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SEX & DRUGS & ROCK-N-ROLL

In the sixties we were all supposed to have as much sex and drugs and rock and roll as possible.

Sex was my favourite. It was free – as long as you overlooked the potential consequences – and, most of the time, absolutely fantastic.

Rock and roll was fantastic too because we had invented it, the same as sex. Our parents had listened to music by people who wore suits and had tidy haircuts like they did and played in dance bands. And, of course, our parents never had sex more than the one time it had taken to produce us and it had always been with the light out, eyes shut tight, thinking of England as they did their duty while wearing thick pyjamas.

Drugs were something I was much too scared to try. I loved myself too much to take anything that could be dangerous. Not that there was much choice in the sixties. It was mainly pot, which I found pretty boring. It didn’t so much enhance life as send it to sleep. The other new toy was LSD and there was no way I was ever going to try that, not with the thousands of people we kept hearing about who suddenly thought they were birds and flew off the tops of tall buildings. At least two people I knew were changed forever by it.

Drink was a different matter altogether. Well, it was for a while, until I finally connected the throwing up and feeling really shit for hours after about five minutes of feeling great with the cheap cider I was drinking. I finally realised I had almost no head for alcohol and thank goodness I didn’t because I would probably have become an alcoholic.

Smoking – I did have a head for that and from sixteen to thirty-five I chain-smoked all day every day. Twenty-five years later, when I was fifty-nine, smoking was blamed when I had bypass surgery for a blocked artery.