THE Summer of Love in 1967 was helped by the Scott McKenzie song San Francisco which became its anthem. Hippies had made the Haight-Ashbury area of the city an enclave of free thinking youth who wanted to wear flowers in their hair and believed all you needed was love as an alternative to what was seen as the strictures and corruption of government.
Teenagers reacted across Britain in response and we had better music: Whiter Shade of Pale, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Penny Lane and Purple Haze. Young people from Llandudno to London wanted to be part of the Magical Mystery Tour.
The 50th anniversary of that period will be commemorated and remembered over the next months and has already had its detractors. It may not have achieved anything tangible but it was a concept of optimism that has never left those who embraced the ethos and music of the time. It's legacy has been felt by succeeding generations of teenagers.
I got married in Blackpool at the end of that summer. I was living alone in my wife Maria's family home before the wedding. It was a mansion and was about to be put up for sale and I became caretaker. Minstrels' gallery, servants quarters, study and a drawing room with a bar. And rent free.
Just the location for the occasional hippy party, with the french windows open onto the grounds at the back and a game of midnight rounders in the nude.
And yes, I wore flowers in my hair, not that the manager of the off-license down the road was too impressed when I appeared in jeans. Afghan coat, beads around my neck, Zapata moustache and a daisy chain in my hair to ask for a Watney's Party Seven. And wasn't that a terrible beer?
Weather is always better in retrospect but I seem to remember high temperatures and sunny days. And the memories, and the message of love and peace, have stayed with me ever since.
Teenagers reacted across Britain in response and we had better music: Whiter Shade of Pale, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Penny Lane and Purple Haze. Young people from Llandudno to London wanted to be part of the Magical Mystery Tour.
The 50th anniversary of that period will be commemorated and remembered over the next months and has already had its detractors. It may not have achieved anything tangible but it was a concept of optimism that has never left those who embraced the ethos and music of the time. It's legacy has been felt by succeeding generations of teenagers.
I got married in Blackpool at the end of that summer. I was living alone in my wife Maria's family home before the wedding. It was a mansion and was about to be put up for sale and I became caretaker. Minstrels' gallery, servants quarters, study and a drawing room with a bar. And rent free.
Just the location for the occasional hippy party, with the french windows open onto the grounds at the back and a game of midnight rounders in the nude.
And yes, I wore flowers in my hair, not that the manager of the off-license down the road was too impressed when I appeared in jeans. Afghan coat, beads around my neck, Zapata moustache and a daisy chain in my hair to ask for a Watney's Party Seven. And wasn't that a terrible beer?
Weather is always better in retrospect but I seem to remember high temperatures and sunny days. And the memories, and the message of love and peace, have stayed with me ever since.
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