PerfectBound e-book extra: "What Has Been, Can Be Again" a speech by the author



It's the morning of the Sixties and it's suppertime at Freedom Hall, the most welcoming household in North London. Frances Lennox stands at her stove, bringing another feast to readiness before ladling it out to the motley, youthful crew assembled around her hospitable table-her two sons and their friends, girlfriends, ex-friends and new friends fresh off the street. Everything is up for grabs, everything is being changed and challenged. And here in this kitchen, the nutritious tolerance can be sniffed even above the simmering stew.
But what is being tolerated? Over there in the corner is Frances' ex-husband, Comrade Johnny, who delivers his political tirades, then laps up the adolescent adulation before disappearing into the night to evade the clutches of his responsibilities. Upstairs sits Johnny's mother, funding all, but finding she can embrace only one lost little girl-Sylvia, who has to travel to Africa to find out who she is and what she wants. And then, what of the Africans, what will they tolerate?

These are the people dreaming the Sixties into being who, on the morning after, woke to find they were the ones taxed with cleaning up and making good.