| Alternative
London is one of the best books of all time (9.04) |
||
 |
||
|
I
scored three presents that changed my life at Xmas 1982. The first was a diary, a little green thing with a lock. I wrote that thing every day of my 14 year-old life, and then I wrote another one, and then I kept going, non-stop, for another eight years. The second present was a Dictionary of Slang. I don't know if my parents knew what they were giving me, maybe the gift was a pointed comment on my increasingly trashy way of speaking, but through this book I found out that there were such things in the world as glory holes, size queens, bikers keen to earn their red wings, as well as the immortal expression: "She's out there trolling for trade like fruit for the monkeys." The third present was in a similar vein; a copy of Alternative London. This book looks embarrassingly dated these days, but it was the height of hip in 1982 and had already gone through several previous editions. My oldest brother Paul gave it to me. To me it was one of those things that opens your eyes to new possibilities. It was my brother who gave me my copy and although decades have passed, I will never stop thanking him. It's hard to think of a book that has made a greater impact on me. Alternative London is a directory of information, a "guide to surviving the 80s, contacts & aid, bargains & dodges, action & involvement...how to get the most out of the city (and beyond) for the least money." It truly embodied the spirit of Doing It Yourself, it was about living well without having to become a pod person, making your way in the city whilst maintaining your integrity, and it was written by people who had first-hand knowledge of this way of living (it was even edited in a squat!). Softer and sweeter than the Anarchist Cookbook, and more grown-up than The Little Red Schoolbook, the book showed me that you can live richly even if you have nothing, it was proof that I didn't have to settle for marriage, or kids, or suburbia, that there could be more to life. It was beautifully designed, with line drawings, entertaining graphics and footnotes, for example, I loved the way that the inside cover had an image of the Chinese god Wei T'o printed on it, the protector of books, who insures against fire, insects and dishonest borrowers. Very cute. But the main thing was that Alternative London was packed with information. At 14 I lived a fairly sheltered life in Wembley, but I knew the basics of how to establish a squat, where to buy cheap furniture, how to set up a pirate TV station or build an isolation tank or release a record, what to do if I got raped, where to get badges made, where to get regression therapy, the concept of fruitarianism and the names and addresses of London's top lesbian bars. Okay, so I was too meek and young to act on this stuff, but it was a comfort to know that it was there should I need it. And really, I think what a gift my older brother made to me, like a nod and a wink to my barely formed consciousness from someone already in The Life. The pages I liked the best involved complicated line drawings of labour-saving interior design projects. I still dream of jar lids screwed to the underside of shelving units, and Alternative London's promotion of macramé was way ahead of its time. 
I also liked the sex and drugs sections. Information was given in a matter-of-fact way that would have been totally unallowed in my real life. The drugs information was particularly liberal, with illustrations demonstrating how to freebase cocaine, and images of people having a good time! If anything encouraged me to experiment with getting wasted it was these pictures. Later, when researching this piece, I found out that Nicholas Saunders was a good friend of Alternative London. Saunders, who died in a car accident in 1998, was the man who popularised ecstasy in the 1980s. he also renovated a chunk of Neals Yard (aka Hippie Central) in London. Alternative London had an "all knowledge good" philosophy, and a progressive feel for community diversity. The editors' enthusiasm for all things now seems a little dated, and somewhat naïve, especially when you turn to page 250. Under "Gays - Campaigns and pressure groups" there's a contact address for PIE, the Paedophile Information Exchange, which "campaigns for the rights of gay youngsters and freedom of sexual choice. An organisation unashamedly consisting of men who love boys establishes itself on the principle that child sexuality exists and can be reciprocated. SAE for pamphlets etc." It's obviously a book of its time. On page 260 some of the passages that deal with the political situation in Northern Ireland were censored with black marker. Today the internet has made the world of forbidden and underground information more accessible to a lot of people. But in 1982 it was very difficult to find this kind of thing and Alternative London satisfied in me a deep thirst for knowledge at a time when I was first developing an appetite for it. Although I'm sure that 14 year-olds today are just as adrift as I ever was, I also believe that they have more resources available to them and a bigger picture of the world's possibilities than I had at their age. This is progress. With so much potential to discover, it makes me wonder about the kinds of information they long for, and I try to imagine the kinds of tools that I can push their way, in the same way that my brother did for me. There's one tiny coda to this piece. Although Amazon says that Alternative London was published by Nicholas Saunders, the true editor of my edition was Georganne Downes. A week or two ago I Googled her name to see what had become of her. I imagined her to be a veteran campaigner, or maybe dead. It turns out that she's the Countess of Uxbridge. Alternative London, the bible for squatters and anarchists, was edited by a countess and a neighbour from hell to boot. Whatta world! Incredibly, by the magic of the internet, this book is still available. Buy a copy. |
  |
|