Mick Jagger wrote a 75,000-word memoir in the early 80s, which remains unpublished, according to the publisher John Blake. Writing in the Spectator, Blake says that three years ago he was handed “a pristine typescript Mick had written”, after he had become tired of the number of books written about Jagger and the Rolling Stones.

Blake says the book features stories of Jagger buying his Hampshire mansion, Stargroves, while tripping on acid and having to punch a horse between the eyes to slow it down when he decided to try “the life of a horse-riding country squire”. The book, Blake says, “is a little masterpiece”.

The reason the book has never been published, Blake writes, is that “a publisher rejected the manuscript because it was light on sex and drugs. In the early 1980s shock and awe was a vital part of any successful autobiography”.

Blake tried to secure the rights to publish the manuscript only to be told by Stones’ manager, Joyce Smyth, that Jagger had no memory of it: “Once he saw it, he asked if he could write a foreword to establish that he wrote this story long ago and far away. It seemed we were there. But then, as is the way with the Rolling Stones, life took over. There was a tragic death, a tour, a film, a TV series, the Saatchi exhibition. I kept gently pushing but when, eventually, I tried to force a decision, the steel gates clanged shut. Mick wanted nothing further to do with this project. He never wanted to see it published.”

Smyth has since released a statement: “John Blake writes to me from time to time seeking permission to publish this manuscript. The answer is always the same: He cannot, because it isn’t his and he accepts this. Readers will be able to form a view as regards the matters to which John Blake refers when Sir Mick’s autobiography appears, should he choose to write it.”