I met the “Milltown Boys” in 1973. A loose-knit group of young teenagers from a rough, disadvantaged council estate, I learned quickly that most of them routinely broke the law and few made much effort to go to school. In 1979, I wrote a private memoir that became Five Years, published in 1981. I stayed in touch with a few of the boys and in the late 1990s, I wondered what had happened to them. They were the first generation of “status zero” youth – now commonly referred to as Neet (not in education, employment or training).
In 2000, I interviewed 30 of the boys as they turned 40 and wrote The Milltown Boys Revisited. Another 20 years on, I’ve interviewed 12 of the boys again, now published as The Milltown Boys at Sixty (Routledge 2021).
What happened to the boys?
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