Books
Anarchism, traveller culture, off-grid living, and more – from the firepit to the page.
Books by Dicky Dread
Practical Anarchy
A Guide to Self Determination
This is my big, muddy, firepit-and-footnotes attempt to answer the question: "Why the fuck do we let the world be run this way?" It tears apart the myths of the State, money, religion and party politics, then shows – with history, science, festivals, squats and disasters – that people organise better without rulers. It's part punk rant, part physics nerd, part traveller survival guide, and part love-letter to mutual aid. It's not about smashing stuff. It's about building a kinder, freer world and realising we've been practising anarchy all along.
Drugs and Addiction
An Anarchist Perspective
This is my attempt to blow up the war on drugs and the war on ourselves in one go. It mixes childhood trauma, rave fields, physics labs and pub firesides to show that addiction isn't a disease of bad people but a perfectly sane response to a broken, frightened society. I take apart prohibition, psychiatry and the "once an addict, always an addict" myth, then rebuild recovery around autonomy, ritual, community and meaning. It's part memoir, part science, part anarchist manifesto, and one long two-finger salute to fear-based medicine and moral panic. You're not broken – the system is.
The New Age Travellers: A History
This is the big, muddy, firepit-lit story of how a bunch of long-haired weirdos, punks, hippies, squatters and dreamers told polite society to shove it and built a rolling culture of freedom. It runs from jazz basements, beat poets and hippie buses through free festivals, squats and sound systems, all the way to the State losing its tiny little mind at the Battle of the Beanfield and trying to crush the Convoy. It's history from the road, written by someone who was there, for everyone who ever looked at a passing bus and thought: "I want that life."
One Flew into the Cuckoo's Nest
This is the story of how I went from a traumatised, pissed-up, anxious wreck to a happy, off-grid, loved-up, vegan, festival-going anarchist with two cats and a big fucking smile. It starts with childhood chaos, abuse, booze and drugs, rolls through raves, squats, physics labs and mid-life meltdown, then hits the moment everything changes. Along the way there's grief, laughter, whiteys, Allen Carr, SSRIs, DJs, travellers, the Cuckoo Crew and a stubborn refusal to accept that trauma is "for life". It's messy, funny, honest and proof that you can rewire your own bloody brain.
Five Go Bonkers in a Field
The Cuckoo Crew Guide to Misbehaviour
This book is a filthy, funny, anarchic love-letter to festivals, freedom and the beautiful nutters who live for them. It follows the Cuckoo Crew – a gang of off-grid, cider-fuelled, music-obsessed misfits – as we roll into a hidden field and accidentally turn it into two days of pure, unfiltered chaos. There's fire, reggae, ska, punk, "detention", lost tents, broken faces, bad decisions, worse hangovers and the kind of friendship you only get when you've survived a mosh pit together. It's not a guidebook. It's a war story from the deep end of festival life.
The New Age Travellers Way of Life: Part 1
Legal Aspects
This is the survival manual I wish I'd had when I first hit the road – a no-bullshit, firepit-tested guide to staying one step ahead of Babylon while living free. It tells the story of travellers past and present, from Romani Gypsies and Irish Travellers to the Peace Convoy, Stonehenge and the Battle of the Beanfield, then dives head-first into the grim legal swamp of evictions, planning, police powers and "traveller status". It's history, politics, war stories and loopholes, written by a crusty anarchist who's been battered, busted and still refuses to be tamed.
The New Age Travellers Way of Life: Part 2
Building Homes
This is the "fuck landlords, build your own palace" manual for anyone who wants to live free and warm instead of skint and miserable. It's everything I've learned from thirty-odd years of bodging, welding, insulating and swearing at leaky roofs, turned into a practical guide to building a real off-grid home on wheels or in a field. Vans, horseboxes, buses, wood burners, compost loos, solar, plumbing, chainsaws, gas, wind, water – it's all in here, with hard-won tips, mistakes and flowcharts. It's not about being trendy. It's about independence, skill and telling the system to shove it.
The New Age Travellers Way of Life: Part 3
Sustenance
The guide to foraging, growing, cooking and surviving off-grid without selling your soul.
The Crusty Traveller Cookbook
This is the book that shows you how to tell Tesco to get fucked and feed yourself from the land instead. It's a practical, muddy-boot, wood-smoke-and-nettles guide to foraging, growing, cooking and surviving off-grid without selling your soul. From blackberries and liberty caps to compost loos, polytunnels, goats, re-wilding and a hundred filthy vegan recipes, it's everything I've learned about staying warm, fed and sane in a broken world. It's not about being "eco". It's about independence, skill and building a life that doesn't need permission.
Works in Progress
Physics, Consciousness and Reality
with Nigel Adams
This is the book where we finally stop pretending the universe is just a pile of Lego and ask the really awkward questions. It drags Einstein, quantum weirdness, psychedelics, Buddhism, Taoism and punk DIY into the same muddy field and lets them argue round the fire. We rip apart the idea that reality is solid, the self is fixed and science has all the answers, then rebuild the whole thing around consciousness, illusion and relationship. It's part hard physics, part Eastern philosophy, part life story, and one long, joyful refusal to accept that existence is supposed to make tidy sense.
Crime, Justice and Punishment
An Anarchist Perspective
This is my demolition job on the idea that cages equal safety. It rips apart the myths that humans are born evil, that police keep us safe and that punishment fixes harm, then shows – with anthropology, neuroscience, history and a lot of muddy lived experience – that crime is what happens when communities are starved of care, dignity and belonging. I trace how sin became law, how prisons became temples and how fear became policy, before rebuilding justice around repair, responsibility and mutual aid. It's not soft. It's grown-up. And it asks the only question that matters: how do we actually keep each other safe without turning into the monsters we're scared of?
Resources and the Future
An Anarchist Perspective
This is my attempt to rip the blinkers off the "just fix the economy" fantasy and drag us back into the real world of soil, energy, rivers and limits. It shows why money is a terrible way to think about survival, how capitalism turns living systems into dead numbers, and why climate collapse isn't a "market failure" but a physical reality we can't negotiate with. I take you from hunter-gatherers to fossil fuels, from commons to enclosure, and from planetary boundaries to everyday life, then ask the only question that matters: how do we organise ourselves to live well within limits without building a new elite to boss us about?
Books Published as Richard Leach
Academic and technical publications