What do you think?
Rate this book
Operation Julie: The World's Greatest Lsd Bust
The story of the largest LSD bust in history - a notorious event which is well known throughout Britain.
- GenresNonfiction
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
8 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 5, 2022
When I was at school in Mid Wales in 1977 there was great excitement at the news that the biggest LSD-manufacturing and distribution ring IN THE WORLD had been smashed locally. Apparently living among us were a bunch of secretive and brilliant chemists who were in league with local hippies with a plan to save the world through the rather imprecise means of mind-altering drugs.
The brilliant chemist was Richard Kemp, aided by his goat-breeding medical doctor partner Christine Bott.
Also living around the villages of Tregaron and Llanddewi Brefi was a drug dealing loveable rogue, Alston “Smiles” Hughes who was a popular man who used to give large amounts of money to hard-up villagers while consuming far more champagne then he could reasonably have been expected to afford, having no regular line of work (just some ready source of income).
Even the drug squad began to sit up and take notice when an incredibly pure form of LSD started to appear in various parts of the world. I say this - there was no drug squad. It had to be set up (subsequently dismantled) for this specific operation of unprecedented undercover surveillance work and hardship for those involved. At times it seems comically amateur but was driven by a determined and resourceful policeman, DI Dick Lee of Thames Valley Police, with little or no support from the Met or vested interests.
It’s a fascinating tale well told by a local reporter and remains an episode that brought brief fame - if not fortune- to an area of Britain thought to be so remote that you could get away with this sort of thing.
The musical theatre production of “Operation Julie” has just opened in Aberystwyth and is a complete delight.
The brilliant chemist was Richard Kemp, aided by his goat-breeding medical doctor partner Christine Bott.
Also living around the villages of Tregaron and Llanddewi Brefi was a drug dealing loveable rogue, Alston “Smiles” Hughes who was a popular man who used to give large amounts of money to hard-up villagers while consuming far more champagne then he could reasonably have been expected to afford, having no regular line of work (just some ready source of income).
Even the drug squad began to sit up and take notice when an incredibly pure form of LSD started to appear in various parts of the world. I say this - there was no drug squad. It had to be set up (subsequently dismantled) for this specific operation of unprecedented undercover surveillance work and hardship for those involved. At times it seems comically amateur but was driven by a determined and resourceful policeman, DI Dick Lee of Thames Valley Police, with little or no support from the Met or vested interests.
It’s a fascinating tale well told by a local reporter and remains an episode that brought brief fame - if not fortune- to an area of Britain thought to be so remote that you could get away with this sort of thing.
The musical theatre production of “Operation Julie” has just opened in Aberystwyth and is a complete delight.
September 3, 2018
I was in a NT bookshop and saw this - on sale because the whole story was so local.
Ebenezer was a journo at the time and has produced quite a reasoned text - others on the topic have axes to grind or are hysterical. So I found it interesting, not least because I have been to/past most of the places mentioned. But it is a "then this happened, then that happened" sort of book and isn't going to stick very hard.
Nice description of those days and those places; just about everything described is now gone or lost.
Ebenezer was a journo at the time and has produced quite a reasoned text - others on the topic have axes to grind or are hysterical. So I found it interesting, not least because I have been to/past most of the places mentioned. But it is a "then this happened, then that happened" sort of book and isn't going to stick very hard.
Nice description of those days and those places; just about everything described is now gone or lost.
May 1, 2020
Dull telling of interesting case of the biggest LSD production ring in uk history. Characters are flat and one dimensional. Even the photos are dull. How many welsh cottages can you take. Hopefully this tale is brought to life in a better book somewhere.
August 2, 2012
I know some of the people mentioned in this book as most of the action took place a few miles from where we live. 'Officers infiltrated communes in the area' makes me wonder if we had any posing as WWOOF visitors at the mid-Wales commune we were in, but they would have found little for their trouble if we did. The reporting seems to attempt to keep a balance between the two diametrically points of view of the police force and the LSD ring, but the book was confusing with such a large cast of both surveillance officers and people involved in making and smuggling the LSD. It was hard to keep tabs on who was being talked about, and towards the end I didn't bother to look back and try to identify people as it didn't seem to matter much.
The last chapter which seems to gather all the surrounding current and subsequent myths that grew up around the operation seems the oddest of all, with little relevance to the preceding account, except as a platform for discussing the pros and cons of the whole operation. No conclusions are reached however, except that the claims that the operation significantly curtailed the supply of LSD seem to be invalid, and that the drug's fall from popularity was due to it being surplanted by later arrivals on the scene.
The nature of the subject dictates the book's diffuse nature to some extent but I feel its basic layout is also to blame for its rather unsatisfactory nature.
I think we also have Leaf Fielding's account, and it will be interesting to compare the accounts. However reading this does not make me want to seek out other work by Lyn Ebenezer, and I am tempted to advise him not to give up the day job.
The last chapter which seems to gather all the surrounding current and subsequent myths that grew up around the operation seems the oddest of all, with little relevance to the preceding account, except as a platform for discussing the pros and cons of the whole operation. No conclusions are reached however, except that the claims that the operation significantly curtailed the supply of LSD seem to be invalid, and that the drug's fall from popularity was due to it being surplanted by later arrivals on the scene.
The nature of the subject dictates the book's diffuse nature to some extent but I feel its basic layout is also to blame for its rather unsatisfactory nature.
I think we also have Leaf Fielding's account, and it will be interesting to compare the accounts. However reading this does not make me want to seek out other work by Lyn Ebenezer, and I am tempted to advise him not to give up the day job.
September 23, 2023
Really dull account of a riveting story. Such a shame the author was unable to capture a more personal account. All characters are one-dimensional. I know this story relatively well. My mum is from Tregaron, and knew some of the people involved, we even bought our family home from Christine Bott in the late 80s. So many key elements of this story was overlooked or under-explored.
If you want to get a much more enchanting understanding of the story, listen to Rhys Ifans’s narration of Acid Dreams on BBC Sounds.
If you want to get a much more enchanting understanding of the story, listen to Rhys Ifans’s narration of Acid Dreams on BBC Sounds.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews