A new history of counterculture in the UK, from the release of Heartbreak Hotel in 1956 to the passing of the Criminal Justice Act in 1994\n‘MY BOOK OF THE YEAR… Extraordinary… What a seditious, crackpot, transcendental riot this book is’ 
Roger Lewis, The Times\nDeep in a wood in the Marches of Wales, in an ancient school bus there lives an old man called Bob Rowberry.\nA Hero for High Times is the story of how he ended up in this broken-down bus. It's also the story of his times, and the ideas that shaped him. It's a story of why you know your birth sign, why you have friends called Willow, why sex and drugs and rock’n’roll once mattered more than money, why dance music stopped the New-Age Travellers from travelling, and why you need to think twice before taking the brown acid.\nIt's the story of the hippies for those who weren't there – for Younger Readers who've never heard of the Aldermaston marches, Oz, the Angry Brigade, the Divine Light Mission, Sniffin' Glue, Operation Julie, John Seymour, John Michell,Greenham Common, the Battle of the Beanfield, but who want to understand their grandparents’ stories of turning on, tuning in and not quite dropping out before they are gone for ever. It's for Younger Readers who want to know how to build a bender, make poppy tea, and throw the I-Ching.\nAnd it's a story of friendship between two men, one who did things, and one who thought about things, between theory and practice, between a hippie and a punk, between two gentlemen, no longer in the first flush of youth, who still believe in love.

A Hero for High Times: A Younger Reader’s Guide to the Beats, Hippies, Freaks, Punks, Ravers, New-Age Travellers and Dog-on-a-Rope Brew Crew Crusties of the British Isles, 1956–1994

Marchant, Ian

Travel

Vintage

Deep in a wood in a valley in the Marches of Wales, by an abandoned railway line, there lives an old man called Bob Rowberry. His home is an ancient school bus whose engine has died and whose wheels have fallen off.  A Hero For High Times is the story of how he ended up in this broken-down bus, in this forgotten part of the world. It tells of how, along the way, Procul Harum were named after his cat, how he sold Owsley acid to R.D. Laing, of how he annoyed Saddam Hussein and the IRA, and how he was freed from jail in Mexico by a popular uprising of the peasantry who had come to know him as ‘El Maestro’.It's also the story of his times, and the ideas that shaped him. It's a story of why you know your birth sign, why you have friends called Willow, why Yoko Ono affected how we eat much more than Linda McCartney ever did, why sex and drugs and rock’n’roll once mattered more than money, why dance music stopped the New Age Travellers from travelling, and why you need to think twice before taking the brown acid. It's the story of the hippies for those who weren't there – for Younger Readers who've never heard of the Aldermaston marches, Oz, Illuminatus, the Angry Brigade, the Furry Freak Brothers, the Divine Light Mission, the Little Red Schoolbook, the Pink Fairies, Throbbing Gristle, Sniffing Glue, Operation Julie, Crass, John Seymour, John Michell, Greenham Common, the Battle of the Beanfield or Swampy, but who want to understand their grandparents’ stories of turning on, tuning in and not quite dropping out before they are gone for ever. It's for Younger Readers who want to know how to build a bender, make poppy tea, and throw the I-Ching. And it's a story of friendship between two men, one who did things, and one who thought about things, between theory and practice, between a hippy and a punk, between two gentlemen, no longer in the first flush of youth, who still believe in love.

A Hero for High Times

Biographies & Memoirs

True Crime

JONATHAN CAPE.

Longest Crawl

TRAFALGAR SQUARE +

The Longest Crawl

Europe

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

The Battle for Dole Acre

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

In 2004 Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, asked if the countryside is guilty of a 'passive apartheid'. White Open Spaces is a Pentabus Theatre development project undertaken in partnership with BBC Radio Drama. Nine Writers were invited to take part in a residential week in Shropshire. The plays published in this volume are by Francesca Beard, Sonali Bhattacharyya, Ian Marchant, Kara Miller, Courttia Newland, Richard Rai O'Neil, and Rommi Smith. White Open Spaces was taken on a regional tour, including a run at the Pleasance's King Dome at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2006.

White Open Spaces (Oberon Modern Plays)

Newland, Courttia

Smith, Rommi

Pentabus, Theatre

Beard, Francesca

Miller, Kara

O'Neill, Richard Rai

Dramas & Plays

Oberon Books

Something of the Night

Who can say what the night might bring? Mummy tucking you up with Teddy and a cup of Ovaltine? Fireworks and frivolity? A party? Music? Dancing? Or you could be reading in bed, between clean linen sheets before falling into deep and restful sleep and sweet dreams. And who knows; the night might bring romance, or love, or sex, if you play your cards right. Or you might be working; millions of people work at night. If nobody worked at night, Britain would cease to function. Or the night might be cold, haunted, inhuman and wild. When you look up into the night sky, you see that you are nothing. An insignificant mote of dust. Or the night could be all too human. Hen parties in skimpy dresses and fairy wings being slammed into the back of a police van; girls working on street corners in the part of town where the lights don't come on; businessmen going to lap-dancing clubs to forget what waits at home. Or you could die. Most people do die at night. Or you could just lie awake and wait for the dawn. Set over the course of an intoxicated night in a house up a mountain in West Cork, Ian Marchant offers a darkly funny account of what people get up to at night, explores his own experience of a life of night times, and shows us how we all have something of the night about us.

Reference

Simon Schuster(uk)

What goes on under London? 2,000 years’ worth of history. Who have the crypts of the city harboured and what can you find in the Chiselhurst Caves? Learn about Marc Brunel, who built the first tunnel under the Thames with the help of his more famous son, Isambard, and the man who built the first sewer, Joseph Bazalgette. Discover how people have used the world under London, and how you can go looking for itunder your feet.

Crypts, Caves and Tunnels of London

Children's Books

History

Watling Street

&nbsp; A time-travelling, genealogical adventure,bringing pre-industrial, rural, eighteenth-century England vividly to life onthe page. One day Ian Marchant, acclaimed author of bookson music, railways and pubs, decided, as allmen of a certain age must, to have a dig around his family history.Surprisingly quickly, a web search informed him that his seven-times-greatgreat-grandfather, Thomas Marchant had left a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728.So far, so jolly ... Life-loving diarist Thom - who liked a drink and a game of cards - feelsrecognisably Marchant to Ian. With fascinating detail we learn about Thom'sfamily farm and fishponds; about dung, horses and mud; about beer, the wife'snights out, his own job troubles and their shared worries for their children.But as Ian digs deeper beyond the Sussex diary's bucolic portrait he discoversa subtext - a family descended from immigrants, with anti-establishmentpolitics, who are struggling with illness, political instability and cashcrises - just as their country does three centuries on. 'When I was reflecting late one January eveningon the differences between Thom and me, I realised the unbridgeable thing thatcomes between us is industrialisation. He lived right at its beginning, while Iam living somewhere towards its end. Old Thom Marchant was one of the lastpeople before industrialisation to understand how his world worked - and how tobe largely self-sufficient in it. He knew where his food came from, his fuel,his water, his clothes. He knew how the welfare system worked, and was part ofits administration; he knew who looked after the roads, too. He collectedtaxes. He was not separate from the system, but part of it.' Rich with immersive detail, One Fine Daydraws a living portrait of Marchant family life in the 1720s and how theirEngland (rainy, muddy, politically turbulent, illness-ridden) became theEngland of the 2020s.

One Fine Day

Historical

September Publishing (UK)

A time-travelling, genealogical adventure, bringing pre-industrial, rural, eighteenth-century England vividly to life on the page. One day Ian Marchant, acclaimed author of books on music, railways and pubs, decided, as all men of a certain age must, to have a dig around his family history. Surprisingly quickly, a web search informed him that his seven-times-great great-grandfather, Thomas Marchant had left a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728. So far, so jolly ... Life-loving diarist Thom - who liked a drink and a game of cards - feels recognisably Marchant to Ian. With fascinating detail we learn about Thom's family farm and fishponds; about dung, horses and mud; about beer, the wife's nights out, his own job troubles and their shared worries for their children. But as Ian digs deeper beyond the Sussex diary's bucolic portrait he discovers a subtext - a family descended from immigrants, with anti-establishment politics, who are struggling with illness, political instability and cash crises - just as their country does three centuries on. 'When I was reflecting late one January evening on the differences between Thom and me, I realised the unbridgeable thing that comes between us is industrialisation. He lived right at its beginning, while I am living somewhere towards its end. Old Thom Marchant was one of the last people before industrialisation to understand how his world worked - and how to be largely self-sufficient in it. He knew where his food came from, his fuel, his water, his clothes. He knew how the welfare system worked, and was part of its administration; he knew who looked after the roads, too. He collected taxes. He was not separate from the system, but part of it.' Rich with immersive detail, One Fine Day draws a living portrait of Marchant family life in the 1720s and how their England (rainy, muddy, politically turbulent, illness-ridden) became the England of the 2020s. 'Elegiac, consistently funny, deeply moving.' - Richard Beard 'Ian Marchant is one of England's most original writers. One Fine Day is a masterwork.' - Monique Roffey

One Fine Day: A Journey Through English Time

September Publishing

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