1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left | Robin Hitchcock
An idiosyncratic childhood memoir for the ages from clusive national treasure and great avatar of British psychedelia, Robyn Hitchcock.
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A bright, obsessive compulsive boy is shipped off to a hothouse academic boarding school just before he reaches his thirteenth birthday: just Bob Dylan’s Highway 6t Revisited starts to bite, and the Beatles’ Revolver explodes.
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In January 1966, Robyn Hitchcock is still a boy pining for his green Dalek sponge and his family’s comforting au pair, Teresa. By December I967, he’s mutated into a 6 ft 2-inch rabid Bob Dylan fan, whose two ambitions in life arc to get really stoned and move to Nashville.Â
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In between, as the hippie revolution blossoms in the world outside, Hitchcock adjusts to the hierarchical, homoerotic world of Winchester (think Gormenghast via Evelyn Waugh), threading a path through teachers with arrested development, some oafish peers and a sullen old maid very English freak show. On the way he befriends a cadre of bat-winged teenage prodigies and meets their local guru, the young Brian Eno. And his home life isn’t any more normal.
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At the end of 1967, all the ingredients are in place that will make Robyn Hitchcock a songwriter for life. But then again, does 1967 ever really end?
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Size: 145 x 223mm (hardback with dust jacket)
Pages: 224 (integrated b&w illustrations – author’s own)
Publisher: Constable
