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STRATEGY FOR THE DAY: Read it up.

Colin Betts "Frozenlight: True Tales of the Sixties" a memoir.

In January of this year, I received a letter from a man named Colin Betts. The name seemed familiar but I couldn't place it, and with good reason: it had been 40 years since I last saw him in Aix-En-Provence, France. He was a busker then, playing guitar and singing for whatever francs people threw his way. Though the same age as the rest of us, he seemed more experienced and worldly; he had already lived a troubled lifetime or two by the time he plunked down his guitar case on the cobbled streets of Aix.

Colin's relentless drive to emulate his beat-era heroes - Kerouac, Cassady, and Ginsberg - had taken him to Morocco. On the ferry, heading back toward France, he met Nick Drake. After exchanging a couple of guitar tunings, Nick invited him back to Aix where Colin remained for 5 or 6 weeks. Colin had already begun his lifelong habit of journal-keeping; he wrote a daily account of his experiences and the people he met, including conversations, names and dates. He recalls Nick much as I remember him and, thanks to his journals, brings him to life with the kind of detail you might find in the photos and film we wish we had of Nick from this period of his life. (And he's very kind to me on a couple of pages so I can't complain. :D)

Colin's recollections of Nick Drake are in two chapters of this book and the rest is well worth reading! The book is a remarkable, moving, entertaining, very well-written memoir of the 1960's stretching from the earliest days of the Rolling Stones (Colin roadied a couple of gigs) through the innocence and optimism of 1967 in France, London and California on into the dissolving of many of our most-beloved illusions in the student riots of Paris/May '68. Along the way, friends died, lovers were lost, dreams dreamed and destroyed. If you want to know what the 1960's were like, you can live it here.

This is a memoir; the dates and facts I'm aware of, or I was able to check, are all accurate. His memories of Nick strike me as true to the person I knew. With permission Colin used actual names; when he couldn't find the person to ask permission, he changed the name.

If you're interested, you can buy the paperback for $15.43 or download the book for $3.63 at Lulu,com. (In the Search Box, type "Colin Betts" or "frozenlight".) I'd like to make a personal request: If you are interested in reading the book, please buy it rather than copy or pass it around on the internet. Just to give Colin a vote of confidence if nothing else! This is his first attempt at publishing a book based on his journals; He is a very good writer and I would like to see him continue. Colin lives in a remote area of Scotland where he practices Buddhist meditation. He has no electricity, no computer, no phone. He doesn't need the money but he supports the local wild birds with food and a menagerie of dogs that have nowhere else to go. Toss a couple francs in the guitar case, okay?

I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did!

Robin Frederick

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