Up the Packet: One Mans Crisp Odyssey by Simon Williams

Up the Packet: One Man’s Crisp Odyssey by Simon Williams

Published by Damaged Goods Books

Release date: 14 May 2026

It was the best of times and the worst of times. Prominent music journalist and author, founder of the independent fierce panda label, Simon Williams, brings us Up the Packet, One Man’s Crisp Odyssey.

“Since 1977, Simon has amassed more than 8,000 crisp packets. They are all empty, they all live in shoeboxes, and they are all different. Apart from the swapsies,” says the press release.

Were you lured down the garden path, past the shrubbery, into Simon’s shed for the surprise?

“Golden Wonder, KP, Smiths, Murphys, Rileys, Hunters, Freddie Bees, Hedgehog, Christies … the names roll off the salted tongue as they are instantly whisked back to a youthful world filled with packed lunches and tuck shops, of wishful thinking and fizzy pop drinking, of adolescent crushes and heady, savoury rushes.”

This book is an entertaining combo of historical and creative nonfiction, with a hint of rhyme, packed with facts and chats – Simon’s conversational tone is renowned. It doesn’t matter what he writes about: haircuts, (1-2 Cut Your Hair: The Story of Jonny Moped, 2022), mental health (Pandemonium: How Not to Run a Record Label, 2022) or, crisps, there is still a theme of the working-class man, an outer-inny London dialect, an affection for the joy of ordinary things, the struggle… and music. There are the familiar elements of the old New Musical Express, a flippancy for the popular with uncanny affection, and where Simon was live editor (90s). From the off: every chapter title opens with the use of ‘prawn’ for ‘born’, random music links at the start of chapters (more nostalgia and giggling), puns as photo captions, and word-playing “a-maize-ing’ story. The story of the crisp seems to have no end to its timeline, now de-rigour to treat yourself in a small way and moving into posh palatability (all the quicker to kill you, my dear).

Historically, when you are up-and-coming musicians chasing those toilet circuit gigs in other towns and cities, your pre-gig meal may well be just a beer and a packet of crisps at the venue or the petrol station. When you make it, and the tour schedule grinds on, there’ll be a large variety packet of crisps in your dressing room; living on the edge, as per the romance of a rock’n’roll lifestyle. William’s, sometimes referred to as the Indie King for his fierce panda legacy and a lifetime of frequenting grassroots venues, is most certainly the right man for the job of waxing lyrical about the wilful and wayward intent of the so-called humble potato crisp – never mind ‘the shed’.

World events, Royal occasions, football, it’s all part of the crisps pre-digital marketing and promotion history when you collected things on crisp bags and in the packets and eventually could send off for your freebie treat – even a flexi disc of Chart Busters; somewhere out there are phono sheets with Bob Dylan on one side and The Wombles on the other. It all makes for fascinating reading when you think about the rise and rise of the logo.

You think you don’t need to know, but you do:

The invention of the sacred flavour, cheese and onion, was an accident.

Barely 79 hours go by before a new crisp flavour is invented.

Just as disco takes over the world, KP deliver unto us Discos.

Nothing much rhymes with crisp.

~

Words by Ngaire Ruth. You can read her Louder Than War reviewshereand follow her onSubstack for vintage music journalism and new creative nonfiction. She does not like cheese and onion crisps.