This book represents a lifetime of fandom and six long, (and at times), difficult years of researching and writing. I hope all readers from diehard fans to the casual browser understand the book is an amalgam of opinions; sourced both from Sweet's heyday and during the interceding decades and is NOT my account. Those views are sometimes unfavourable to the band or a certain person. I tried to avoid any deliberate hurt but certainly did not shy away from a warts and all account either.

I have endeavoured to rely as much on hard fact as is possible; the passage of time affects people's memories and therefore many, many contemporaneous interviews, magazines and clippings were relied upon - now, whether they were accurate at the time is, I suppose, a matter for discussion too.

Hopefully readers of the book will enjoy accounts from people whose involvement or dealings with Sweet have not been publicly heard before. It took some considerable effort to track some of the players down and more than a couple prefer to remain in relative obscurity for their own reasons - however, I'm sure many people have wondered about Mick Stewart's view of his time in the band and whether or not Gordon Fairminer actually played a note with Sweet as is occasionally claimed. Who told Joe Petagno to include the phrase 'Queen are a bunch of winkers' on the "Give Us A Wink!" album sleeve? It's all here.

Finally, there's some photos in here that you won't have seen before and one solves the mystery of the ages - how did The Sweetshop get their name? It's all here folks- I hope you have half as much fun reading it as I did putting it together. And Long Live Sweet!