My 60s – Second Fabulous Review

Posted on by Opher

The book’s only been out a week and already people have read it, are enjoying it and the reviews are starting to roll in.

This is the latest from Brian Beck:

It’s about a boy growing up in 1960’s England. He fell in love with the new music of the time. So did his friends. They didn’t want any part of the humdrum existence of their parents’ nine-to-five. Straightlaced folks called them freaks. This is their story told in the first person by how the writer remembers them. It’s a wonderful first-hand account of a bygone era. A time that didn’t last long enough but the writer was there at the right time and place. And he captures it beautifully. The book is full of humorous and tragic anecdotes about significant historical moments in music history, hair-raising escapades, intercontinental travel, dubious substances, and especially young love. It will have you checking out the many named musicians and bands online. It’s a warm, easy read with the author whispering to you as if sharing secrets. Some chapters are melancholic, other parts laugh out loud hilarious with the bizarre antics of folks living on the edge and loving it. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s full of bittersweet soul and lost innocence. I wished it was even longer and more detailed. Highly recommended. 5*

Thanks so much Brian – gave me a boost!

My 60s: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9798253680780: Books

New 60s Book hits new heights! Thank You!

Posted on by Opher

The sales of my new 60s book are looking very healthy. Thank you everyone for the support!

It gives me a buzz to think that so many of you are buying it. I hope you find it as good a read and enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I’m really looking forward to the reviews!

My 60s: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9798253680780: Books

Thank you again!

Adventures from the Sixties!

Posted on by Opher

London, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and all points in between.

My Sixties
The Spirit Lives
Not the sixties you’ve seen before.
This is the underground.
The real story.
Music, movement, philosophy.
A life lived through gigs, travel, friendships—and the edges of experience.
Part memoir, part autobiography, part raw collection of memories, this is a personal journey through a defining decade. Told through photographs, anecdotes, and reflections, it captures the spirit as it was lived—not as it’s been packaged since.
No Carnaby Street. No pop gloss.
Just the underground scene as I knew it.
From Kerouac to Zen, Kesey to Leary.
From IT and OZ to Dylan, Hendrix, and Pink Floyd.
From Hyde Park free festivals to Roy Harper and Abbey Road.
This is the sixties from the inside.

My 60s: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9798253680780: Books

My 60s – A memoir of a life in the sixties London underground.

Posted on by Opher

I thought it would be fun to write a candid autobiography of my life in the sixties – the music, girls, drugs, love and anecdotes. Snakes, rats, travel, clubs, bands, festivals and friends. The whole London scene.

It wasn’t Carnaby Street or swinging London; it was Middle Earth, Les Cousins, Eel Pie Island and free festivals; the counterculture and underground..

My 60s eBook : Goodwin, Opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

It all came flooding back. They were wrong. I was there and I do remember!

Out now in paperback and kindle – the hardback follows shortly.

53 and imploding

Posted on by Opher

I wrote this when I was fifty-three years old. A stream of consciousness, an antinovel. I still like it. I’m visiting with myself.

53 and imploding eBook : goodwin, opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Excerpt – 53 and imploding

I am a watcher, a commentator, and a masturbator in the winds of time. I am an idealist and a dreamer. I am the ultimate optimist and the perennial pessimist. I write to change the world and I write even though I believe nobody will ever read anything I’ve ever written.

I often tell people that when I die they will make a huge funeral pyre out of my books. They will burn me with my own words. I write so that my flaming voice will roar me higher into the heavens in one last spectacular display of ineffectual verbosity – one final impotent gesture of defiance.

That’s all we have – gestures of defiance!

I am a watcher.

If only I believed that there was a part of me able to see that last dramatic gesture. I would love it. But I don’t believe anything will remain. Life is ultimately futile. Yet in defiance and idealistic struggle there is substance and worth.

I am standing on this mound surveying the plains before me. Society, with all its control and expansion is consuming the natural world. The forces of the establishment, with their mantra of growth and greed, are like a forest fire sweeping down to destroy the whole planet. I see the scurrying of helpless individuals and species defenceless against the holocaust of mindless progress. I see the entourages careening off each other like terrified billiard balls. I see the luxurious penthouse suites towering imperiously above feeling they are immune to the destruction. We are impotent. Even my funeral pyre of a lifetime’s words isn’t going to create much of a fire-break. What the fuck!

Semaphore messages across enemy lines. Are you out there? Can you understand me? Do we share a language? I think I am alone.

If you could see me now I am smiling ironically.

None of it really matters. If not this fire then it will be the next or the four billionth. What does it matter? Eternity looks over my shoulder and is smiling with me. She likes what I am writing. She knows it ranks among the very, very best. There is none better.

I am happy that there is none better.

All these symbols I am arranging. No other mind could do it the same. No one has. I am unique. The conveying of meaning, the portraying of scene, the characterisation, the pace, the setting. There is none better. This is as good as it gets. My words are right up there with the very best. Roll over Shakespeare your time has gone.

53 and imploding eBook : goodwin, opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Another excerpt from – 53 and imploding Kindle/Paperback

Posted on by Opher

I wrote this novel twenty years ago. I am currently writing a book on Ian Dury but I am visiting with my old self when I need a break, to clear my head. I love Ian Dury but concentrating hard for long periods is tiring. I need a break. Reading this autobiographical novel is like visiting with my old self. Have I changed? No, not much. I’m still happy and irascible.

Here’s another slice of the cake:

53 and Imploding:

Does death scare you?

            The universe is so big that our egos do not even have the significance of a speck of dust; our intelligence is laughable. From my perspective your Leah jet can’t get you there and your wealth can’t buy a single star. Your beliefs won’t gain you a second more and all your possessions will be passed down to others and decay.

            The only good thing is that one day all traces of us will cease to exist and our place in the history of the universe will be as if we had never breathed.

            All we have to play with is the present. We can build futures. We can stop suffering. We can care. We can make this second perfect. Surely that is a worthwhile aim?

I hear the ticking. Each tap on this keyboard could have been spent differently. I continue to tap until something more important comes along. I would like to see what that might be.

I would like to be happy. I continue to send reports from the termitarium. These are the sermons on the mound.

I am sitting at my computer in my room and tapping in the contents of my mind. Can you glimpse me between the words or is the person you think you’re seeing merely a shadowy fiction?

53 and imploding eBook : goodwin, opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Opher Goodwin the Writer.

Posted on by Opher

For all the new followers of my blog I thought it might be an idea to give you a brief introduction to myself as a writer.

Back in 1971 I found myself in the heart of the London Underground scene, revelling in the music and culture, surrounded by a mass of friends, immersed in a hundred and one activities and exploring a universe of possibilities. Life seemed to be one discovery after another. I was reading avidly, listening to music, visiting art galleries and theatre, consuming films, hitch-hiking around and travelling the world. One amazing gig seemed to follow hard on the heels of another – Son House, Roy Harper, Jimi Hendrix, Captain Beefheart, Doors, Stones, Muddy Waters…………… the list was endless. On top of that I was in love with a beautiful girl. Everything seemed perfect.

It was a very rich bed of experience.

At the time I was meant to be studying for a degree in Zoology but that was rather overshadowed by the rich texture of possibility.

By 1971 I had a wealth of experience and a head bursting with ideas coupled with a desire for a creative outlet. I set about writing.

My first endeavours were more enthusiasm than skill but I persevered! I never stopped and now have amassed a body of work.

Few genres are immune to my attack. I think I might even have invented a genre or two! I certainly do not restrict myself. If something stirs my interest and creative juices I give full vent (probably my downfall).

As I developed a career in education and brought up a family I still made time for writing.

I’m still doing it!

I suppose that I have two main genres that I work in – Science Fiction and Rock Music.

I mainly write my Science Fiction under the pen name of Ron Forsythe.

You can check out my Sci-Fi output either here:

Home

or here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Ron+Forsythe&i=stripbooks&crid=2B4DSQ77LUZIT&sprefix=ron+forsythe%2Cstripbooks%2C68&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

My main Rock Books are on Roy Harper, Nick Harper, Captain Beefheart plus a memoir entitled ‘In Search of Captain Beefheart’. They can be found here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=opher+goodwin&i=stripbooks&crid=1F6U8GQUTGKI8&sprefix=opher+goodwin%2Cstripbooks%2C192&ref=nb_sb_noss

As you may see – there are a number of other tomes on the environment, antitheism, art, beat poetry, weird novel, collected anecdotes and stories and other weird stuff. So far I’ve enjoyed every minute and I hope there’s a lot more to come!

I’m open to questions or enquiries and really do appreciate a ‘like’ and become ecstatic reading new reviews.

All the best

Opher xx

About the Author

Posted on by Opher

This is my short biog that I use in my books. Do you think it isn’t serious enough? Does it need amending?

About the Author

Opher Goodwin was born in the Deep South on the Thames Delta. He ran wild in the fields, ditches and trees lost in the wonders of nature until girls enticed him out of that first obsession and straight into another.

He developed a passion for Rock Music at the age of ten and has followed that through until now. He went to his first gig at the age of fourteen when he saw the British Birds at the local Palais. The second band he saw was Them with Van Morrison. There was no looking back. He was smitten by the excitement.

He lived in London as a student during the sixties and went to at least three gigs a week catching all the major acts in small clubs at their very peak. He is still travelling the world and making sure that he sees everything (though not with a rucksack these days), reads avidly and enjoys life to the full.

In the seventies he had a career in teaching, first with his beloved Biology and progressing to become a Secondary School Headteacher. Always the philosophy was the same – tolerance, empathy, respect and responsibility. You don’t alter the world for the better with hatred and violence. He is still an idealist who believes in building a positive zeitgeist.

Throughout that career, as he helped raise four children with his long-suffering wife, he practiced another of his obsessions which was writing. So far he has only written forty five books (but there’s a lot more still in his head).

Now he sits in his den on the Costa Del Humber surrounded by five thousand vinyl albums, ten thousand CDs, 2 computers full of MP3s, shelves of books on Rock, Beat Poetry, novels and Sci-Fi, drawers full of singles and magazines, and writes, while his wife does her thing and his kids are flown. He is content.

Nobody is more obsessive. Nobody is more passionate. He tells it like it is with all the fury of a radical zealot – Love one another! – Look after the world! – Enjoy yourself!