Keeping alive the glorious spirit of 1976
It was at first slightly deflating when recently I received, for the first time since The Best Year Of Our Lives was published two and a half years ago, a negative review on Amazon.
Continue ReadingThe scene is set with a reminder that 1897 is Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee year and, needless to say, for the children who were to become the first pupils at the brand new Worple Road Infant School in Isleworth this was an occasion like not many other. On March 1st of that year they took up their places at the school, resplendent as it was with all the latest technology in the form of gas lamps and coal fires.
Continue ReadingTo begin with this book was an easy sell to me because I find myself enchanted by the seventies in general and by anything to do with 1976 in particular. So a simple glance at the title made it a must-buy. When I discovered that it was set on the Isle of Wight, not only in a town but actually around a street with which I am very familiar (for it has been the venue of countless family holidays in more recent years), my complete and undivided attention was assured.
Continue ReadingTony Visconti looked up at me as I approached the table behind which he was sitting with a welcoming expression, and what appeared at least to be a genuine willingness to engage me in conversation and an eagerness to be helpful in answering any questions I might have had for him.
Continue ReadingWhen submitting an old manuscript to a traditional book publisher some years back I was told that I ought to make my work “less autobiographical”. She didn’t want to hurt my feelings and so she was tactful, but what her advice amounted to was that no-one much wants to read the autobiography of somebody who is not a household name. The Glam Rock Files flies defiantly in the face of this advice,
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