I greatly enjoyed reading your piece and it's intrigued me enough to look at buying his book.
I'm younger than Robyn by a couple years, and in 1967 I could sense that I was missing out on something the teens were into, but wasn't sure exactly what it was. It was scary and yet terribly exciting. There was something in the air -- you knew it because your parents were always ranting about those long-hairs and hippies and beatniks. Delicious! I was into the Monkees and songs like Incense and Peppermints for its crazy lyrics, but too young to really appreciate Sgt Pepper's. I had to catch up later.
Robyn is probably not far wrong when he claims "One of the main functions of private education in Britain is to stunt people emotionally and then send them out to run the country.” That was true during the Empire, and I'd say it's true now as well. As someone who lived in the UK for almost two decades and just returned recently, I could write a book on what I experienced and witnessed in terms of people who had been to private and boarding schools. The damage done to kids shunted off to boarding school to be raised in an institution is an issue I have studied as a psychologist, and it is heart-breaking to see people struggling with that abandonment for the rest of their lives. (Not to mention the allegations of physical and sexual abuse by teachers and fellow students that keep popping up.) These schools also entrench the class system in Britain, and I didn't realize until I worked there how defining and limiting this system is for everyone, including foreigners (who by definition have a lower status, including Americans). Being quirky and idiosyncratic is an excellent strategy for bypassing the system and doing your own thing, which is why I think people at all levels use it. There is also an enormous cost to this system, which you can see by looking at how ridiculously incompetent the politicans in the UK are running the country. That's another topic that I would write a book about, but it's already been done!
Thanks, Ellen! I do want to stress that RH's experience at Winchester, as he writes about it, was on the balance a good, if complicated, one. The music helped! :-) But Orwell did nail for a certain generations' grim experiences at boarding school.
Hot damn, a great essay and so, so true to 1967 and all that went before beginning in 1963. The exchange and excitement of music between the US and the UK was huge. Though I'm American and a bit older than Hitchcock, he describes beautifully the importance of those years. Re McDonald, I think his intro to "Revolution in the Head" 3rd edition, which also has Prefaces to both the first and second editions of his book, is one of the best essays about the changes brought about in the 1960s. I will read Hitchcock's book for sure. Thanks, Joe.
Winchester is a lovely place to visit. A small cathedral city dominated by the school. I wonder if Robyn ever visited the turf maze close to an ancient hill fort above the town? A magical spot for a dreamer.
Great essay. I confess that the more sprawling memoirs can wear me out--Costello's, for example, exhausted me, even though I couldn't wait to start it--but using this one year as a sort of prism sounds like it worked really well.
My band was lucky enough to spend about 6 weeks opening for RH and the Egyptians oh so many years ago. They were all as brill off the stage as on.
And thanks for reading. Yeah. Costello's book sprawled for sure, and lost me in the latter pages. Springsteen's Born to Run, on the other had, earned each word.
I will have to order this book. It seems clear that Hitchcock does what I try to do in my personal essays—that is, to explore the time passed as occurring, and to find oneself immersed in the soundtrack of the time. I have a book coming soon, HOMECOMING PARADE, from a small college press, and it will be fun to compare 1967s forms and functions to what I tried to do. (I even have a piece entitled “How the Beatles Saved My Life” in the book, which recounts the family’s congress to watch the first Ed Sullivan show). So thank you for this: it sounds lime a must read.
I greatly enjoyed reading your piece and it's intrigued me enough to look at buying his book.
I'm younger than Robyn by a couple years, and in 1967 I could sense that I was missing out on something the teens were into, but wasn't sure exactly what it was. It was scary and yet terribly exciting. There was something in the air -- you knew it because your parents were always ranting about those long-hairs and hippies and beatniks. Delicious! I was into the Monkees and songs like Incense and Peppermints for its crazy lyrics, but too young to really appreciate Sgt Pepper's. I had to catch up later.
Robyn is probably not far wrong when he claims "One of the main functions of private education in Britain is to stunt people emotionally and then send them out to run the country.” That was true during the Empire, and I'd say it's true now as well. As someone who lived in the UK for almost two decades and just returned recently, I could write a book on what I experienced and witnessed in terms of people who had been to private and boarding schools. The damage done to kids shunted off to boarding school to be raised in an institution is an issue I have studied as a psychologist, and it is heart-breaking to see people struggling with that abandonment for the rest of their lives. (Not to mention the allegations of physical and sexual abuse by teachers and fellow students that keep popping up.) These schools also entrench the class system in Britain, and I didn't realize until I worked there how defining and limiting this system is for everyone, including foreigners (who by definition have a lower status, including Americans). Being quirky and idiosyncratic is an excellent strategy for bypassing the system and doing your own thing, which is why I think people at all levels use it. There is also an enormous cost to this system, which you can see by looking at how ridiculously incompetent the politicans in the UK are running the country. That's another topic that I would write a book about, but it's already been done!
Thanks, Ellen! I do want to stress that RH's experience at Winchester, as he writes about it, was on the balance a good, if complicated, one. The music helped! :-) But Orwell did nail for a certain generations' grim experiences at boarding school.
Hot damn, a great essay and so, so true to 1967 and all that went before beginning in 1963. The exchange and excitement of music between the US and the UK was huge. Though I'm American and a bit older than Hitchcock, he describes beautifully the importance of those years. Re McDonald, I think his intro to "Revolution in the Head" 3rd edition, which also has Prefaces to both the first and second editions of his book, is one of the best essays about the changes brought about in the 1960s. I will read Hitchcock's book for sure. Thanks, Joe.
Thanks! And I couldn't agree more about MacDonald's preface. Brilliant stuff.
Winchester is a lovely place to visit. A small cathedral city dominated by the school. I wonder if Robyn ever visited the turf maze close to an ancient hill fort above the town? A magical spot for a dreamer.
I think he mentions it in passing
Great essay. I confess that the more sprawling memoirs can wear me out--Costello's, for example, exhausted me, even though I couldn't wait to start it--but using this one year as a sort of prism sounds like it worked really well.
My band was lucky enough to spend about 6 weeks opening for RH and the Egyptians oh so many years ago. They were all as brill off the stage as on.
Very cool!
And thanks for reading. Yeah. Costello's book sprawled for sure, and lost me in the latter pages. Springsteen's Born to Run, on the other had, earned each word.
I will have to order this book. It seems clear that Hitchcock does what I try to do in my personal essays—that is, to explore the time passed as occurring, and to find oneself immersed in the soundtrack of the time. I have a book coming soon, HOMECOMING PARADE, from a small college press, and it will be fun to compare 1967s forms and functions to what I tried to do. (I even have a piece entitled “How the Beatles Saved My Life” in the book, which recounts the family’s congress to watch the first Ed Sullivan show). So thank you for this: it sounds lime a must read.
Thanks, Mark, and good luck with the book! I'll definitely keep an eye out for it.