Growing up eating rissoles and bubble & squeak in a “small, grey and claustrophobic” post-WWII Birmingham, Halford longed to escape the urban dreariness and discover what promises lay hidden over the English Channel. After a brief sortie to France, where he fails to hook up with Brigitte Bardot, Richard returns home and prepares for a new life of tuning in, turning on, and dropping out.
With his naive view of the world beyond England, not to mention his lack of knowledge of the opposite sex, Richard could not have imagined the experiences that lay ahead. What was clear was his desire to break free of the constraints of English society, shadowed by the ever-present threat of nuclear holocaust. A threat which was instrumental in shaping his conviction that life was too short to take seriously.
Richard didn’t set off from Birmingham with the goal of selling hash, but like many who came after him (and probably a few who came before), he stumbled upon it by being part of the ‘scene’. Pre-1964 Great Britain wasn’t the cannabis hub that it is today; getting stoned required secretive contacts who operated in the shadows due to the risk of serving time for being caught with even a joint’s worth.
Before he left for his travels, Richard was able to source Jamaican ganja and Pakistani/Afghani shiraz, which he thoroughly enjoyed. The memories of these experiences urged him to find more cannabis in Morocco just for pleasure, not for business. But once he had purchased and travelled out of the country with his first haul, he quickly learned that others didn’t have the bravery to bring it to other hippy hotspots, or didn’t have the contacts, so he could make enough money from his surplus to keep him in smoke while he saw the world.
Halfords’ journey leads him to Formentera, famous today for its stunningly beautiful beaches. But in the early sixties, it had one telephone for the whole island, and whitewashed stone houses dotted the landscape, their olive trees shading small gardens. The hash scene there grew, as young travellers, artists and US draft dodgers began to use the island as a bohemian refuge on the iconic Hippie Trail of the 60s and 70s that eventually led to faraway places such as Afghanistan and Goa.
Richard’s journey not just chronicles hash smuggling, medieval prison stints and hippies; it’s also about his personal development and how he coped with a MAD world, his experience with women and personal relationships, and how he learned to do business with people in foreign lands that spoke foreign languages. The book illuminates life in a Spain still under the rule of Franco – a country barely grasping the 20th century and healing from the Spanish Civil War of 1930-1936. In essence, the memoir is a homage to Richard’s unconventional adolescence and young adulthood.
Overall, Halford delivers an entertaining and enthralling book with sophisticated prose that never sacrifices readability. He balances historical and political insights with personal stories; the candid record brims with small details that illuminate his journey through the hashish scene of 1960s Spain, the Balearic Islands, and North Africa. If you’re looking for a book about the violent and gangster side of the drug world, look elsewhere.
Pipe Dreams and Smoke Screens – A Memoir of Hashish Adventures in the Sixties by Richard Halford is available to buy in the leafie store.
