How dare you disfigure government property?

Two things from the Beatles article [MOJO 323] need correction. First, speaking as an American hippy dating from 1964, Paul Du Noyer is wrong in stating “America’s flower children had dipped into their parents’ trust funds and were on the march.” In all the years I lived in the East Village and knew hundreds of original hippies, I met no more than a handful of people who could be thus described. The great majority of us were working class and/ or middle class kids who were trying to change the world. Also, most of us had jobs. I was a busboy. My Dad never gave me a dime, nor did I ask.

Secondly, The Beatles: we hippies thought they were squares of the most severe type. They wore matching suits, like waiters. Department stores sold “Beatle wigs”. All that screaming? Totally uncool. In fact, the fastest way to clear the room post-joint would be to put on a Beatles LP. So the idea of The Beatles as “proto-hippies” might work in some parts of the UK, but in the original home of hippies, it’d never work – and it didn’t. They couldn’t even get played on the underground FM radio stations hippies listened to. Norman Gaines, Hartsdale, New York

…A small correction in your otherwise excellent article on Joe Meek [MOJO 325]. One shouldn’t say “commit suicide”, as it is not a crime. “Ended his life by suicide” is better. Dr Tim Sales, Consultant Psychiatrist in Recovery for Brighton and Hove