"A Teenage Rhapsody 1966 to 1973" is autobiographical and describes my transition from adolescence to manhood at a time when the shackles of certain traditional social oppressions were been swept aside by optimism for a better future that previous generations were denied.
That better future started with the phenomenon called 'the teenager' who suddenly had a voice, a voice of freedoms, expression and of influence that helped create the Swinging Sixties.
I was there, yes I was there. What I was to experience growing up in the suburbs of Leeds at the time the book suggests, was that of hardship, laughter, fun, love and betrayal, juvenile violence and the explosion of alternatives that were now becoming accepted, as inevitable.
But also what I was experiencing, with the doctrine of Victorian values to keep me out of harm's way, was the freedom, without concern, to wander and explore for endless hours, the labyrinth of streets of back to back terrace houses that offered adventure around every corner.
The simplicity of life during the time of my teenage years, alongside a commonality of certain basic traditions passed down from generation to generation, that still apply and work regardless of generation. This was liberating, allowing me to develop my mind and character through trial and error at a pace of life that was less demanding and frenzied to what is to arrive in the next century, when all this description will be viewed in the format akin to a Sepia painting hanging with obscurity in a corner of a gallery.
This story had a need to be told.
