If You Can Remember The 'Sixties' You Weren't There.....

Local writer Mike Abbott's novel is set is swinging London

It was a time when young people threw off their inhibitions and made ‘Swinging London’ the world’s epicenter of cool!

Chiswick's Mike Abbott was in the heart of it and the former PR manager is now publishing a novel recalling the heady days he lived through while working in London.

Set in 1965, ‘I Got You Babe’ is described as a story of unrequited love, set against the background of ‘swinging London’ and the burgeoning social revolution amongst young people who eagerly embraced the new morality of ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll'.

Mike wrote 'I Got You Babe' in a matter of months, completing it last year and then starting the task of getting it published. Cambridge-based Pegasus loved it and the novel will be available later this month either to order online, or from bookshops.

Says Mike; "I enjoy writing, have spent my life writing, mainly press releases, articles and speeches as part of my career in PR. So, writing a book was a joy, and of course I very pleased to see it being published.

" ‘I Got You Babe’ wasn’t, in fact, the first book I wrote. It was the second. The first, as yet unpublished, is titled ‘Moonlight Mile’ and set in a rock music radio station. That was written in summer 2014 and roundly rejected by countless publishers. So, who knows, if the book coming out end of this month is a success then maybe ‘Moonlight Mile’ might see the light of day! "

Born in Isleworth during the Blitz, Mike left school aged fifteen in 1958 and after a number of jobs, became a public relations executive. Marriage and fatherhood in the 1970s followed a dissolute 1960s comprising mainly rock and roll with, very occasionally, sex and drugs, he says.

In the mid-1990s he worked PR manager for the American computer company that gave life to the World Wide Web. Before that, he was in charge of PR for Sam Wanamaker's Shakespeare Globe on Bankside, joining when the project was a £6m hole in the ground.

These days , Mike is a grandfather, indulging his love of writing while listening to his collection of 1960s rock and roll. And he is also a regular contributer of photographs to this website.

Copies of I Got You Babe can be purchased direct from the publisher or from www.pegasuspublishers.com or by calling 01223 370012.

April 6, 2016