Following a sheltered childhood and education in Cambridge, and having missed out on the Swinging Sixties, Alec Forshaw was ready for a dose of the wider world. London in the early 1970s was where the lights seemed to shine the brightest. In reality London was still a city struggling to find its post-war identity, full of declining industries and derelict docklands, a townscape blighted by undeveloped bomb sites, demonic motorway proposals and slum clearance schemes. The streets were lined with work-a-day local shops and greasy-spoon cafes, but enlivened by ghettos of immigrants and student culture. Ideas for traffic constraint, recycling rubbish or conserving historic buildings were still in their infancy. It was the decade which saw the three-day week, the Notting Hill riots and the last of the anti-Vietnam war protests. This sequel to ”Growing Up in Cambridge” portrays the London of over thirty years ago as it appeared to a young man in his twenties, finding his feet, coming of age, and stumbling across the sights, sounds and sensations of an extraordinary city.