Kirjahaku

In this gripping drama, nineteen-year-old Joe Barley returns to England in the summer of 1984 having gone AWOL from the US Army. Desperate to start a new life and find peace of mind he moves to the picturesque Cotswold town of Westcombe where he finds accommodation in the mesmeric Hastings Cottage, a lodging house run by the benevolent Hazel. Upon befriending his dope-smoking fellow lodgers he soon becomes immersed in the local drug culture. Subsequently under the wing of local villain Chris Wetherly, Joe is absorbed into his mentor's local crime syndicate, a move which inadvertently changes the course of his life. All that remains is for Joe to relinquish his enemies and lay to rest his remaining demons as he bids an emotional farewell to his past. Only then will he be free to follow what he knows to be his true vocation in life.

The summer of 1981 was the summer of love for Mike Sabbath. As he and his steadfast teenage companions struggle to come to terms with adulthood upon finishing school, they embark on a venture to rescue themselves from the drudgery of their uninspiring jobs. Yet there is danger ahead. As Mike Sabbath and his friends come under threat from a renegade group of mods led by the merciless Ally Bingham, they are forced into an alliance with the town's 1950s nostalgia groupings; the teddy boys known as the Hound Dogs, and the rockabillies who call themselves the Stray Cats. Subsequently under the protection of the 'Alliance' Mike Sabbath and his cohorts attempt to continue their realisation into manhood. Amid the mayhem the young and somewhat vulnerable Sabbath, an idealistic daydreaming peacenik, pleads only for harmony. But harmonious relations are not on the agenda for the gangs of Dursley.

An endearing auto-biographical account of a journey through childhood, experienced through what was arguably the most entertaining decade ever in which to have been a kid in Britain. Mapping his young life out through his love of the popular culture of the day, from the music that he grew up with and absorbed, to the popular TV shows which innocently entertained a generation of kids, the bashful but defiant protagonist reflects upon a tumultuous decade and of an age of innocence long since lost. Through his troubled relationship with a largely uninspiring education system and the schooling customs of his generation (and his ultimate contempt for them) it becomes clear that it is the popular culture of his childhood era which proves to be, among many other things, his education and his window into the world.