Ton-Up Boys + Girls, The Ace Cafe and the 59 Club: John “Hoppy” Hopkins’ favourite photographs

//Photo 1964: © John “Hoppy” Hopkins//

//Photo 1964: © John “Hoppy” Hopkins//

John “Hoppy” Hopkins – who died yesterday aged 77 – was the photographer and activist best known for his associations with London’s counterculture of the 1960s and 70s, having been a founder of the radical London Free School which in turn led to the Notting Hill Carnival, a contributor to the pacifist paper Peace News, and a pivotal figure in the establishment of both the underground paper International Times and the psychedelic club UFO.

//Photo 1964: © John “Hoppy” Hopkins//

//Photo 1964: © John “Hoppy” Hopkins//

//Photo 1964: © John “Hoppy” Hopkins//

Hopkins was also a leading light of the squatting movement and a brave proselytiser for cannabis usage; electing for trial by jury for possession he was labelled “a pest to society” by the judge and sentenced to nine months in jail.

According to his friend Jeff Dexter, Hopkins’ favourites among his own photographs were of London rockers, those Ton-Up habitues of the North Circular’s Ace Cafe and Paddington’s 59 Club whose outsider cool and tribal clanship he documented with acuity.