Beyond the Beehive

Beyond the Beehive 1965 is a year of mods and rockers, the music of Motown, milk bars and ban-the-bomb marches. With memories of the war and the effects of rationing still being felt, young people are tasting the freedom a little money can bring. Best friends Sandra and Linda live on a working class housing estate in Essex. They are mods, they have the clothes, a coffee bar with a juke box, and Ready Steady Go! on TV on a Friday night. And they have the Corn Exchange. At a time of great music, all the best performers come to Chelmsford including the Who, Wilson Pickett and Georgie Fame. At the same time, the fear of the H-bomb is very real, the Vietnam War is taking the lives of thousands, and apartheid in South Africa is shocking the world. Together Sandra and Linda go dancing, go to the Fair and watch Chelmsford City Football Club as well as delivering leaflets in support of Linda’s dad’s candidacy for the County Council elections and marching in the Aldermaston March to Ban the Bomb. Sandra’s New Year Resolution is to get engaged to Danny Mulroney, the local bad boy. She will go to any lengths to make it happen. To Linda’s dismay, she starts to backcomb her hair, so that she has almost achieved a Beehive. Linda needs to leave the estate or so Sylvie says - Sylvie the exotic, scarlet woman, who has a baby but no husband, has lived in Paris but has no passport, reads books but has no bookcase. Linda begins to taste another life beyond Chelmsford, and she dares to dream. Beyond the Beehive is a story of female friendship and the search for love and adventure at a time of political and social change. ‘Woodcraft gets the subtleties just right.’ Val Wilmer, jazz writer ‘The veracious language is rich and wry set against a musical backdrop of Rhythm and Blues. If you were a teenager during the 1960s there is much here to savour. If not read it and discover just what you missed.’ Bill Greensmith ‘A Blues Life’ ‘Blues Unlimited - The Essential Interviews’


Genre: Literary Fiction