Author:Robyn Hitchcock
“1967” is a memoir from the “surrealist rock ‘n’ roller, iconic troubadour, guitarist, poet, painter, and performer” Robyn Hitchcock (his description). As befits someone who has always had a rather sideways take on life, the memoir addresses just one year in his life, describing his arrival at Winchester College just before his 13th birthday, “high on dread”.
It’s a transitional time for any young chap, but all the more so given he has to learn to live in the Winchester ecosystem, and while Hitchcock’s memoir is anchored by (or to) the college, he intertwines this with his discovery of music, his relationship with his parents and more fleetingly his early metamorphosis into a musician.
Hitchcock is candid about the idiosyncrasies of college life. “Winchester College equips you for Winchester College” and he makes a number of references to people who found themselves unable to attain “escape velocity”, and remained forever entwined with the place. Hitchcock describes “Notions”, the college’s own language and muses that he got off lightly as he wasn’t “beaten, sodomised, stripped, mocked or had his head shoved down the toilet bowl” (called a wash and set at my school), pondering “maybe his parents weren’t getting their money’s worth”.
For us superannuated hipsters it’s easy to look back on a time, pre internet, where discovering new music or news about your favourite performers was random, intermittent and incomplete. Hitchcock reminds us that in 1966 “alone is alone” and musical discovery was heavily influenced by the radio (banned by the college and used covertly), the tastes of those immediately around you, and the music press. Hitchcock discovers Dylan – “exultant”, “exciting” with music that is “tumbling and jubilant”. Bob speaks to him personally, “marooned” amongst the “aliens” of Winchester College”, becoming the surrogate parent that will guide him through the rest of 1967. And then, in many ways, keep him there “All along, I remained rooted in 1967; country rock, glam, funk, disco, reggae and punk more or less passed me by”. “I’m grateful that the stopped clock of 1967 ticks on in me – it’s given me a job for life”.
The house gramophone becomes the fulcrum of on which musical tastes of the college balance. “Meatheads” enjoy The Beach Boys and The Monkees but groovers (or aspiring groovers as RH sees himself) will have no truck with them (in public anyway) and find inspiration and possibly validation with the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd and, in Hitchcock’s case, Bob Dylan via his 6th album “Highway 61 Revisited”. Whilst he also enjoys the Incredible String Band and Bert Jansch it’s Dylan that he always returns to. Hiss disappointment with “John Wesley Harding” is candid – “Dylan had grown up”. Maybe RH had too.
The grooviest of the groovers was, of course Brian Eno. Indeed, so groovy that he didn’t even go to the college – a student of Winchester Art College instead. This only reenforces his hip credentials and the happenings Eno organises (some musical, some not) attended by Hitchcock are beautifully described, conveying both time sense of wonderment experienced at the time alongside some gentle retrospective mocking.
Hitchcock includes a brief whimsical parody based around a College employee called Trotter, which invokes hints of Milligan. It raises an occasional smile rather than actual laughs but there is a well constructed pay off at the end which is pure Afterword and I won’t spoil.
Hitchcock touches on his relationship with his parents, who he paints as distant and occasionally passive aggressive. Well off enough to be able to indulge their artistic passions, his father (disabled from a shattered leg in WW2 ) likes folk music, paints and writes and post memoir becomes a published novelist and scriptwriter . His mother reads a great deal and seems to know exactly the right presents to buy him – including Bert Jansch albums, and later a guitar. There’s a more touching dedication to his parents “who paid for the life I describe” and his late daughter Maisie who he suspects would be grossed out by it.
His description of getting a guitar, but then struggling to tune it, and initially playing along to songs on one string struck a chord with me. Well, it would have done, had I known how to play one.
The book concludes with a rather brief summary of his musical life which will no doubt frustrate his fans but having decided to focus on 1967, he can be congratulated for sticking to his guns.
Length of Read:Medium
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
Not going to public school
One thing you’ve learned
Winchester College is perhaps unusual for having fictional alumni – Sir Humphrey Appleby, Basil Fawlty, Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock’s brother), General Melchett – that are more mostly famous than the real ones – soon to be ex Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Reginald Bosanquet and some bloke called Mark Ellen
Thanks. An artist I feel I should like more but dont.
I think he lived in Sydney there for a while not so long ago or maybe he alternates with other places, Nashville for one.
For a very minor figure success wise he seems to have worked out a nice life for himself.
I know the same amount of Robyn Hitchcock songs as Taylor Swift songs, but I might well get this. My lack of knowledge of the guy will actually be a positive.
Rather topical too, as it’s almost a prerequisite for anything crass in society or government (not him, I hasten to add) to have started its life at a British public school, preferably of the boarding variety. James O’Brien is very strong on the subject.
Recognise the typeface on the cover? It’s the same as that used in ‘The Prisoner’… from 1967.
Faber’s Albertus?
Slightly modified by McGoohan’s lot, but that’s essentially it.
My only knowledge of his music is Ordinary Millionaire cos it was on a Word CD. Lovely tune.
My own experience in 1967 was at a relatively minor public school (compared to Winchester) and doesn’t seem that different from Robyn Hitchcock’s. All the usual low level violence, bullying and humiliation. Musically, we got most of our kicks from the common room record player plus we were lucky to be in the catchment area of most of the pirate radio stations (Caroline, Radio London, Radio City etc). I recall my own record player being confiscated for playing the Stones’s “The Last Time” one too many times. A couple of years earlier it was a ‘thing’ to support a particular group (definitely not ‘band’ then). My choice was Brian Poole and The Tremeloes, famously thought be a better bet by Decca than the Beatles.
On Went To A Party , Nick Lowe sings about being mistaken for Robyn Hitchcock. So it wasn’t just me then.
I’ve never knowingly listened to RH, though I will now and maybe buy the book, just because I was 13 in 1967 and the music from that year is the greatest of all. I went to an all-boys school but wasn’t a boarder, thank God. Fortunately I was quiet and made myself inconspicuous enough not to be bullied, but I was afraid a lot of the time, learning very early on to just keep out of the way.
I was a bus conductor in 1967, having been kicked out of university. Never had so much money in my life – after giving 5 quid a week to my mum I could buy all the LPs and still have enough over for a few pints of Red Barrel.
You try telling that to young people today…
I’ve never got on with RH’s music all that much and had no idea he went to Winchester. But seeing as I did, close to 20 years after him and about a decade before the appalling Sunak, I think I’ll have to read this. Might even recognise a teacher or two!
It was not a happy time nor is it a happy memory and I’m conscious that I’ve spent much of my life running away from it, even to the extent of leaving the UK. I was just popular enough to avoid being bullied too much, nor was I a bully thankfully though the environment didn’t exactly discourage it, but my first year was made thoroughly shit by someone who is now a major Bollywood star.
One thing is my musical education was pretty good. There were, unsurprisingly, several boys with a *lot* of money and very extensive record collections which could be taped. One of those records being RH’s Gotta let this hen out which I’m still quite fond of.
Still, I hope Labour’s VAT pledge bursts its smug bubble though I doubt it will even notice.
The public schools will just increase their fees to take up the slack, while shelving any pay rises for staff.
The rich parents of pupils will grumble a bit, then give themselves a pay rise to cover their extra school fees, while laying-off an extra worker or two to compensate.
Sigh. Very true.
He is issuing an album of cover versions of songs from 1967 to accompany the book.
I’m not a great fan of Robyn Hitchcock’s records that I’ve heard, but I very much enjoyed the Word In Your Ear concert that he played at The Lexington, back in the mists. I also vaguely recall enjoying Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians on a small stage at Glastonbury many, many years ago.