YOUTH culture has frightened parents, outraged the authorities and shocked older generations ever since post-war prosperity gave young people the chance to express themselves more fully. In the late 1980s dance culture, which was linked to illegal warehouse parties, alienated parents and created a new generation of ravers.

But that was nothing new, as 500 music-crazed teenagers had proved some 30 years earlier when they went on the rampage in East Lancashire. In part one of our four part look at the East Lancashire music scene, PAUL BARRY turns the microscope on the 1950s and 1960s. ROCKING around the clock may seem an outdated concept but the wild youngsters of 40 years ago had the authorities in uproar - with rock 'n' roll riots which put East Lancashire on the map of youth culture.

When hundreds of jive-crazy teenagers trashed a Burnley Cinema in 1956, it marked the birth of rock 'n' roll rebellion in the north.

Older folk across the country were falling over themselves to condemn the so-called evils of the new phenomenon called rock 'n' roll.

It began on the Monday night of September 3 when 500 teenagers packed into the stalls of the Empire Cinema. Some had been there since the first show in the afternoon, hooked on the music of the new film Rock Around The Clock.

But it was when the sound of Bill Haley and the Comets and back-up pioneer rockers such as Little Richard and Freddie Bell and the Bellboys came pumping out once more during the second house that, in the words of the Northern Daily Telegraph, "pandemonium broke out."

Arms and backs were torn off seats, light bulbs were smashed and, for a time, a fire hydrant was turned on, sending water gushing down the aisle. Cinema manager Mr W A Haworth had the lights turned up and went on the stage to "play pop" himself. It ended with the teenagers who, the Telegraph said, had "suddenly swung into wild dancing and singing", dancing out of the exits and carrying on dancing in the streets after the cinema shut.

Next day, Mr Haworth played down the incident but extra staff were called in for that night's screening, along with the town's Chief Constable and 10 plain-clothes policemen. But the damage had been done.

Although Burnley was not the first town in the land where Rock Around The Clock caused ructions at the flicks, it was the first in the north - and the event made the authorities across the country afraid that a dangerous force was being let loose among the nation's youth.

Tame as it now seems, debate raged about the picture's unwholesome influence on youngsters.

A week after Burnley's Empire was rocked, the Watch Committee in Blackburn banned the film before it could be shown at the town's Olympic Cimema on the grounds that "it contained matter likely to lead to public disorder."

Before long, Burnley cinema boss Mr Haworth was being interviewed on national radio to describe "the north's first rock 'n' roll disturbance."

In Accrington, the Ritz Cinema withdrew Rock Around The Clock after consultation with the police. In Blackburn, there was a backlash over the ban, with youngsters protesting they were being made to suffer because of the Burnley rock fans' behaviour.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.