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MUSIC IN DREAMLAND BOOK - OPEN LETTER FROM HELTER SKELTER
The following is an open letter from Helter Skelter (Sean) that we thought you should read, explaining what is going on? Sean has really not been well but is slowly regaining strength and the latest plan is to get the book out in August this year. Here it is:
Dear loyal and patient Bill and Be Bop fans.
I know this has been a long wait and we at Helter Skelter really do appreciate that we have kept you waiting too long for this much-delayed book which was commissioned a long time ago in a spirit of true excitement.
We love Be Bop’s music and believed there should be a book on Bill and the group. However, we are a small company and our editor / director has been battling a particularly virulent form of leukaemia and the side effects of treatment for the last 27 months.
Just when it appears he is making a good recovery, the thing comes back to bite. We could have rushed the book out in an incomplete state at a number of occasions in the last two years, but we really want it to be worth the wait.
More importantly, while getting this book out is our major priority, our editor has just got back from three weeks in the Royal Marsden Cancer hospital and is now slowly getting back to work, but is obviously not firing on all cylinders.
Our editor has very nearly died on at least three occasions in the last two years and his health is of course of paramount importance. We have noticed a recent trend in some correspondence which has become more unpleasant.
While the editor was in the Royal Marsden, he received a letter from a customer which was actually quite abusive – I am not sure this was deserved; we are a small company trying to publish a book about a worthy subject; we are not trying to cheat anyone.
I am sure that person did not mean any offence, but imagine coming around in a hospital ward, surrounded by very ill patients, after some rather brutal chemical treatment, to get your post brought in, and find, in amongst the cards of support, a typed letter from a stranger telling you that you are failing in your responsibilities.
We are all fans of Bill and Be Bop, want to produce a worthy biography, and there is no need for this.
From the first delays of this book, we have made it clear that anybody who wants a full refund can have one at any time. This offer still stands now. Full refunds will be sent back by return.
Unfortunately, in the current circumstances, the only person who can complete this book is still not well. Should anyone want to continue to wait, the book will almost definitely come out by the summer. But unfortunately, the nature of this illness, and the reason that the date keeps changing by a month or two, so regularly, is that nothing is set in stone or ultimately predictable. Perhaps with hindsight, we should have postponed the book by a clear two or three years, or cancelled it all together, but we felt and still feel, we are doing the right thing.
Thanks again to all of you for your patience to date and there will be no hard feelings at all against anyone who now requests a full refund. As I say, they will be dealt with as the number one priority. Apologies to all of you from all at Helter Skelter and we look forward to normal service eventually resuming.
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Life is strange, always...
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