LOCALLY, Chris Ormondroyd’s debut novel outstripped bestsellers like Bridget Jones’ Diary and Bill Bryson’s Notes From A Small Island.

Windhill Tales, a fictionalised account of life in Yorkshire in the 1960s struck a chord with many people, leading to 400 copies being sold in eight months (two every day) at Dillons in Market Street. It featured in the shop’s top 20 best-sellers list for 11 months, with orders received from across Britain as well as from overseas.

Now, the former Salt Grammar School pupil - who pooled ideas with his late brother Simon to write Windhill Tales - has penned a sequel. It has not been written in the same vein, and is not of a quirky view of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

‘It is partly autobiographical, partly philosophic and partly a political commentary on developments in our recent past which have now brought us to ask serious questions of those who have power over our lives,’ says the introduction.

Written as a fiction, Chris - who used to work as a cub reporter on the Shipley Times & Express and has a Masters in creative writing from the University of Leeds - says that some local readers may recognise the main characters in his new book Hippies, Vandals & an Alien called Pete.

‘So, on a grey afternoon, with a slight drizzle made all the more annoying by Windhill’s permanent breeze, the book’s main character Stephen Elliott took drastic action to escape his father’s tyranny.’ Begins the book. ‘His few remaining treasures were in a bag, which clung perilously to the rack of his second hand Lambretta.’

He leaves home to share a house with friends in Baildon. Independence transforms his life and he goes on to have a series of daring escapades.

Being at the height of the music era, when musicians were experimenting with anything and everything, Stephen and his set of friends set up venues for folk, blues and rock music.

Back home, their parents - and others of their generation - were still listening to ‘crooners’ like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

The book includes visits to festivals – despite being warned that ‘They’re nowt but sex and drug orgies’, parties and other events. They had camping trips to the Yorkshire Dales and an alternative Olympic Games in which beer features highly.

‘They hitched lifts in an unplanned zig zag down country. Stephen found it strange that some vehicles would slow for them as though they intended offering a lift; then they’d see a head stick out from a wound-down window’ he writes. Someone would yell something derogatory about hippies before accelerating away.

‘Though Stephen’s hair was long, Fergal has short-cropped fair hair and did not deserve the label hurled at him.’

Chapters are clearly defined - there’s one on witches - when Stephen and friends attempted to conjure up black magic.

‘In the pitch black darkness, they arrived to where the sentinels of Brimham Rocks cast shadows across the moor when the moon slipped out from behind the clouds. Stephen has a sneaking suspicion that they’d be much more likely to meet up with Pete the alien again than any witches.’

His inspiration comes from authors including terry Pratcehtt, Bernard Cornwell and Scarlet Thomas.

The book is a true rite of passage - it is easy to read, fast-paced and a lot of fun.

It is made all the more enjoyable by the local settings: ‘They were gathered at the trig point at the crest of Baildon Moor. It was the morning after the party and no one had slept.’

Anyone living in that era, who wants to relive their youth will enjoy this book.

*Hippies, Vandals and an Alien called Pete is published by publishnation.co.uk and is available from Amazon priced £5.99. It can be bought as a download from its home website botrbooks.com.