Sixties Saturday

Stroud Green Library Nov 12

Events over the last few days are incomprehensible and almost unbelievable, Donald Trump is to be the next president in the White House, Leonard Cohen has died, and almost unnoticed cuts to the benefits of the poorest in our society have been introduced.

What was happening in the 60s? JFK, one of the most popular presidents ever was shot, thousands of American troops were pouring into Vietnam, pressure was being put on Harold Wilson to send members of the British military to join them, and the Beatles were taking the world by storm. On Saturday 12 November I’m going to be talking about this and more at the Stroud Green Library Sixties Saturday event.

Here’s a piece about the event from the Harringay on Line Friday Ketchup newsletter:

‘The Friends of Stroud Green and Harringay Library are delighted to present an afternoon dedicated to the Sixties at the library on Saturday 12th November from 2 – 4pm

At 2.30 we welcome Elizabeth Woodcraft, a local author, to discuss her new book ‘Beyond the Beehive‘ and what it was like being a mod girl in Chelmsford. Elizabeth will play music from the era and her book will be available to buy after the event.

PLUS

*Pop up exhibition: For one afternoon only,  from 2pm until 4 pm, local people have lent items from the sixties for our ‘Beyond the Beehive’ exhibition

*Bring a photo of yourself or your parents/grandparents in the 60s’ to share! Bring baby pics, wedding photos, pictures of you on marches or pictures of your parents and grandparents from the 1960s. If you have no photos, write a memory, association or words you associate with the 60s on our post-it note board.

*Take a selfie with a beehive wig! Elizabeth will bring her wigs for you to try on

*Take part in our discussion about what you like, remember, think about the 60s. ALL ages welcome. All you need is an interest in the 60s!

*Browse and borrow books from Haringey Library from or about the 60s

Refreshments available

We are very excited about this event and we hope to see you there!’

The Essex Girls

Essex Girls_final

The Essex Girls, out on 23 August 2018, is a book I’ve wanted to write for most of my life, because it seems the world has not paid much attention to the lives of mod, working class girls, and I wanted to redress the balance.  When I was about 10 I started to write a book about a girl who didn’t go to boarding school.  Somehow, apart from the Secret Seven books by Enid Blyton, there weren’t that many books around about children who went to day school.  All those boarding school kids had to have their adventures in the long hot summer holidays, whereas in my world we were having adventures on weekdays and weekends. I say adventures – I mean writing the local newspaper, cooking ourselves little restaurant meals, putting on plays for the other kids in the street, and following someone on the estate we were convinced was a spy and noting his movements down in our notebooks (a spy with a very dull life, it turned out).

The problem grew more acute as I got older and became a mod.  There were limitations with being a mod – if you weren’t interested in clothes and music and possibly scooters and if your mum and dad would not have let you go to Clacton or Margate on a Bank holiday, even if you’d wanted to, then there wasn’t  much going on – but there was still a life, and one with a lot of action.  The film Quadrophenia demonstrated that people were interested in mods, but the girls don’t get much of a look in, in the story.

So, out came the notebook and over the pages flew my pen, and then my word processor and then one computer after another.

I hope I’ve captured some of the essence of the excitement of Saturday nights, walking into a dance hall in time to the rhythm of Green Onions, or the smell of Wishing perfume by Avon, or seeing people you knew wearing parkas and leather coats, swooping along the road to park outside the mods’ coffee bar.  It was a great time.

Essex Girls_final

The Essex Girls is published by Bonnier Zaffre and is available to pre-order here