Befriend him? Was I off my Rocker?

A few months ago, I received a friend request on social media from someone I knew as a teenager.

I gladly accepted his request because we were good friends as youngsters - although we shouldn't really have been friends at all. In fact, we should have been mortal enemies if prevailing opinion had been anything to go by.

Our friendship goes back to the days of Mods and Rockers, the British teenage tribes made famous in the film Quadrophenia.

I was a Mod and my friend was a Rocker.

Mods rode scooters. They had short hair, wore parka coats and dressed quite sharply, supposedly echoing the style of '60s Italians. In my part of the world they listened to obscure American soul music, later dubbed Northern Soul.

Rockers rode motorbikes, the bigger and louder the better. They wore denim and leathers, had long, greasy hair and listened to heavy rock music.

The two clans were notorious for hating each other and there were frequent newspaper headlines about violent clashes, usually at seaside resorts.

Well, it didn't work out like that for my friend and I.

I had a succession of Lambretta scooters and could manage the odd repair but my friend the Rocker was an expert with engines and frequently helped me get my machines back on the road. And I liked motorbikes - I was just a bit too nervous about banking around corners at high speed to own one.

We also shared a love of music. I was very much into soul music but I also loved rock and all sorts of other genres. My friend the Rocker liked soul music as well as heavy rock, though I'm not sure he would have confessed that to his biker pals.

It's many years since I used two-wheeled transport but I see from his online profile that my friend is still a keen biker, now enjoying breathtaking scenery near his new home in North Wales.

We picked up our friendship right where we left off, comparing notes about the music we enjoy.

I think we hit it off initially because we didn't pay any regard to prevailing opinion. We took each other at face value.

That made me think about with the unfortunate 'pull-up-the-drawbridge' mentality that seems to be gaining ground in Western countries these days, where foreigners are treated with suspicion and mistrust.

Given the chance to meet and get to know each other, people tend to get along just fine once the preconceptions are out of the way.

I've visited a lot of countries - lived in a couple of them - and, as far as I can see, wherever you go, people of any nationality are basically the same. They share the same everyday concerns and have a natural desire to be friendly with each other.

The more you keep them apart, the more room there is for unfounded prejudice and generally getting the wrong end of the stick.

If a Mod and a Rocker can be friends, there should be hope for us all.

Contact the writer at david@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/06/2017 page2)