This is where things become blurred, very blurred, from the age of 18 and pretty much solidly for the next 10 years, I was only half in the driving seat, but never completely out of control, well OK I was shit faced most of the time, and the question of control is academic as I survived it, and in any case the totally out of control periods are completely blank.

Before I take you into my twilight zone, I need to fill in a bit of background, by 13 years was smoking roll ups and had partaken in the “Herb” on a fairly regular basis, by 15 years of age I was already into amphetamines and had taken my first of many “Trips”. not boasting , just telling you.

The bookcase has only a peripheral role in this part, and I will finish this particular blog  with the details of what sort of state it was in by the end. The bulk of this story is I think worth telling , but possibly elsewhere, or I will lose the direction of the whole thing. Whew! narrowly avoided another,  Karl Ove Knausgård, moment, not that is a bad thing, I have read the first 4 of his 5 autobiographical tomes, and I am a fan. I have to fight the temptation to go into minute detail of my life, the urge to confess I suppose, the mark of a Roman Catholic upbringing.

For the ten-year period in question in the context mentioned in the first paragraph above, my life gravitated to extreme social activity, the basis of which was built around music, the listening to , watching and making of. Going to the movies was also an important and frequent activity, just in case anyone is curious I was almost continually employed during this period primarily in various branches of the electronics industry, laughably at one stage I worked on prototype weapons systems at Marconi, whilst being a card-carrying member of the CND and active member of the Anti-Nazi League.

I was a child in the 60’s

       My interest in Music was eclectic and very time-consuming.

Remarkable Times

And all this time

Self Explanatory

By the end the bit that matters for this blog, the bookcase was occupied with a mixture of underground comics, Zap, Furry Freaks and the like, and primarily paperbacks by a variety of authors, including:- Moorcock, Flann O’brien, Kerouac, Brautigan, Poe, and on and on, I had also developed an interest in Burroughs and at one time claimed to have read and understood everything he had written, not sure that I could say that now, the interest continued with translations of French titles, so Bataille, Genet and Beckett, and for those of you in the know, you can already spot the drift towards the Olympia Press, although at this stage I don’t recall any of the copies in the bookcase being Olympia Press editions at that time, another missed opportunity.

Next: The Obsession begins