John Spink provides the photographic evidence of a time that made an enormous impact on all our lives, despite the fact that many parts were very short lived, as they are in every subsequent youth culture. These images take us through the period from dippy hippy drug-induced enlightenment to loads-of-money entitlement, via the punk revolution and new wave and all the other seminal moments the TV documentaries would like to tag us with. Those of you who have picked up this book as a 'historical reference tome' will know that very few night-out photos of this time exist. John Spink had the sense to take his camera with him when he went out. So many of us could have done that but couldn't be arsed. I wasn't a handbag sort of girl so I had to travel light, fags, money, key, oh the heady days before a mobile. Nowhere to put a Kodak instamatic 33 in 1974 and my first SLR Practika in 1979 weighed a ton. John however knew he was experiencing something unique and he set about cataloguing our formative years.