Studes - beyond the statute of limitations

I managed to be an undergraduate between the years 1966 and 1969 without ever being offered, or in the same room as, drugs, but in 1970, as a first-year post-grad, I finally managed to fall into good company, in the form of some decidedly unstraight flatmates, one of whom was dealing. There was a party in the back room every day and night, and I took to hanging out there and not joining in. I had a real aversion to the thought of smoking, but in the summer I succumbed to the lure of speed, enjoyed the fuck out of it, and in December of that year had my first hit of acid, and then a couple more. It would still be a year or two before I would smoke hash for the first time, but a wonderful world was opening uip, and I was just starting to use my camera.

Everyone featured here is a blameless individualk, but I changed their names in case they wanted to hide

Jem at Harbledown, Kent. We had taken a tab each of orange sunshine as we waited for the bus to Faversham, in the sure knowledge that it wouldn't come on until we got there. Except the bus was late, very late, and just as the neurons began to dance, up the hill towards us (this was on the A2, connecting Dover with the M2) ground three huge articulated lorries, all emblazoned on the side in letters seemingly 40 feet high and etched in flame, BRAIN HAULAGE. Oh how we giggled insanely. This picture taken moments before or after. I can't remember whether we actually got to Faversham.

I lived in this 15th-century house for a total of 15 months in 1971 and 1972. The top picture is on the westward facing flat roof at the back. That's me on the right, modelling the odd-socks-with-holes-in look, Jim Boone on the left, Caroline in the middle, and Conrad at the back. 
And below's the front of the house, same personnel, except Jim's not there – he probably took this one – and I'm wearing my work clothes (I was teaching English to police cadets at the time) and have got an armful of a gorgeous redhead, sailor Greg. Oh, and that's Dave in the window. Hi, Dave. Has a kind of early ’70s folk band first album cover shoot out-take vibe about it, doncha think?

Not Dan Dare

And talking of lost legends in music, I present the the only known picture of the legendary pre-punk conceptual Art-Rock Band, Not Dan Dare, which split up due to irreconcilable differences about the rider before their first gig, and, for that matter, their first rehearsal. They are seen next to a random van in the St Radigund's area of Canterbury. These men have variously gone on to be a gentleman farmer in Devon, a straight-edge financial advisor living in London, a respected academic, author and lexicographer, and dead at 38 of a heart attack while working as a repo man in Cleveland, OH. If I recall correctly.

Just visiting

Hawkmoth, Shaky and I made a sentimental journey back to Kent in the mid 1990s, 20 years or so after we left it. Hawk is standing outside the house at Abbey Street; he was one of the original five living there, along with me, Con, Jem and Rosel. The hjouse next door was owned by a jazz critic. His entire fron room was floor to ceiling shelves of albums (maybe 78s, didn't get a close look). He often complained about the noise

Then and, ahem, now

When I set up this blog, I intended it to be a place for stories and pictures of my gilded youth (with a possible earning stream in blackmail, seeing how many of my cohort are now in the highest halls of the land – gentle readers, you know who you are – in the ’70s, beyond time and the statute of limitations), but I find myself beginning, well, not at the beginning, but yesterday, Boxing Day.

I bought a pack of x20  Salvia divinorum extract a few months ago now, and I'd talked about it with a couple of guys who'd tried it – sons of an old school friend – but hadn't got around to trying it myself because I remembered my basic psychonautic training about set and setting. Although I could guarantee the setting, I had no set to speak of – since my wife died, I live alone apart from my 7-month old terrier pup, Scrap. Then yesterday, after lunch, and stuck for something to do, I whimsically decided to give it a go – it was lying there in its unopened packet in front of me on the coffee table.  I had persuaded myself that anything that you could buy legally over the counter couldn't be that strong, and that even if I disliked it, all I had to do was curl up in a ball and wait out about 20 minutes. As a sop to caution, I measured out a little less than half what the guy in the shop had suggested and smoked it in the whae, using a jet lighter to ensure the active ingredient volatilized. It was an easy smoke, and I held it for a while before exhaling – a faint taste of raw potatoes – then sat back on the sofa and wondered how I would know it was coming on. The next thing I'm aware of, I'm standing by the front door (in the next room) with odd shoes on, the door's wide open and Scrap's in the middle of the street (not as serious as it sounds, we get maybe a dozen vehicles passing a day) barking his head off and keeping a wary distance. I fall to my knees as I bend to rectify the shoe situation and realise I'm tripping balls and have no idea where I've been for the previous aeon or two, but it sure wasn't here, and the memory's elusive. It's at this point I remember I smoked the Salvia, and an extraordinary visual show commences,  with the (rather shabby-looking ) room dissolving into a roiling, writhing, cartoon chaos, tinged with 3D red and green as the rods and cones swirled and swam and the doors of perception were blasted off their hinges.  In fact, the show's so packed with detail that I struggled to see well enough to function, and I sure can't cope with shoelaces – a surfeit of fingers, none of them mine – there's this insane 1930s Hawaiian guitar music chuntering away in the next room and intertwining with my mind and tugging at my sleeves, so I go back into the other living room to turn it off, and find that the coffee table in front of the sofa – on which was all my dope (including the rest of the packet of salvia) and paraphernalia, three pairs of spectacles, a camera, several ceramic bowls, three remote controls, my iPod and phone but thankfully no laptop – had been overturned leaving a heap of consumer slurry that Scrap was far too interested in. I made a swipe or two at cleaning up while holding him off with my other hand, but decided I had to get out and clear my head and stop him barking.** After a false start in which I strode out the door in a startling, if bracing insufficiency of clothing for the conditions, we went over to the Millennium Green (currently more Swamp), where Scrappy played for what seemed like forever a complex game involving mud, sticks and puddles, while I alternately tried not to be sick, then to be sick*, then to find a place to pee – this stuff is a powerful diuretic, I've since read – and hope I don't have to interact with humans. When Scrap started jumping up at a couple with another dog, between us we managed to gather him in. I'd had enough head clearing and human contact, so I took him home. When we got in, I looked at the clock. It was not quite a quarter to three, maybe half an hour since I smoked it.   This is the first new drug I tried in a couple of decades: despite taking more than 300 trips on the classic psychedelics such as LSD, Psilocybin and mescaline, I've never before lost myself so completely nor have I had such a rush in my whole life. And I have never forgotten so quickly and completely the contents of a trip, nor done something as extreme as overturning the coffee table without even noticing ,and having no memory at all of it, although bits have returned. There were long moments of extraordinary beauty, even sublimity, that have stayed with me: the visual memory is particularly strong. Of course, I've since done the research I should have done earlier, and found that it is not a classic psychedelic at all, but a dissociative one, with effects apparently more similar to those of Ketamine and PCP – neither of which I would go near – than acid. I felt pretty good all day today, too. It's proved very refreshing – that's precisely the word. I remember how I used to use acid as a kind of spiritual Drano in the ’70s when I felt psychically clogged, or 'fed up' as we called it then.    * I never was sick, btw, it was just the information chaos (same cause as car sickness, basically).  ** When I did clear up, I found that one set of specs had lost an arm, and a dinnerplate that had been supporting candles was smashed, but nothing vital, and I had at some point in the proceedings had the foresight to put the Salvia back in the packet and seal it, and I was thankful for that – will definitely do it again, now I know what to expect. Looking forward with keen anticipation