Very few people have seen life from as many angles as Ray Jones. After a regular upbringing in a working-class area of Swansea, Ray veered off the rails into a life of shoplifting and small-time drug dealing fuelled by alcohol and driven by gambling. Inevitably, Ray was sent to prison and eventually left Swansea for London such was his growing notoriety with the police and magistrates in his home town. 

He settled in Ladbroke Grove and became a key figure in the burgeoning music and art scene emerging from the boho pubs around Notting Hill. He toured with Joe Strummer, hung out behind the scenes in Paris fashion houses and mingled with the fast and flash London set while in Swansea some of his closest friends lost their lives to drink and drugs.

Ray launched The Roughler magazine from the Warwick pub in Portobello Road and ran Dylan’s bar in San Francisco before being ripped off in a massive drugs deal leaving him destitute. This is only the story so far as Ray continues to journey through the remarkable and surreal side of life.

Novelist Jake Arnott describes Drowning on Dry land as ‘absurdly brilliant’. He’s absolutely right.