How I Met Legendary Acid Chemist Richard Kemp
(and stole his walnut!)
Since the early 2000s, when I began writing about the history of British psychedelic culture, I have been fascinated by the Operation Julie/Microdot Gang saga. My first dose of acid, in 1972, was two green microdots which almost certainly emanated from one of chemist Richard Kemp’s laboratories. They blew my mind and set me on a course down many weird paths and destinations, although few quite as strange as the day I finally met Kemp himself.
During my years of research, I have been fortunate to meet many people involved in the Microdot Gang, including distributor Alston ‘Smiles’ Hughes (whose biography I wrote and who sadly died in August 2025), Andy Munro (the other MG chemist), Leaf Fielding (now dead), Russ Spenceley, Eric Burden and Henry Todd (I sold him a book once but didn’t realise who he was until later—doh!). Yet the main chemist, the ‘goose that laid the golden egg’, Richard Kemp, proved elusive.
In the 2000s, I did man…
