MEET ROYSTON ELLIS

Welcome to the website where you can find out all you want to know (and a lot you probably don't want to know) about Royston Ellis, author, travel writer and erstwhile beat poet.

Biography

Royston Ellis was born on 10 February 1941 in Pinner, England, and educated at state schools until he left  age 16, determined to be a writer. Two years later, his first book, Jiving to Gyp, a sequence of poems, was published and he performed his poetry on stage and TV to backing by Cliff Richard's original group, The Shadows; by Jimmy Page, later of Led Zepplin; and  by John, Paul, George & Stuart who become famous as the Beatles, a spelling Royston suggested to them, instead of Beetles. In 1960 he caused a nationwide controversy by his remarks on teenage lifestyle in the TV programme Living For Kicks. In 1961 his book The Big Beat Scene was first published.  For his literary achievements Royston was awarded the title Duke Gypino y Tintinabulation de Redonda by the king of that Caribbean island.

At 20 Royston left England for a life of travel that took him to Moscow, where he read his poetry on stage with the iconic Russian poet Yevtushenko, and then to the Canary Islands where he acted briefly as an Arab with Cliff Richard in the movie Wonderful Life, and wrote three novels.

From 1966 to 1980 he lived in Dominica and wrote the bestselling Bondmaster series of historical novels as Richard Tresillian; as well as becoming President of the Dominica Cricket Association, a member of MCC and of the Windward Islands Cricket Board of Control.

In 1980 he settled permanently in Sri Lanka where he now lives in a colonial cottage overlooking the Indian Ocean, and in 2003 was appointed as the Warden (a kind of Honorary Consul) of southern Sri Lanka for the British High Commission. The author of over 60 published books (guides, novels, biographies and volumes of poetry) he also writes travel features for inflight, international and Sri Lankan magazines.

Fifty years after it was written, Royston's seminal book on pop music, The Big Beat Scene with new material about his involvement in the dawn of the Swinging Sixties, is being republished by Music Mentor Books in 2010.