Pete Grafton
Born 1945, brought up near London. Left school at 17 and hitched to the North of England in 1963 – to be a writer! Apart from rock n roll, jazz, graphic design and politics, he didn’t have a clue about anything. i.e. Life
Worked in the building trade and Parks departments throughout Britain, settling in Scotland from 1967 onwards (there was a family connection), living in Glasgow, the Isle of Arran and Lanarkshire.
A brief period, 1971 – 1977 was spent in Oxford and ‘alternative’ London, before returning to Arran.
He presently lives in Biggar.
Besides a couple of radio plays, he is the author of You, You & You: The People out of Step with World War Two, Pluto Press, London, 1981. The never seen restored full version is now available online. youyouandyourestored.wordpress.com
Len: Our Ownest Darling Girl. continues the examination of British social and political history, taking it into the immediate post-war period. Based on 1940’s letters between mother in Glasgow and her daughter working first in Cairo for the Ministry of Supply, and then at the Biological and Chemical Research Station at Porton Down, and finally training to be a teacher at Wynyward Hall, the home of the Nazi sympathiser Lord Londonderry.
London Town 54, an online book of photographs taken in London 1954, concludes the loose trilogy that looks at the experience of living in Britain from the 1930s through to the early 1950s. londontown54.com
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Pete Grafton Photos
petegraftonphotos.com is a companion website to petegrafton.com , featuring monthly collections of photos, taken by him or from his collection of photos he has acquired from bric-a-brac shops in Britain and Europe, and from ebay.
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pete grafton 
Hello,
I am wondering if you are the same Pete Grafton who many years ago recorded some individuals living in Pilton, Somerset, for a book you were writing about Civilians in WW2?
Could you let me know either way please, and the title of the book?
Thank you.
Hello Christine – Yes, I’m the same Pete Grafton. “You, You & You!” was the book, published 1981. Copies are often available on abebooks and on ebay.
How did you know I was interviewing some people in Street and Pilton back in the 1970s? Were you a friend of John Fletcher?. Best wishes, Pete.
Hi Pete!
I came across your 1965 hostelling trip while idly googling Dirt Pot youth hostel near Weardale. Ah memories! My stay was in 1971 but the warden’s wife in the headscarf having to be searched for certainly rang a bell and I too was its only inhabitant. I mainly remember it though for a terrifying incident in the night when I was awoken by much metallic crashing downstairs (you may remember lots of tin pans and little tin teapots on the shelves) followed by footsteps coming up the stairs to the dorm (which would have been the chapel’s gallery). They had almost got to the top when they went down again and the big door clanged shut. In the morning nothing was out of place downstairs. I left hurriedly! I believe it ceased to be a hostel shortly afterwards.
The references to inadequate pre-hi-tech wet weather gear rang bells too! I’ll check out the rest of your journey.
Thanks
Alison
Hi Pete, I was delighted to find your trip to Scotland of April 1965. I made a month’s trip from London to Helmsdale in the same year, in July, staying in Youth Hostels, hitching lifts with French friends. Some of these hostels were where you stayed earlier- I still have my diary from then with my own comments about weird, embittered Wardens, and the Warden’s wife at Dirt Pot coming across the road in a headscarf, leaving us alone overnight.
I think we went to the same shop as you at Fort William, but in this instance the girl actually managed to serve us, but got really annoyed!
You were able to stay at Mankinholes YH but it was full up when we went and we spent the night in a nearby barn.
I’ve been putting up my diary on Facebook and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the number of avid followers I’ve collected, who seem strangeley engrossed by my descriptions of every lift we got, and the food consumed.
Kind Regards, keep on keeping on,
Caroline Johnson, Fine Artist.
Hi Pete,
I’m looking for copywrite information for the photos featured on londontown54.com by Hans Richard Griebe. Do you have any info?
Thanks,
Anna
Hello Anna, The copyright is “Hans Richard Griebe/Pete Grafton collection”. If the photo or photos in London Town 54 are to be used commercially then a fee for use will apply. If they are being used for a site such as Pin Interest then a link to londontown54.com is all that is needed. Let me know in what context you would like to use photos from London Town 54. Best wishes, Pete.