London: Freedom Press, 2004

8vo, pp. 205, 2pp. advertisements bound in at rear. ALS postcard laid in. A fine, unread copy.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY TONY ALLEN TO HEATHCOTE WILLIAMS: 'To Heathcote. Thanks for the role modelling. Love and my best wishes, Tony A. AUG 2004'. ALS POSTCARD PRESENTING THE BOOK LAID IN.

One of the founding fathers of alternative comedy, Tony Allen set up Alternative Cabaret in 1979 with Alexei Sayle. The two had met at the Comedy Store, then hosting such fledgling performers as Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Keith Allen, French and Saunders, Paul Merton, Ben Elton, Jo Brand, Arnold Brown......everyone, really. Before that, in the mid-1970s Allen and Heathcote Williams had joined forces to create the Ruff Tuff Creem Puff Estate Agency for Squatters, a regular bulletin which advertised vacant properties in London which might appeal to the financially challenged ('Salubrious dwellings for industrious artisans'; 'No roof. Would suit astronomer.') A permanent fixture at Speakers' Corner, either as speaker or heckler, Allen's book was published in 2004. Williams' book on the same subject, The Speakers, was published in 1964; this volume touchingly brings their friendship full circle.

In the handwritten postcard presenting the book, Allen tells Williams of the poor health of the mutual friend and fellow radical, the printer Mike Braybrook, who was responsible for much of the agitprop ephemera distributed around London in the last 30 years of the twentieth century. (He died in 2007.)

A fine copy, with an association to match.