Written by Andrew Lycett for The Independant, London 8th February 2001

An Irish paper missed the point when it compared Mim Scala's book about the "long Sixties" with Kerouac and Hunter S Thompson. Diary of a Teddy Boy, first published in Dublin last year, is a gentler, more entertaining read. It captures the excitement of a period, from the Suez crisis of 1956 to the Yom Kippur war of 1973, when social barriers broke down and confident youngsters such as Scala, whose family owned an ice-cream parlour, could prosper in the entertainment and music industries, cavort with fun-loving aristocrats, take masses of drugs, drop out, and still emerge, tolerably compos mentis.
"The Sixties had a rarefied atmosphere," Scala says. "So much was happening then and I was often there. But I was always a fringe player; I was never blinded by the dense fog of fame. Some people had to be there, but I was there because I wanted to be there." Scala ran a gambling den frequented by the artist Francis Bacon. He was agent to hell-raising actor Richard Harris. He sent his friend Patti Boyd along to audition for Dick Lester's film A Hard Days Night and she ended up dating Beatle George Harrison, one of the stars. Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix used to jam in his Hyde Park flat. He arranged Cat Steven's first record deal.
Scala's memoir works, when most tales of rock'n'roll excess are buried under a weight of their own self-importance, because he told it for a reason. In 1990, having decamped to Co Carlow to fish after 30 over-the-top years, he became a father for the first time, at the age of 50. "At that age, you become paranoid that you'll kick the bucket before your child knows your name," he said at his temporary base - the west London house of his friend Michael Pearson, once a high-living film producer and skipper of the yacht The Hedonist, now Viscount Cowdray, landowner.
Beset by intimations of mortality, Scala wrote his book to tell his son Freddy, now 11, about his former life-style. "I was looking for amazement, not like modern kids trying to get blotted out."
That sense of relating a personal story to his son gives Scala's book its voice. He eschews self-aggrandisement, grudges, or details of bad acid trips. Instead, he observes heady social change with amused detachment.
Of course there are rock'n'roll stories, and lots of them. Take the night in late 1967 when he picked up a beautiful blonde at the hip club, the Revolution. His friends Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix and Keith Moon were jamming (as they often did back at his flat). She was wearing nothing but a mink coat and smelt "irresistibly of expensive perfume and animal fur". Scala asked her to join him for the weekend at Aston Upthorpe, the 1,800 acre estate of his business partner Sir William Pigott-Brown, where cottages were let out to rock stars, including members of Traffic.
There "everybody got laid, stoned and drunk in the highest possible fashion". The girl was keen, but intimated problems. She was staying at Claridges with Huntington Hartford, one of the world's richest men. Scala picked up her luggage in his old Willis jeep, followed by Jones, Hendrix and assorted girls in the Rolling Stone's chauffeur-driven Bentley.
All very decadent, but Scala refuses to moralise. In his book, the English speaking world was experiencing such beneficial transformation that even the few casualties (such as Jones, who would hole up in his flat, eking out his final days on pork pies and drugs) were excusable. "The whole moral structure was changing. Before, everything was hypocritical. Once it began to get loose, it became more sensible."
But wasn't Sixties culture, with its vapid spirituality, equally hypocritical? "There are always people who are having a good time, and people who are not and resent it," he replies, refusing to be drawn.
In the flesh, Scala is not easy to place. The photographs in the book show him evolving from smart London mod to caftaned hippie. But these uniforms appear as disguises. Today, he wears an oversize white shirt with a Utah Fiddlers logo, he has a clipped, greying beard, and he occasionally dons tortoise-shell glasses that give him a studious look. Sixty years old and short, he could be a Spanish hidalgo or, perhaps, a worldly Jesuit priest.
Roman Catholicism was, it appears, an important influence. As a convent schoolboy, his painting of the Crucifixion won a competition and was sent to the Hungarian Cardinal Mindszenty, who was charged with treason by the communists in 1948. Even now, Scala talks about the importance of the moral sense drilled into him and how this kept him to the straight and narrow.
His grandfather Emilio was a first-generation Sicilian immigrant who ran an ice-cream business from a tricycle. He was also a secret gambler whose life changed in 1931 when he won £355,000 (equivalent to £11.5m today) in the Irish Hospitals Sweepstake. (Mim, a diminutive of Emilio, has written a promising screenplay about this.)
With his riches, old Emilio bought Hamilton Lodge, a vast Gothic house in Forest Hill, south London. Mim describes it as "an Italian village", comprising not only an extended family refuge, but also a food store, with fresh ricotta cheese dripping from wicker baskets. As a child, he shuffled between there and his parents' pre-fab in Fulham, where they owned a modern ice-cream parlour.
Surprisingly, his early years were not "as euphoric as they should have been". In the aftermath of the Second World War, "there was not much colour. The first thing that got to me was the teddy boy. This was my first glimpse that there was another life. There were these beautiful peacocks and I wanted to be like them. I did what all teenagers do. I snuck off. I bought the gear bit by bit. I hid it under my bed." He recalls his first tapered suit from Mr Tobias; his haircut with Tony Curtis quiff and duck's ass at the back; his euphoria at hearing Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" blaring out in a local cinema while feuding gangs slashed the screen.
His book's title is deceptive, but Scala explains: "All street culture stems from that teddy boy thing. From that first quiff we've had everything - beatniks, mods, punks, goths."
Scala began running semi-legal gambling dens: he tangled with the Kray brothers while titled gentlemen played chemin-de-fer. It was only the late 1950s, but already social barriers were tumbling in King's Road coffee bars. Scala's daytime ice-cream customers thought him crazy when he practised talking posh. He imagined he was in love with the Marquess of Bath's daughter. Invited to Longleat, he was shocked when her family swam naked in the mill-race.
Aspiring to work in films, he appeared as an extra on an abortive version of Cleopatra. Winning a television twist contest in 1962 led to a role as Helen Shapiro's dance partner in It's Trad Dad. When his on-screen career faltered, he became a show-business agent. He thought it cool to represent art-film clients, but found Dennis Hopper a job in The Saint.
He shared a flat with Chris Stamp, Terence's better-looking brother, who managed Hendrix and The Who. Girlfriends such as Jacqueline Bisset passed through his life. With drugs increasingly prevalent, he set up an agency with Pigott-Brown. A highlight was arranging the Rolling Stones to film with Jean-Luc Godard. When the parties fell out, Godard denounced their collaboration on One Plus One. "He was on a French political trip, without an ounce of rock'n'roll," Scala snorts.
As acid took hold, Scala began "getting esoteric feelings that were a bit odd for a Cockney boy". After reading Huxley, he hit the hippie trail to North Africa and Asia, where he studied Buddhism. Returning to England in 1973, he had difficulty conforming. His friend Chris Blackwell offered a marketing job at Island Records. Mim prospered again with his own company, managing record producers. But by 1987 he had had enough and moved to Ireland, where friends such as Marianne Faithfull lived.
His four acres near the river Barrow remind him of the English countryside before 4x4 vehicles. His English wife Janie is commissioner of the local pony club. They fell in love when she came to his door with a dish of osso buco. He fishes pike and reads Kipling. A recent computer convert, he has invented a programme that makes a movie sequence out of still photographs.
As a dyslexic, he cannot believe he has written a book, but feedback is good. One e-mail went: "I'm jealous I didn't live in that period. I grew up with Boy George and Duran Duran. Now I know where my Dad's coming from."
Scala's son Freddy, too, is maturing: he rides enthusiastically and recently became Irish under-21 hunting horn champion. "It's not exactly rock'n'roll," says Scala, "but it's a start. I realise if he doesn't go through much the same thing as me, he'll be boring. But if he goes astray, I'll be furious. He'll have to be very shrewd to get past me. I'm poacher turned game-keeper."