LSD Alchemy in Deepest Wales

Below the Pavement the Beach Read

The last couple of years have seen Theatr Na Nog’s successful Operation Julie: the Musical; the publication of The Microdot Gang: The Rise and Fall of the LSD Network That Turned On the World by James Wyllie (The History Press); a new and revised edition of Albion Dreaming: A Popular History of LSD in Britain by Andy Roberts (Psychedelic Press); and the Untold Story of Christine Bott, published and edited by Catherine Hayes.

The signs are that Interest in this history, and the myths and legends about it, will continue. Anniversary ‘angles’ attract the interest of commissioning editors in TV and screen, who are otherwise usually not interested in anything ‘historical’ unless maybe a costume drame. I know there is interest because TV researchers have contacted me, usually pointlessly, looking for talking heads who might be still around and willing. Actually, there two 50th anniversaries coming up: on 26 March 1977, 800 police officers were mobilised to arrest 130 people in a nationwide round-up of suspects at 87 different premises; and on 8 March 1978, 29 defendants were handed down prison sentences totalling 170 years. The sentences for the principal defendants amounted to 133 years.

Just to help keep the show on the road, I present below a chapter from my book,

LSD UNDERGROUND: Operation Julie, the Microdot Gang and the Brotherhood of Eternal Love

(Paperback, Kindle)

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By the end of 1973 David Solomon had procured for Richard Kemp nine kilos of ergotamine tartrate, which was stashed in a Swiss safe-deposit box. To convert it to LSD Kemp needed a well equipped laboratory in a secluded spot, safe from prying eyes. Paul Arnaboldi put up the money for the new lab. Arnaboldi was now quite flush, having converted his income from LSD into bonds with a high interest yield. In June 1974, Arnaboldi bought a mansion called Plas Llysin in Carno, Mid-Wales to house the lab. Arnaboldi moved into Plas Llysin with the cover story that he had bought the mansion as a retirement home for his mother in Florida; and was writing a biography of John F Kennedy. As Kemp knew that Arnaboldi and Solomon didn’t get on he didn’t tell either of them about the other’s involvement.

About 50 miles from Plas Llysin, Richard Kemp and Christine Bott bought a secluded cottage to live in called Penlleinau, near Tregaron in Ceredigion. The purchase was helped with loans from Mark Tcharney and his partner Hilary Rees, who lived eight miles away in Esgarwein, Uchaf. Both of them, like Bott, worked as NHS doctors. Kemp and Bott’s cottage had two acres of land to support living the good life of self-sustainability. Bott, a keen supporter of organic farming, and member of the Soil Association, bred goats. Their furniture was sparse, they didn’t install central heating, didn’t have a television set. and eschewed consumer luxuries. The water for their large vegetable garden came from a well which they dug on a spot pointed to by the local diviner.

In autumn 1974, Kemp met up with Solomon on a visit to London. Solomon and his smuggling partner, James Johnstone, had imported some hash oil from India on sheets of blotting paper. Johnstone was a painter, and the blotting paper, wrapped in thin plastic, had been concealed under a thick layer of paint on his canvasses. Solomon wanted Kemp to extract the oil from the sheets of blotting paper but Kemp wasn’t interested.

Without Kemp’s help, Solomon and Johnstone managed to extract the oil from the blotting paper with carbon tetrachloride. As there was a risk that the strong smell of the chemicals would arouse the suspicions of the neighbours, Johnstone stashed the oil behind a dustbin in Clifton Road. It was a bad choice, because the dustbin belonged to a residence for police officers, one of whom challenged Johnstone as a suspected burglar. A fight ensued and Johnstone was arrested. He told the police that as he had dysentery from a trip to India he had rushed in their back yard to relieve himself. He had £300 in cash on him which he claimed was from the sale of a painting. That he was in the business of selling paintings could be verified by another buyer he was on his way to see. This turned out to be Solomon, who confirmed his story. Johnstone, charged with assault and released on bail, absconded and was never seen again.

In June 1973, Solomon’s associate Gerald Thomas had been arrested in Canada when customs officers seized seven kilos of hash he had imported from India. Thomas had been renting a warehouse in London to stash documents and equipment related to drugs manufacture. As the address of the warehouse was on a business card he was carrying when arrested, Thomas assumed the Canadian police would ask their British counterparts to carry out a search. Released on bail, Thomas telephoned Solomon from Canada and urged him to remove compromising materials from the warehouse. Solomon, however, took no chances; he collected the contents and dumped or destroyed all of them.

When Thomas next telephoned Solomon he was enraged by Solomon’s ruthlessness. Solomon’s response was that under the circumstances Thomas shouldn’t be contacting him and told him not to call again. Thomas then wrote an angry racist letter to his girlfriend in London, Shirley Burridge, saying ‘I’m going to show the dirty Jew bastard and the rest of his grotty crew.’ Shirley showed the letter to Solomon, who destroyed it but told Kemp about it. Solomon said he knew so much about Thomas’ criminal career that he didn’t think Thomas would rat on him. But they couldn’t sure that he hadn’t. Kemp, appalled by Solomon’s judgment in choosing his associates, advised him to get out of the country for a while. In early 1975 Solomon took another trip to India and Nepal.

In April 1975, Kemp moved his LSD-making equipment from the Bristol lock-up to the cellar of the Plas Llysin mansion in Carno. Once the lab was set up, a big production run was imminent; then disaster struck. One morning, as the rain was clearing, Richard Kemp was driving his Range Rover between Tregaron and Carno, with Christine Bott in the passenger seat, and the Grateful Dead blaring on the stereo. The back of the vehicle was loaded with sacks of stone slabs which had not been properly secured. On a sharp bend in the road, the load slid to one side, causing the car to veer across the wet tarmac. Kemp lost control and crashed into an oncoming car. Kemp and Bott were unhurt, but in the vehicle they hit the Reverend Eurwyn Hughes was badly injured and his heavily-pregnant wife, Sheila, suffered fatal injuries.

Kemp’s vehicle was impounded by the police and he was charged with causing death by dangerous driving. Kemp was ‘shattered’ by the incident (evidently, he was not on acid at the time) and the LSD enterprise was put on hold. Arnaboldi returned to Majorca. When Solomon returned from his eastern travels Kemp went to see him in London and told him he was being prosecuted for a motoring offence (he didn’t mention the fatal nature of accident). Solomon reported on his own problems with the police. The London Met had raided his house, asking him about LSD, but hadn’t found anything incriminating. Perhaps it was due to Solomon’s dealings with Timothy Leary on his book deal in 1972. Or was it because Thomas had grassed? Who knew?

Kemp was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving, fined £100 and banned from driving for 12 months. He resumed production of LSD in March 1976. For the chemicals, equipment and housing, Kemp and Arnaboldi had, between them, invested about £60,000. Christine Bott served as Kemp’s chauffeur, ferrying him to and from the lab, where he worked for up to 48 hours a shift. Arnaboldi kept watch, spending a lot of time doing work on the roof of the building, from where he could check the surrounding land for intruders.

Kemp now had the expertise to break down the tartrate and convert the residue into high quality LSD crystals in less than a month. By May, production was completed. Kemp’s had converted seven-and-a-half kilos of ergotamine tartrate into 1,800 grams of LSD, which was enough to make nine million microdots. Kemp and Arnaboldi dismantled the lab and destroyed the equipment, throwing some of it down the well of the mansion.

Arnaboldi departed, taking his share of LSD crystals – 450 grams – back to Majorca. Arnaboldi had wanted his acid tableted before delivery, but Kemp refused as he had so much tableting to do himself. This caused a falling out, but months later Arnaboldi sent Kemp a friendly letter offering to buy Kemp’s bonds for £20,000.

On Kemp’s next trip to see Solomon in London, Solomon complained of being broke, having lost his investment in Nepalese oil when he was busted bringing it into India and fined heavily. Kemp gave him the good news that he had produced a lot of LSD he wanted distributed. They agreed on a 50-50 split of profits between the two of them.

Solomon planned to do another book, this time with Kemp’s friend, Mark Tcharney. This served as cover for Tcharney’s role as a courier. Tcharney delivered Kemp’s microdots via a dead letter drop at Calmsden, in the Cotswolds, where Solomon rented a weekend retreat. Solomon passed on a good portion of the acid for international distribution to the Israeli, Izchak ‘Zahi’ Sheni, who had addresses in London and Amsterdam, and was being supplied by Henry Todd’s group as well. All was going smoothly, or so it seemed. Signs of surveillance such as, for example, strangers in the distance, apparently working as surveyors, were balanced against the need not to get too paranoid. In any case, if the police were really onto them, surely they wouldn’t have allowed the production and distribution to take place as it did. Surely?

To find out happened next see:

LSD UNDERGROUND: Operation Julie, the Microdot Gang and the Brotherhood of Eternal Love

Paperback, Kindle: