Andy Roberts has been involved with Breaking Convention since the beginning, and is the friendly face on our merchandise and book stall. In addition to this role, Andy is a historian of Britain's LSD psychedelic culture and author of Albion Dreaming: A Social History of LSD in Britain, Acid Drops, Divine Rascal, and In Search of Smiles.

His other research interests include, listening to music, hill walking, beach combing, reading, landscapes and their mysteries, natural history and paranormal phenomena. Musically, he has been severely influenced and affected by the Grateful Dead and the Incredible String Band among a host of others. He first fell down the rabbit hole in 1972 and has been exploring the labyrinth of passages ever since. His views on the psychedelic experience are (basically) – You take a psychedelic and you get high. What happens after that is largely the result of dosage, set and setting.

Britain’s Clandestine LSD Chemists

Britain has a long history of clandestine LSD laboratories, beginning in 1966 and continuing to the present day. Chemists such as Victor Kapur, Richard Kemp, Andy Munro, Casey Hardison and many others made tens of millions of LSD doses, much of which was destined for the American and world markets (including the infamous ‘brown acid’ at Woodstock) but which also fuelled the free festival movement of the 1970s and 80s. This audio visual presentation examines the background, motives and histories of these chemists and their illicit laboratories.