[Wynonie Harris]

When somebody told me recently that it was the 40th anniversary of the summer of love, I was gobsmacked. Where did all the years go? Is it really four decades since flower power, hippies, love and peace and all that stuff?

I still remember it vividly and I'm sure many other older members do too. But it must be said that flower power in Accy was not quite the same as flower power in San Francisco. One incident that sticks in my mind concerns a local hard case who had, for some unknown reason, taken a particular dislike to my mate and gave him a bit of hassle whenever he saw him up the Con. One night in that iconic summer, we were walking through the bus station, when said hard case, along with another equally tough mate came along the other way. With bus shelters on one side and the market hall wall on the other, there was no escape and we just had to carry on walking towards them with sinking hearts. As the hard guy reached my mate, his hand shot out...

...but as it did, we noticed something strange. His jacket fell open to reveal a floral shirt underneath and he grabbed hold of my mate's hand and started shaking it while uttering the classic words, "Thought I were gonna hit y'then, didn't you? Don't worry, I wouldn't hit anybody now except with a flower." With this, he wandered off with a beaming smile on his face, while we hastened to our homes to change our trousers. Obviously, his flower child conversion couldn't last, but the funny thing was, he was always very friendly towards my mate from then on and, in fact, turned out to be a sound bloke. So maybe the summer of love did some good, after all!