1974

A year in which I was hopelessly in love and paying absolutely no attention to the world around me. Actually, I didn’t pay much attention in other young years, but in 1974 I was especially oblivious. So it’s good to read this book and find out what was happening.

It’s split up into months and consists of short pieces – usually a page and a half or two – of everything from the craze for streaking, to Lord Lucan’s disappearance, to a bloody prison siege in Texas. The Ramones played their first gig, Court Line collapsed and holidaymakers were stranded in Spain, Richard Nixon resigned and Lucy was discovered in Ethiopia. Covent Garden closed, John Stonehouse faked his own death and Monty Python broadcast their last TV episode.

It’s a mixture of the serious, the savage and the trivial, all briskly, readably told. And for me, who wasn’t paying any attention at all – I must have been the only person in the UK who heard about Lord Lucan two years after he disappeared - a real eye-opener.

Terrific book.