My father, Lee Harris, who has died aged 87, ran what is believed to have been London’s first “headshop”, selling cannabis-related accoutrements. He established the business in the early 1970s in London, and called it Alchemy. Attracting customers from all over the world, it was a popular institution for more than four decades, until he closed it down on his retirement in 2016 at the age of 80.
Lee set up Alchemy after becoming a hippy in the mid to late 60s. Apart from selling goods relating to, or inspired by, the use of cannabis – including smoking gear, incense, posters, books and T-shirts – Alchemy provided the base for a number of his other projects, such as the publication of his Brainstorm Comix series through Alchemy Press, which showcased the early work of the graphic artist Bryan Talbot, and from 1977 until 1982 the counterculture and cannabis-focused magazine HomeGrown, which he edited and published.
It also led him to meet Brigitte Knobloch, an assistant lecturer at a German university who dropped in to the shop while on a holiday in London, and whom he married in 1975.
Lee was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to Sam, a travelling salesman, and Miriam (nee Shamosewitz), a shop worker. After leaving Highland North boys high school he worked in a clothing factory, where despite being a teenager he was put in charge of 12 Indian women purely on account of his skin colour. Fiercely opposed to apartheid, he decided to leave the country, and arrived in the UK in 1956, hoping for a move into acting.
After training at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art in London he worked as a washing machine salesman while trying to establish himself on stage. His first paid acting role was in Sailor Beware at the Town Hall theatre in Hunstanton, Norfolk, in 1958; the following year he was a young sailor at the Playhouse theatre in Derby and in 1961 he was Patch Riley, an Irish bagpipe player in the Eugene O’Neill play A Touch of the Poet, which toured in South Africa.
Back in the UK he wrote and directed a one-act play, Buzz Buzz, about the London mod scene of which he had become a part: it was performed at the Unity theatre in Camden Town and the Oval House in Kennington. Later he wrote Love Play, a lyrical fantasy set in the dives of Soho, which was performed at the Arts Lab in Drury Lane in 1969.
Moving into hippiedom, Lee began to write for International Times and became involved in lobbying for the legalisation of cannabis, leading eventually to his decision to set up Alchemy.
Many years later, in 2016, he stood for London mayor on a “cannabis is safer than alcohol” ticket, receiving more than 88,000 votes. He continued his campaigning right up to his death.
Brigitte died in 2008. He is survived by their three children, Deben, Edana and me, and two grandchildren, Adam and Anabelle.
