Hippie Hippie Shake

The Dreams, The Trips, The Trials, The Love-ins, The Screw Ups: The Sixties

When Richard Neville arrived in London in 1966 after a six-month overland trek from Australia, the first thing he did was visit Bibi: "The famous boutique throbbed with The Animals, cash registers and scantily clad women...the air was tinged with the perfume of Arabia, and some of its hash...I nearly fainted." Five years later he was jailed for 15 months for publishing an obscene article, "Schoolkids Oz."

In the intervening years, as editor of Oz, the hippies handbook and monument to psychedelia, Neville was the darling of the in-crowd: the liberal intellectuals, writers, fashion designers, rock musicians, artists and business people. Through it all he remained amused and objective, frequently startling even his closest admirers with his unexpected views on everything from free love to the Vietnam War.

This classic of 60s-themed literature is currently being made into a major motion picture starring Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy.