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Authors: Andy Roberts

Albion Dreaming

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Albion Dreaming
 

A popular history of LSD in Britain

 

Andy Roberts

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2012 Andy Roberts

Designed and typeset by Phoenix Photosetting, Lordswood, Chatham, Kent
www.phoenixphotosetting.co.uk

 

Published in 2012 by Marshall Cavendish Editions

An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

 

1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196

[email protected]

www.marshallcavendish.com/genref

 

Other Marshall Cavendish offices: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown, NY 10591 • Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd. 253 Asoke, 12th Flr, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand • Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

 

Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of Times Publishing Limited

 

The right of Andy Roberts to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

 

All rights reserved

 

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the publisher.

 

The author and publisher have used their best efforts in preparing this book and disclaim liability arising directly and indirectly from the use and application of this book.

 

All reasonable efforts have been made to obtain necessary copyright permissions. Any omissions or errors are unintentional and will, if brought to the attention of the publisher, be corrected in future printings.

 

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

 

eISBN 978 981 4328 97 5

 

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Limited, Padstow, Cornwall

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Gavin for charting the course,
Lindsay for being the imperfect guru and
Andy, Graeme, Chris and Helen, with whom I shared
adventures unfettered by time and space.
And for my Mountain Girl, blips!
What a long, strange, trip it’s been.

CONTENTS
 

Dramatis Personae

List of Illustrations

Glossary

Foreword by Dr Sue Blackmore

 

1. Turn on, Tune in, Drop out

2. Hofmann’s Potion

3. LSD: The Cure of Souls?

4. LSD: A Cure for the Common Cold?

5. The Joyous Cosmology

6. The Foggy Ruins of Time

7. Strangely Strange, but Oddly Normal

8. Senses Working Overtime

9. All You Need is Love?

10. Bring What You Expect to Find

11. The Mind Alchemists

12. Coming Down Again

13. Revolution in the Head

 

Thanks!

Contact

Permissions

References

Bibliography

Index

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
 

Steve Abrams

American parapsychologist who was at the heart of London’s LSD counter culture

 

Jonathan Aitken

Journalist who took LSD, when still legal, for the Evening Standard; subsequently a disgraced Conservative MP

 

Richard Alpert

Colleague of Timothy Leary at Harvard and co-conspirator in the early promotion of LSD; subsequently eschewed drugs and became the spiritual teacher Baba Ram Dass

 

George Andrews

Poet and author of books on drugs

 

Paul Arnabaldi

Backer of Richard Kemp’s Welsh LSD laboratory

 

Nigel Ayres

Attendee and recorder of many free festivals of the Seventies

 

Syd Barrett

Original Pink Floyd lead guitarist; LSD contributed to his descent into mental illness

 

Brian Barritt

Early LSD dealer in London; friend of Timothy Leary

 

Cecil Beaton

English fashion and portrait photographer

 

John Beresford

Paediatrician friend of Michael Hollinsghead

 

Christine Bott

Involved in Operation Julie conspiracy; common law wife of Richard Kemp

 

Joe Boyd

American record producer and co-founder of UFO club

 

Tara Browne

London socialite whose death possibly inspired the Beatles’
Day in the Life

 

Richard Brunstrom

Chief Constable of North Wales; believes all drugs should be legalised and regulated

 

Julia Callan-Thompson

Occasional hippie prostitute; involved with the Kapur LSD conspiracy

 

Ernest Chain

Nobel winning biochemist who appeared for the defence in a 1967 LSD trial

 

Derek Channon

Naval rating who underwent LSD experiment at Porton Down in 1953

 

Harry Collumbine

Porton Down scientist

 

Sean Connery

James Bond actor who used LSD in psychotherapy

 

Julian Cope

Musician with a predilection for LSD

 

Francis Crick

Discovered DNA

 

Dave Cunliffe

LSD courier in late Fifties London

 

Paul Devereux

Author and researcher into prehistoric use of psychedelic drugs

 

Jeff Dexter

Legendary DJ at UFO club and 1971 Glastonbury Fair

 

Johnny Dolphin

American poet who spent time with Terry Taylor in Morocco

 

Bill (Ubi) Dwyer

LSD dealer in Australia and London; instigator behind the Windsor Free Festivals

 

Joel Elkes

Founder of Birmingham University’s Department of Experimental Psychology; early LSD experimenter; linked to MOD LSD experiments

 

John Esam

London LSD dealer in the early Sixties

 

Harry Fainlight

Poet who read his LSD inspired poem at the 1965 Wholly Communion event

 

Mick Farren

Counter culture author and antagonist

 

Nigel (Leif) Fielding

Minor player in the Operation Julie LSD conspiracy

 

David Gale

Childhood friend of Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett

 

Christopher Gibb

London art dealer; friend of the Rolling Stones

 

Allen Ginsberg

American Beat poet with counter culture sympathies

 

Dave (Boss) Goodman

London LSD dealer in the Sixties

 

Eric Gow

RAF serviceman who underwent LSD test at Porton Down during the Fifties

 

Dennis Greenslade

Detective Superintendent in Operation Julie

 

Casey Hardison

American citizen sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in 2005 for manufacturing LSD in Lewes, Sussex

 

Lee Harris

Founder of London’s first “head” shop; editor of
Home Grown
, Britain’s first counter culture drug magazine

 

Gerald Heard

British expatriate philosopher; gave LSD to Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson; instrumental in the development of early LSD philosophies

 

Bill Hicks

American satirist who campaigned against drug hypocrisy

 

Albert Hofmann

Chemist who discovered LSD in 1938

 

Michael Hollingshead

Introduced Timothy Leary to LSD; mover and shaker on early London psychedelic scene

 

Maxwell Hollyhock

MOD scientist who took LSD to examine its effects

 

John (Hoppy) Hopkins

Photographer and counter culture legend; co-founder of UFO club

 

Frankie Howerd

British comedian who underwent LSD psychotherapy

 

Chris Huhne

Liberal Democrat MP

 

Roger Hutchinson

Attendee and photographic recorder of many free festivals in the Seventies

 

Aldous Huxley

Intellectual and literary polymath; probably the finest writer on psychedelic drugs and their philosophy

 

Laura Huxley

Huxley’s wife; administered LSD to Huxley as he died

 

Robert Hyde

American psychiatrist who took the first LSD trip in America

 

Mick Jagger

Singer in the Rolling Stones

 

Roy Jenkins

British Home Secretary 1965–67

 

Peter Jenner

Manager of Pink Floyd

 

Victor Kapur

The first man to be arrested in Britain for manufacturing LSD

 

Richard Kemp

LSD chemist; pivotal in the Operation Julie LSD conspiracy

 

Andrew Kerr

Instigator of the 1971 Glastonbury Fair, forerunner to the annual Glastonbury Festival

 

Ken Kesey

American author of
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
; advocate of unstructured LSD use

 

Art Kleps

One of Timothy Leary’s disciples

 

R.D. (Ronnie) Laing

Radical psychiatrist who used LSD personally and professionally

 

Timothy Leary

American academic, responsible for promulgating LSD as a spiritual tool

 

Richard (Dick) Lee

Detective Inspector in Operation Julie

 

Donovan Leitch

Folk rock musician involved in the early London LSD scene

 

Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon

Film maker and friend of Syd Barrett

 

Tim Lott

Author and journalist

 

Christopher Mayhew

British politician who took Mescaline as part of a 1955 televised experiment

 

Paul McCartney

The first member of the Beatles to publicly admit to taking LSD

 

Joey Mellen

Early London LSD facilitator, critical of Hollingshead’s methods

 

Pete Mellor

Grass roots hippie with considerable experience of LSD

 

Ralph Metzner

American psychologist who participated in early LSD experiments at Harvard with Timothy Leary

 

John Michell

Author, researcher and philosopher; introduced many of the “mystical” ideas about Britain

 

Barry Miles

Author and chronicler of the Sixties

 

Monkey

Free festival attendee, LSD dealer and observer of the transition from free festivals to rave culture

 

Andy Munro

The chemist in the London part of the Operation Julie conspiracy

 

Simon Napier-Bell

Record producer

 

Jim Narg

First British person to mention LSD in song

 

Harry Nathan

Distributor of LSD for Victor Kapur

 

Desmond O’Brien

One of the backers behind Michael Hollingshead’s World Psychedelic Centre

 

Humphrey Osmond     

British psychiatrist who invented the word psychedelic

 

Anita Pallenberg

Actress and Rolling Stones’ femme fatale

 

Clive Palmer

First person in Scotland to be charged with possession of LSD

 

Hugh Park

Judge at the main Operation Julie conspiracy trials

 

Paul Guest

Britain’s leading Blotter art collector, expert and retailer

 

Norman Pilcher

British police officer who achieved notoriety by arresting pop stars for drugs; later convicted for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice

 

Sid Rawle

Early hippie, squatting veteran and free festival organiser

 

Max Rinkel

American psychiatrist who brought LSD to America in1949

BOOK: Albion Dreaming
6.39Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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