are now less attached to
alcohol as a drug of choice and also less like,
(15:14):
less interested in inebriation. Generally speaking, it seems I think
it's trying to kind of grasp how cultures have changed,
and lots of young people at the turn of the
century would rush towards adulthood in a way that young
people that they tend not to quite the same degree
(15:37):
they want to wanted to grow up quickly. They wanted
to leave the parental home, establish themselves as adults, you know,
choose for themselves. And part of that was a traditional
part way to do that was to get pissed with
your friends and to kind of to act out in
ways that were in your normal everyday life. You know.
(16:00):
This allowed so alcohol gave you the opportunity to talk
to men or women that you normally wouldn't be able
to kind of summon up the carriage to talk to them.
Alcohol was the opportunity to dance around like an idiot
in ways that you never would think to behave, in
(16:21):
ways that were off the rear door. And that's what
the nighttime economy was. It encouraged, It invited people to
ditch their normal persona, to set aside their usual rules
of behavior and engage in this kind of hedonistic, alcohol
fueled environment, which for a lot of people at least
(16:43):
that going through it for the first time was just
incredible fun and really quite liberating, because I was really interested.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
You mentioned right at the start about the rave scene.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I just wondered if there was this change, because you know,
late eighties nineties you kind of had the rave scene where,
let's be honest, drug of choice was not alcoholics ecstasy,
and many people said the problems and the fighting reduced then.
And then by the late nineties, I guess you get
that real lad culture, drinking culture, even sort of ladd
aut culture was there, kind of almost like a peak
(17:16):
of alcohol consumption around that time.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I think it remained fairly steady over you know, if
we look back at the twentieth century, but the ways
in which alcohol was consumed changed significantly. So the major shift,
especially the growth of nighttime economy, is a shift from
from the local boozer to city center drinking strips where
people would imbibe alcohol in a very different way. So
(17:41):
people got pissed. And then sixties and sixties and seventies
and now there were there were dance halls and whatever
else and venue places that they could go to, but
a lot of it was done in situe. So they'd
go to a pub and they'd sit and drink and
get drunk in that one place. But these the places
were we were doing the research. It produced these kind
(18:03):
of drinking strips where people would have one drink in
one venue and then move on to the next, and
that kind of environment changed drinking practices quite considerably. I'm
not sure. I think it was probably an increase. And
as you say, you know, the rave culture kind of
for some people at least, they kind of a kind
(18:24):
of suppressed alcohol consumption at least for a little bit.
But it's strange. I don't think, you know, during the
nineteen nineties they may have been an upturn, but I
think alcohol has always been a fairly significant feature of
working class popular culture. The you know, going back, you know,
(18:46):
more than one hundred years. It's a part of especially
part of British culture, part of how we do leisure,
a part of how we kind of come together in
community settings, how we get over difficulty in our lives,
how we rushed towards pleasure in our lives, how men
negotiate friendship. It's often very difficult. It certainly was very
(19:08):
difficult the time of the research to have any kind
of contact with friends that wasn't in a sporting capacity,
or wasn't didn't involve alcohol in some respect, lubricate dose,
difficult interactions, and it had a function greatly appreciated function
in common culture.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And if we could move on a bit more about
about your findings, then I know this is very difficult
to condense a whole study into a small amount, but
what was there kind of a classic story of the
average person that became a bouncer in terms of you know, background, ethnicity, upbringing.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Well, where I did the research principally is certainly was
then and still is now dominated by the white working class.
So all bouncers not at all. There were some ethnic
minority bouncers who worked for the security company that I
worked for, but overwhelmingly big white working class men, and
(20:14):
the overwhelming audience the people coming into the bars and
clubs and whatever else, they were also working class. This
research was done in working class cities. In order to
get a job, you had, well, this is not a
job that you would want to do if you didn't
think you were capable of carrying it out. At the time,
(20:36):
things were a little bit wilder than they are now.
They were less regulated. There was a broad awareness that
violence was You would face violence if you took a
job as a bouncer, and if you're going to take
that job, you better be ready to face it head on.
Nobody wanted you there if you were just going to
kind of roll up a curlub in a ball when
(20:57):
faced with you know, all the problems that bouncers have
to engage with on any busy night. So I guess
it's the willingness they give it a goal that is
the real key. But obviously that in order to give
it a go, you have to have a sense of
confidence when it comes to kind of physical aggression. You
(21:18):
have to have a kind of general sense that lots
of people will, you know, challenge you verbally and then
go no further. And so it's just about being you know,
not falling to pieces in the face of violence, being
able to I mean, there were plenty of bouncers who
(21:38):
would become violent if they were faced with violence, but
most of the bouncers I worked with would kind of
shrug it off, and they were comfortable with it. They
didn't start crying, they didn't run away, They weren't incredibly
nervous or anything like that. It was just part of
their life and they were confident in dealing with people,
(21:58):
especially drunken people. One of the obvious things with alcohol
consumption and violences, your confidence goes up, tends to go
when you've imbibed alcohol, but your ability to carry it
out goes right down hill rapidly. And all of the
guys I worked with, lots of them were working out
regularly in gym's. Some had come from boxing, but most
(22:22):
were just kind of gyms. There was an element in
the UFC which is just starting the crab in at
the time, and they were confident. Some hard established reputations
for violence come from local communities, come from in some
cases criminal families, and they were you know, had a
degree of confidence in their bodily ability to face down
(22:45):
these challenges that they would face. So this is the
kind of people that we're talking about. Often, you know,
nice moral family men, occasionally trading in the illegal economy.
There was lots of kind of you know, everyone had
a kind of side hustle as it's called now going
on somewhere important cigarettes and alcohol, which is common at
(23:10):
the time, lots of trading in faith designer goods, lots
of trading in counterfeits, and of course, as the research progressed,
just a massive amount of drug dealer some of which
was really quite small, hand to hand stuff, but some
of the people involved that involved in the research was
(23:33):
certainly trading at the level above the street.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I did one that you know, you said about confidence,
and so I wondered how much it was about status masculinity.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
So the terms that we use in sociology.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Well, I certainly wouldn't want to bandy around that fridge
toxic masculinity, which really kind of is just a grotesque
simplification of how and why people behave for it kind
of takes a phrase which is antagonistic to any reasonable
sociologist who you know, wants to look at nuance and complexity,
(24:10):
rather than simply denigrate, you know, particular forms of behavior
that they don't like, rather than seeking to understand them.
So I don't think that had anything really they do
with the study. I think there was a form of
robust masculinity which is rooted in working class culture and
goes back through the Industrial Revolution and back into the
(24:33):
mists of history, which you know, there were work classmen
were bred with that kind of sense of stoicism, desire
for autonomy, and these characteristic characteristics found an outlet in
this particular new context, very old characteristics and the new context.
So they were just kind of you know, I mean,
(24:58):
it wouldn't be They looked as if they would handle
themselves because they've been around violence a lot in their lives.
They were confident in the face of it. They were young,
they were generally bigger than the average man. They worked
out a lot more so, they had more muscle m
and some of them boxed and were very good with
their hands. Some of them were on UFC, and they
(25:20):
were judo enthusiasts, wrestling enthusiasts, you know, quite a broad gamut.
But they were all kind of men who were bodily
quite confident in their ability to face down challenges in
terms of masculinity. Obviously their men, and they're enacting particular
scripts about around masculinity. But I don't think there was
(25:43):
anything particularly negativistics. There was elements of sexism which were
far more common then, So they were, you know, kind
of they would comment on women passing in the street
and things of that kind. But they were also subject
to sexual assault themselves, and they would laugh about I
(26:07):
kind of. I mean, really they were grabbed and man
handled by women all the time. And I can remember
a group of male strippers who were working at this bar,
this kind of disco bar with a capacity about like
a thousand people were in there and meals. They had
mail strippers on and one of the jobs for the
(26:28):
for the bouncers to keep ordering this very difficult environment
was to get the strippers from the manager's office, which
is where they got changed, onto the dance floor, which
is where they did the act. And this was incredibly difficult.
And these these strippers, these poor guys, Jesus Christ, they
were sexually assaulted. It was impossible to keep them safe
(26:50):
between the two places, and they were grabbed and whatever else,
and the bouncers were also grabbed, but because of their
cultural background, they kind of shrugged all that stuff off.
They didn't start crying about being the victim of sexual assault.
So these are very quite old fashioned cultures. A lot
(27:10):
of the discourse we have about inappropriate sexual talk, inappropriate
interactions between men and women, it was all there, but
it was often going in both directions.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I wonder even if that word would have been used,
you know, would they have even considered that they had
been sexually assaulted at that time?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
That's just ask grabbing them and mostly, you know, they
kind of shrub it off and they'd make a joke
about it. You know, in some cases they would considered
a sign of flattery. It was all comedy to them,
and you know, they'd make light of that kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
I just made a note of the robust masculinity. I've
not had that one before.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I like it.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
I like it, Simon. I just wanted to ask you.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
You just mentioned an event there, but I wondered if
there was any other events or perhaps individuals that really
stand out from that piece of research.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
They're kind of really stick in your mind.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Sure, Yeah, well I'll tell you about the hardest thing
that I had to deal with is I was working
at a bar. It was actually quite a way away
from where the majority of the research was conducted, and
I was working with a friend of mine and we
traveled down to worked the door and there was just
a two of us working on. This wasn't a particularly
loud pub. It was in the city center, didn't have
(28:31):
a lot of music, and it wasn't particularly orientated towards
younger duringism, and it was quite an easy gig, really
bit boring, you know, not much going on. So we
were watching the street traffic as people trailed up and
down going about their business, lots of people out after
dark in the city center, and a crowd had gathered
(28:52):
just outside the bar that we were working, and girls
were arguing and raised voices attracted a crowd out, and
people kind of stopped going about their business and started
to watch what was unfolding. And we kind of had
a kind of ringside seat almost as we looked out
from our place at the door to the pub under
(29:15):
the main main street, and an argument there was two
antagonists shouting at each other, and you know, there was
all that kind of being, you know, from the crowd,
you know, making noise, trying to you know, seem shocked
by what was happening. And the argument stopped and one
(29:39):
of the girls turned away, and it seemed as it
was all over, but she picked up a bottle, a
brown alcohol empty alcohol bottle that was on the curb side,
and turned around immajorately and smashed off the girl who
she was arguing in the face with it. And this
changed the atmosphere and majorly on the street. It was
(30:01):
a terrible act of violence. Just the sound, you know,
everyone made a kind of intake of breath, which was
obviously a very serious act of violence from the moment
the blow was delivered. And so we'd rushed out from
our place to kind of catch this girl who immediately
(30:22):
had a hand clutch to her mouth, and caught her
and kind of brought her into the pub, and the
guy I was working with had first aid skills and
kind of gradually persuaded the girl and let her hard
come away from my mouth. And it was just the
most awful injury, ripped from nostril to mouth, teeth missing.
(30:49):
She was still fully conscious and wasn't crying. It was
just shocked and hadn't really come around from the you know,
the shot of the incident, and the police were there
quite quickly. I agreed to give a statement, which is unusual.
(31:09):
It was the only time that I agreed to give
a statement of police. And I was just reflected my
own cultural background, because if this had been a man,
I probably wouldn't have done that, and because I was
so shocked by what had happened, I, you know, I
wanted to do all I could have to help the
(31:29):
police in this in this incidentt And it turned out
this girl was fifteen years old and the case didn't
actually come to court, so I didn't have to do
anything really give a statement. Place came around a couple
of nights later and told us the fatter the matter,
and I lost sleep over that was That returned to
(31:52):
me quite a few times, and it prompted quite a
lot of rumination around ethics. H Could I have intervened sooner?
Is there anything I should have done differently? You know?
And this is real efforts, I think, not feeling in
a consent forms, trying to work out how one can
(32:15):
assist one's fellow human beings, rather than how satisfy a
kind of committee sitting in a university lecture theater.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Was that the kind of was that a point where
you stepped away from it? I mean, you know, we
often talk about getting into a group, but you know,
walking away from that study with a particular moment when that.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Happened, I don't think I continue to work after that.
The real end point came when I was working with
a security company there was also involved in protection rackets
and they got called out, we got called out. I
was in the night club after the fact, after finishing
(32:56):
work at a pub, and we all got in cars
and flew out of this pub, which was on the
end edge of town, and the head of the security
company kind of attacked this guy who he believed was
responsible for smashing up his public he's supposed to be protecting.
(33:17):
And then the other guys that I was working with
kind of joined in and he was getting hoofed around
the floor. This this guy, this this young guy. And
I said shouted immediately stop because how could you not write?
I mean, there was every these a big guys, powerful guys,
and there was every opportunity that this could have been
(33:39):
a fatality. So I had I had went to vein
at that point, and I did in the vein and
told them to stop, and they did stop. But from
that point onwards it became played and made it to
continue on with that kind of stuff was unsustained of them,
(34:01):
and it was best at that point. We had more
than enough data to write the book at that stage,
and I kind of backtracked a little and exiting was
far harder than entering the field. But that was the
end point for me.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
This is going to sound a bizarre question based on
the last two stories you just told, but did.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
You enjoy it?
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Did you enjoy the work?
Speaker 2 (34:24):
H There were moments of you know, fun, Like some
of the guys I worked with a really good company
and they'd make great jokes and I'd spend a lot
of time four hour shift or whatever. It was just
just laughing, right, you know, just great, great fun. I
was still a young guy at the time, you know,
it was a nice environment to spend timing. I didn't
(34:46):
enjoy the violence at all. And you know, some of
the professional criminals that spent time with were we're pretty
good company, and I enjoyed that aspect. But it's u
you know, I think this is the thing kind of
research project you do on the weekend, but this was
a like a full time this was my life, but
(35:08):
kind of the best part of the year. And then
there were interviews and whatever. Old that stretched it out
around two years of worth of research. And so it's
like any you know, if you look back on your youth,
there will be high points and down points and points
of regret and you know, points that you return to
(35:28):
as you get nostalgic, you know, all the rest of
that kind of stuff. So it's just I've integrated all
of that into my biography, and you know, I'm content
that I did a good job. But the research that
we conducted was worthwhile and we extended knowledge, which was
the reason why we did it in the first place.
(35:49):
I think I did reveal some important truths about how
people live and how illegal markets are organized and the
role of violence in those markets. And I'm quite kind
of quietly confident that I did my part in contributing
to the development of our intellectual life and no disciplines.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Definitely, definitely, And in that respect, you know, if if
listeners want to find out more about the research, and
how can they find out more about the study.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Well there are two books. Uh, you should be able
to get them at any college university library. You get
them for very cheaply on the on Amazon these days
because they're quite all books. But the book that I
wrote is called Badfellas, and the book I wrote with
Dick Hobbs Stuart Lister in Phil Hartfield is called Bouncers.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
And yeah, is what you're working on at the moment?
On what what's your current research.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I've just written a book about nostalgia and how people
experience nostalgia and the role of nostalgia in develop in
forms of working class politics. I'm especially interested in how
people on the far right utilize nostalgic imagery in formulating
their politics. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
And if people want to find out more about you,
can they follow you on x or instacrat.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah, I'm on Twitter. I don't tweet much, but whatever
it is. Yeah x now, yeah, you can get me
portion a few things that I've read and think we're interesting,
So please do well.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Thank you very much for your time, Tim, and I
really really appreciate it lovely.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Thanks nice to make you.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
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