Royston Ellis
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Royston Ellis (born 10 February 1941, Pinner, England) is a British writer heavily influenced by the American Beat Generation.
Ellis began his career with two poetry collections published during that era: "Jiving To Gyp" (1959) and "Rave" (1960). In June 1960, he travelled to Liverpool, England to perform a poetry reading at Liverpool University. As he usually read his poetry with backing from jazz musicians, Ellis searched among the locals for suitable muscians to accompany him and met the young group known as The Beatles.
Ellis bonded with John Lennon in particular, both sharing an enthusiasm for the American Beat poets, and spent the week at 8 Gambier Terrace with Lennon, Sutcliffe, et al.
Lennon saw Ellis as "the converging point of rock 'n' roll and literature". Ellis said of the meeting, "I was quite a star for them at that time because I had come up from London and that was a world they didn't really know about".
According to Lennon in the International Times: "The first dope, from a Benzedrine inhaler, was given to the Beatles (John, George, Paul and Stuart) by an English cover version of Allen Ginsberg — one Royston Ellis, known as 'beat poet' ... So, give the saint his due." Ellis also claims that he suggested the re-spelling of Beetles to Beatles.
Ellis's later novel, Myself For Fame (1964), about a fictional pop star, with a chapter set in Liverpool that seems to recount his experiences with The "Beetles" in 1960.
Ellis is one of the people the song "Paperback Writer" based on, quoting a comment he had made years earlier while in Liverpool, and was also present at a liaison between Lennon and "Polythene Pam" in Guernsey in 1963.
John Lennon's quote on the Polythene Pam incident:
- "Polythene Pam: That was me, remembering a little event I had with a woman in Jersey, an island off the French coast. A poet, England's answer to Allen Ginsberg, a beatnik that looked like a beatnik who was from Liverpool, took me to this apartment of his in Jersey. This was so long ago. This is all triggering these amazing memories. So this poet took me to his place and asked me if I wanted to meet this girl, Polythene Pam, who dressed up in polythene. Which she did. In polythene bags. She didn't wear jack boots and kilts -- I just sort of elaborated -- and no, she didn't really look like a man. There was nothing much to it. It was kind of perverted sex in a polythene bag. But it provided something to write a song about".
Ellis now lives in Sri Lanka, writing travel books and fiction, the most recent being Sweet Ebony, which follows the travels of a group of Americans through Kenya, in which these characters echo the Beatniks of generations past.
Ellis is also a frequent traveller to the Maldives and is a good friend of the Maldives president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, writing a biography of him entitled A Man for All Islands.
A film based on Ellis's novel A Hero In Time is also in the planning stages.
