Hippie Hippie Shake: The Dreams, the Trips, the Trials, the Love-ins, the Screw Ups, the Sixties

When Richard Neville arrived in London in 1966, the first thing he did was visit Biba: 'the famous boutique throbbed with The Animals, cash registers and skimpily clad women ...the air was tinged with hash ...I nearly fainted'. Five years later, Neville was sentenced to fifteen months for publishing an obscene article, "Schoolkids Oz", and John Lennon joined the throngs of protestors singing his own composition "God Save Oz". In the intervening years, as editor of "Oz", the hippies' handbook and a totem to psychedelia, Neville was at the centre of the Sixties youthquake, surrounded by rock musicians, intellectuals, artists, and fabulous freaks. It was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius ...and then the hash hit the fan.