Easter 1964 was cold in the English seaside town of Clacton. Bored young visitors - some of them Mods, others Rockers, in the fashion parlance of the day - began to misbehave. Stones were thrown. “Those on bikes roared up and down, windows were broken, some beach huts were wrecked and one boy fired a starting pistol in the air,” wrote the young sociologist Stanley Cohen in his classic Folk Devils and Moral Panics in 1972.

The disturbances in Clacton sparked a national “moral panic”. The story led most British newspapers, and the media began monitoring young people visiting seaside resorts. Whenever any trouble happened, or didn't happen, it was reported hysterically. One Brighton newspaper called the various seaside incidents “without parallel in English history”. The forces of order cracked down on Mods and Rockers.

Stan Cohen, a family friend, died last month aged 70. His book remains one of the most influential in sociology. His phrase “moral panics” has entered the language. Hardly anybody now remembers Mods and Rockers, but Stan prefigured all moral panics of the last 40 years. In Britain alone, the “folk devils” demonised in these panics have ranged from satanic child abusers to Muslims and “hoodies”. Anyone living in a country with mass media could compile his own list of national folk devils. Moral panics may never cease, but if you read Stan's book, at least you will understand each time what is going on.