Frantic's Resurrection With A Little Help From My Friends

I used to hang out in David Hockney's basement in the early '70s. It was the best nightclub in London as international members from the orbits of Art, Fashion, Rock and the British aristocracy flocked there every night. (All the 'interesting' people I met there provided suitable cannon fodder for my Ritz Newspaper gossip column in the late 70's).

The basement's 'vibes' must have been inspirational for the late Ossie Clark wrote some of his Diaries there. And the unpredictable/creative dawn till dusk existence in Hockney's basement motivated me to write the first draft of my (first) novel Frantic back then.

The writer Francis Wyndham professed to love my early effort and showed it to Anthony Blond, his late publisher friend who euphemistically said it 'wasn't for him.'

I proceeded to spend the next decades rewriting Frantic until in 2006, Eiworth Publishing offered to publish it for me.

I didn't think that version's cover did my novel justice, so when the book was republished last month, I was over the moon and considered myself very lucky when Celia Birtwell offered to design a unique new cover for it.

I was doubly over the moon when an ancient friend Jeff Dexter, who read the book twice and loved it has been championing it ever since, persuading his conglomerate of best friends to buy the book.

'Ossie re-wrote some of his 60's diaries in my flat in 1976-77, while rifling through my record collection and stealthily helping himself to my medicine cabinet,' Jeff told me after recognising Ossie Clark in the book.


I was also thrilled when a sophisticated fourteen year old friend in Sydney exclaimed:

'Frantic was the most hysterically insane thing I have ever read, I love it', which proves that the book is not only aimed at surviving early 70's freaks but to Young Adults as well.