Hanning’s book is fascinating and is full of larger-than-life characters such as Marianne Faithfull, Dudley Moore, Seamus Heaney, April Ashley (the model, dancer and socialite who was one of the earliest people to undergo gender realignment surgery), the borderline hoodlum Jim Rizek (who apparently pushed his luck too far with his crime bosses and ended up in the Arizona desert) and — tangentially — Mick Jagger. Booth’s great coup, PR-wise, was announcing in 1977 that Hay-on-Wye had become independent, and would henceforth be ruled by a king, by the name of Richard Booth.
