Foot Of The Rainbow
by Tony Warren
first published 1991.
 Ever been tempted NOT to take a book back to the library?I'm tempted, now that I've checked with Amazon Books,, who confirm that`Foot of the Rainbow' is out of print and `hard to locate'. Bother!! But I must have a copy...looks like a rehaunting of all those Sunday markets I'd decided my Webpage was replacing...
No bones about it, "Foot Of The Rainbow" is a GREAT READ!!! The tale has its beginnings in Manchester, set just streets away from you-know-who:
 then moves on to London in the Mary Quant era:
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...."But Rosie was in London; and never was there a worse autumn for being divided from a lover in northern California. It was the year of the San Francisco songs. Scott Mackenzie was forever singing the song that Gabriel had mentioned; the one which enjoined you ~ be sure to wear some flowers in your hair". Then the Flowerpot Men took over with a much more basic message. They simply sang, 'Let's Go to San Francisco'. They chorused of flowers ~growing so very high, of sunlight blowing your mind up to the sky."> As the London leaves changed colour, the disc jockeys dug out one of the previous year's hits; one which talked about all the leaves being brown and the skies being grey, as Mama Cass shook her tambourine in the background. The song was 'California Dreaming' and it suggested that every problem could be solved by heading for the West Coast of the USA |
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But the story moves on to San Francisco, in the days of flower-power, LSD Free Love, Hippies and student revolution, retiring, finally to the serene, fulfilled Italian, (Florence) scene. And the author really writes from authority. Troy Warren is a former actor who became Britain's youngest scriptwriter, creating Coronation Street in 1960. His disappearance from public life, at the end of the Swinging Sixties, was into a drug/alcohol induced obscurity, from which he recovered, literally, to tell the tale.
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"..The first time Rosie saw Telegraph Avenue it struck her as a cross between a street in a cowboy movie and a bustling Arab bazaar. There were even throbbing drums. A row of black men were playing them, on the pavement, at the point where the university campus ended and the counter-culture began. The evening shadows had just started to grow long, and soap bubbles were blowing in the deepening golden light. 'Spare change. Got any spare change?' The skinny barefoot boy could not have been a day over fifteen. His embroidered Indian shirt was thin and he looked like somebody who was a long way from home. Gabriel slipped the youth a couple of silver coins and said to Rosie, 'The trouble is, if you give to one you find yourself surrounded. These kids have made their way here from every corner of the United States.' Somebody else was trying to talk to Rosie; a Mexican looking man had dived out of the doorway of a fruit-juice bar called Orange Julius: 'Hash, grass, acid? Hash, grass, acid.' Mildly panicked in the midst of this rolling, patchouli-scented crowd, Rosie said to Gabriel, 'What does he want?' 'He's just a dope dealer. 'Want some Acapulco Gold?' The Mexican had been joined by another young man who could have been his brother. He smiled dreamily at the English girl as he said, 'It's just come over the border. Could help you out with a nice little five-dollar deal?' 'Not today thank you,' replied Rosie. And even as she said it, she realised that she'd sounded just like Lily Jelly getting rid of the Betterware brush salesman. There was so much for sale. Stalls on both sides of the packed street were offering everything from candles and sticks of incense to mysterious fragments of stained-glass window. 'Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare. The chanting monks were managing to snake their dancing way through the crowds, their tambours beating and tambourines rattling in competition with the pounding of the black men's drums. All the shops had open doors and every single establishment seemed to be amplifying forth a different pop song. Rosie paused to look at a tree trunk which was fluttering with thumb-tacked notices. Crash Pad Available. Night Person Only. Contact Russian Mike at Magenta Bookshop. 'Nobody need be homeless in Berkeley,' said Gabriel. 'People let the kids crash on their floors - for free.' 'What's a night person?' 'Me. You. Anybody who doesn't want to go to sleep till it's dawn.' Hand in hand, they continued to make their way through the crowds. Rosie's trained eye had been observing the girls' clothes. As at the airport, a lot of the floating dresses had been made out of Indian bedspreads. But there was another look, one which was much more definitely Berkeley. The aim seemed to be to look as much like a cowboy's grandmother as possible; skirts to the ground, tiny flowered prints, and even little wire spectacles perched on young noses. 'And they're National Health glasses!' she exclaimed. 'No, they're copies of genuine John Lennon's.' Gabriel was pointing to an optician's window where hundreds of pairs of wire frames were winking in the evening sun. 'But Lennon's didn't start off as gold,' protested Rosie. 'Everybody English knows that. He just did what we used to do at school. You pull the brown plastic covering off the wire to show the metal underneath. I once got copped doing it and Miss Swaine gave me a hundred lines. Fancy it turning into a proper fashion...." |
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No doubt, due to the author's TV training, this is a very visually descriptive book...the colours, the sounds and smells are detailed and remarkably vivid.......deja vu on every page for us Oldies!! But, like a T.V. soap, the story is larger than life...the characters numerous and incredibly well-intentioned, (unless they're the enemy, of course), the twists of plot many, varied, and, really, rather unlikely. But, like all good T.V soaps, you can experience the entire gamut without undue anxiety, knowing that the problem will be solved, the dilemma resolved....in the next chapter!! (And seems there are few problems that can't be solved with judicious applications of right money and right people)!.
And there is EVERYTHING in this book.
What comes through, viewed, now, from a `wheel's come a full circle' objectivity, is the brilliant, flawed hope of the decade now known as the Swinging Sixties, the disillusionment which was evident, by 1970, even in Berkely, the capital of the Age of Ah, innocent ones! Short back-and-sides and maxidresses awaited you.....and then Economic depression, unemployment, Hepatitis B and C.....and AIDS! Bu it was fun, the Age Of Aquarius, while it lasted, wasn't it, Oldies? Ooooommmmm.....Ohmmmmmmmmm!!
Find the book, read the book, which WAS, apparently, reissued as an Arrow paperback..enjoy the book and reminisce.......OH, and if you happen to locate TWO copies, send one to me, C.O.D., ....please, please, please! |
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