Bodgies and widgies
Bodgies and widgies refer to a youth subculture that existed in Australia and New Zealand in the 1950s, similar to the rocker culture in the UK or Greaser culture in the United States. Most bodgies rode motorbikes but some had cars, many of which were hotted-up with accessories such as mag wheels and hot dog mufflers.
The males were called bodgies and the females were called widgies. Bodgies were often depicted in Australian media and folk-lore as louts. On 1 February 1951 the Sydney Morning Herald wrote on its front page:
What with "bodgies" growing their hair long and getting around in satin shirts, and "wedgies" cutting their hair short and wearing jeans, confusion seems to be arising about the sex of some Australian adolescents.
In New Zealand the Mazengarb Report (Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents) of 1954 was partly a response to the emergence of the bodgie & widgie subculture.
Citing a Sydney Morning Herald article from 21 January 1956, Professor Keith Moore wrote in 2004:
The first bodgies were World War 2 Australian seamen who as well as impersonating Americans were black marketers and the first bodgie gang was the 'Woolloomooloo Yanks' who congregated in Cathedral Street Woolloomooloo. By 1948, about 200 bodgies were regularly frequenting Kings Cross milk bars. Soon, bodgie gangs formed at other inner-Sydney locations. After a time, moccasins and American drape suits complete with pegged trousers replaced their attire of blue jeans and leather American Airline jackets or zoot suits. For bodgies, almost all of whom were working class, emulating the high status Americans who had so recently occupied Australia as military personnel was easier than achieving upward social mobility.
There was a Victorian Police (Australia) Bodgies and Widgies Squad formed – plain clothed. Their job was to bust up the gang.
In 1983, the Melbourne Age interviewing Joh Hewett for his upcoming theses suggested:
the term "bodgie" arose around the Darlinghurst area in Sydney. It was just after the end of World War II and rationing had caused a flourishing black market in American-made cloth. [John Hewet says,] "People used to try and pass off inferior cloth as American-made when in fact it was not: so it was called 'bodgie'... When some of the young guys started talking with American accents to big-note themselves they were called bodgies."