Myself and some Brougham Road types went to this 1982 festival. There is more print material about it in the photo gallery in the ‘Greenham Common Festival’ album.
I’m sure I saw the Newtown Neurotics play here.
This was the first non-Stonehenge free festival I’d done. Come back to London as Stonehenge finished at the end of June and at a gig at the Zig Zag Club (Midnight Oil fact fans) suddenly couldn’t take the city. Myself and the Brougham Roaders set off hitch-hiking to Greenham the next day. When we arrived it was a shock. Suddenly Stonehenge seemed very organised and safe compared to this madness. When I hadn’t taken in was the Nuclear Base protest aspect of this ‘festival’.
Here was a place where reality and fantasy, madness fear and exhilaration were only a heartbeat away. This event changed for me ever, in ways I am still only finding out to this day.
There’s a seventeen page letter I wrote to Bob Blood & Roses shortly after return from this festival, writing about this festival and the Psychedelic Anarchy v Grim Anarcho divide. I can dig it out if you want?
Penguin
February 12, 2008 at 1:59 amStick it on man, stick it on…
gerard
February 12, 2008 at 10:02 amYes that would make interesting reading I’m sure
alistairliv
February 12, 2008 at 10:09 amI remember reading that letter… there are a whole pile of pics and tales at
http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/greenham-menu.html
-some of the photos could be sampled for the Greenham gallery.
Info a bit confusing though, photo of Androids of Mu playing labeled March 1981 this must be a mistake for a one day event in March 1982. The ‘Women for Life on Earth’ walk from Cardiff arrived at Greenham on 5 September 1981 and first action was held 21 Dec 1981 (which is when Pinki joined the camp).
The July 82 fest was when the Peace Convoy first emerged – name given to convoy of vehicles which moved to Greenham from Stonehenge and the link between a bunch of hippies in a field and USA/UK nuclear strategy set in motion events which led to the Battle of the Beanfield – festival go-ers, esp. travellers seen – like Greenham Women were- as open to subversion by commies/ infiltration by Spetznatz (Russian SAS) who would then disrupt and or sabotage deployment of Cruise Missiles – which had to be secretly dispersed across Wiltshire etc in run up to a nuclear exchange. Cruise were designed as first strike weapons.
Nic
February 12, 2008 at 10:11 amIt would seem that a large number of people came to view the ‘festivals’ as a way of escaping the demands and perils of the urban living situation…
(although – in reallity – they replaced them with another parallel set of demands and perils which culminated in the ‘Battle of the Beanfield’)…
People like The Mob could be seen as trailblazers in this sense (partly due – perhaps – to their rural roots near to sites such as Stonehenge?)…
However, I am thinking more of the overall increase in interest in ‘festivals’ in 1983, a marked increase in interest which had slowly been developing since the turn of the 1980’s…
This coincided with a general revival of interest in Psychedelic music across the wider reaches of the British music culture which reached a peak in 1985 and 1986 (with the re-issue programmes on Bam Caruso, the increased availability of Garage compilations like ‘Pebbles’ and ‘Mindrocker’, the interest in modern psychedelic groups (from Dr and the Medics, Loop, Jesus and Mary Chain and Spacemen 3 to the revitalised Hawkwind), and so on)…
The Velvet Underground were played a LOT at parties during those times…
An interesting question to ruminate upon:
Why?
Why did this interest happen?
What were its sources?
Where was it focusing upon?
What was hoped for and what was expected?
Another question: was the involvement of Crass in festivals like Stonehenge (in terms largely of actually playing there) one of the key catalysts in bringing certain sections of the ‘anarcho punk’ world closer to the ‘last of the hippies’?
alistairliv
February 12, 2008 at 12:11 pmThere are/were two ‘last of the hippies’. Penny Rimbaud, talking about Phil Russell aka Wally Hope, died 1975 and C.J.Stone who dedicated his book ‘The Last of the Hippies’ to John Pendragon, died 1998.
Much room for confusion. I would say John Pendragon rather than Wally/ Phil was the last of the’ free festival/ traveller’ hippies – because in 1975 the free festivals and travelling ‘hippies’ did not exist. That particular counter-culture did not develop until 77/78 and so CAME AFTER PUNK.
Hang on, its half term and got Callum home from Royal Blind School – will have to write this later. But see http://www.cjstone.co.uk/pgs/lastmain.htm
sean
February 12, 2008 at 1:39 pmI vote for old john pendragon,always there with a big top tent,wether you wanted it or not.Did much more for free festivals/parties and for longer,sad to hear of his passing.
Al-lotsa love to callum
gerard
February 12, 2008 at 1:40 pmI’d say the upsurge of interest in psychedelic music you mention rode in tandem with the upsurge of interest in psychedelics (and generally the wider usage of cannabis etc). A look at the dress sense of Ian Astbury over this period provides an interesting barometer.
Nic
February 12, 2008 at 2:43 pmMy rumination on Crass and the festivals was more along the lines of: did Crass’ involvement in Stonehenge (particularly by playing at the festival) encourage some sections of the Punk subculture (specifically ‘anarcho punks’) to have a more tolerant attitude towards and interest in the hippies? A tolerance which led ultimately to a number of Punks embracing Hippy culture (for want of a better term) through the festivals…
The ‘last of the hippies’ comment was a cheeky nod to Wally Hope, but predominantly an acknowledgement that the Hippy subculture was largely burnt out (in terms of its wider cultural manifestation) by the turn of the 1980’s…
I would definitely agree with your point Gerard: Ian Astbury makes a subtle but interesting shift in his clothing during this time…from the black-clad-with-flashes-of-colour Post Punk Long Mackintosh hybrid look of Southern Death Cult through to the Paisley smeared shirts and winklepickers as The Cult get into their stride…
Following on – why was there an upsurge in the use of psychedelics?
Increased availability? Or increased interest in their effects?
I was watching a snippet of a programme on British people dancing last night and noted the similarity between the outfit worn by Limahl on ‘Pebble Mill At One’ at some point in the early/mid 1980’s and the mode of dress adopted by some Punks around the same time…either way, it was one SICK look…
😉
alistairliv
February 12, 2008 at 4:01 pmDoh. Nic, the Hippy subculture of free-festivals and travellers in trucks was not burnt out by the turn of the 1980s, it had hardly got going. Apart from the occasional relic like Sid Rawles who had been a ‘1967 hippy’ :
most of the ‘hippy travellers/ festival folk’ I met 1985 onwards – when Pinki was involved in the Stonehenge campaign with Willie X, Dice George, Charlie Barley, etc were only a few years older than me at most, and the scene attracted younger people as well.
It was parallel and overlapped with punk. It was not a straight hang over from 1967/8 and was as alive and dynamic as punk/ anarcho-punk in the mid/ late eighties.
But it was a ‘way of life’ – the travelling part – not a music sub culture.
Off to find some pet wasps for Callum. Will continue argument later.
john
February 12, 2008 at 4:58 pmsome of us had got fed up with living in the inner cities and the problems faced in them.police hassle,fed up with moving from squat to squat.heroin had taken a grip in the area i was staying (Hulme)so there was the almost daily hassles of dealing with junkies robbing from you .if it wasnt junkies then some it was some violent gangster types mugging people.
it seemed like a good idea at the time,club together with a few mates and buy an old bus and go out and experience something different rather than stay in the same grey run down areas.
i didnt always enjoy living on site though,apart from the police making life difficult there was occassionly vigilanti attacks.
then there was the madness of giro day when some people drank too much brew and decided to start fights and sometimes steal from others around them.wasnt much peace and love at times.
dont know why psychedelics? got so big,wasnt that more towards the late 80’s early 90’s when ‘acid house’ kicked in?bart simpsons etc?
Nic
February 12, 2008 at 5:16 pmI think we’re talking at cross purposes, Al: I’m not referring to the ‘travellers’ or even to the people involved in organising free festivals…
I’m thinking more of the wider ‘hippy population’ around the mid-to-late 1970’s…
And you’re mentioning exactly what I am wishing ti explore: the parallel and the overlap…and the way in which the sense of mutual distrust (and occasionally outright hostility) between ‘Hippy Relics’ and ‘Violent Punks’ (as each other may have perceived each other) which had been in place a few years before was eroded by the turn of the 1980’s..
I think of the blossoming of the ‘travelling’ life as a distinctly early-to-mid 1980’s event…and I also view it as MORE vibrant than ‘anarcho punk’ around the 1985/1986 period…
I went to my first free festivals locally in 1981/1982, and went to Stonehenge for the first time when I was 16 in 1984, so I’m probably in the younger bracket…
🙂
I stopped going to free events in the late 1980’s with the rise of ‘Acid House’ (though I did go to Castle Morton and to some of the Exodus events)…so I haven’t been to one for quite a while, although I do hear good things on the grapevine…
alistairliv
February 12, 2008 at 8:48 pmWider hippy population of the mid to late seventies.??
Do you mean people who had long hair and liked progessive/ heavy rock – anything from Pink Floyd through Yes to King Crimson and maybe a bit of Black Sabbath or Led Zep …or even… Van Der Graaf Generator?
And who might have hitch-hiked to Afghanistan pre- Soviet invasion? Or went to Wembley to see Crosby Stills and Nash in 1974ish?
Who read Michael Moorcock’s tales of Elric and Hawkmoon, alongside Lord of the Rings and the works of John Michell eg The View over Atlantis – and spent at least some time looking for ley lines, or at least drawing them on maps.
And whose politics were ‘back to the land’. windmills and self-sufficient communes – the ‘radical/ alternative technology’ – but strongly anti- nuclear – of Undercurrents magazine.
http://greengalloway.blogspot.com/2005/11/more-undercurrents-covers.html
http://greengalloway.blogspot.com/2005/11/crass-in-context-2-undercurrents-mag.html
http://greengalloway.blogspot.com/2005/11/crass-in-context-3-seventies-radicals.html
Brain cell kicks in – will find article from undercurrents about punk from 1977 ish…
Found it – it is the greengalloway: crass in context 3: seventies radical link above.
Also now posted here as ‘The hippies had it sussed…’
The questions is — are you talking ’bout my generation, punk?
Tony Puppy • Post Author •
February 16, 2008 at 10:23 pmGot this link from Big Steve:
http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/greenham-page1.html
It has a lot of words about the event and the implications of it all – Peace Convoy et al.
Here’s more words from Steve:
Hi Tony,
I was working with the group who set up the womens peace camp in 1981 and organised all the entertainment groups stages PA generators lights etc. You can find some more info here
http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/greenham-menu.html
I also went with the peace convoy to Greenham in 1982 and set up the stages and PA groups etc. Yeah the fire brigade song you recall could be, and I was Djing. Though once the police had us corralled in front of the pyramid stage and started to pick us off randomly like scapegoats for the cutting down of the fence of the nuclear base someone on a double decker bus put on Theme from a teenage opera with it’s poignant lyrics. I recently spoke to the author of this song and thanked him for helping us get through one of the hairiest experiences I have been through.
Yes I put up the greenham newsletter written by Golly who for many years wrote and printed on his gestetner the Stonehenge site newsletter. Good to see you are still doing stuff. There is a stonehenge peace forum and the stonehenge campaign still rambling on for a return of a free solstice festival. free the stones.
http://www.phreak.co.uk/stonehenge/psb/stonecam.htm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stonehengepeace/
best
Steve
Tony Puppy • Post Author •
February 17, 2008 at 12:32 amPenguin – the 14 page letter, with four attachments, is now in the photo gallery. In a new album called ‘Tony Writes To Bob’
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Tony%20writes%20to%20Bob/coverpage.jpg
danmac
February 20, 2008 at 12:40 pmI STRONGLY recommend you go and read the scan of the ‘Tony Writes To Bob’ letter mentioned above. Psychedelic anarchy melds in form and content in a guided tour of Mr de la Fou’s mind-at-the-time and the scene seen Puppywise. Entertainment and stimulation for you and me and a valuable resource for the cultural studies lecturers…good microdots, ja?…it’s the real deal…ta for putting this up.
alistairliv
February 20, 2008 at 9:06 pmSeconded. Its like “Fear and Loathing in Berkshire”. Will be made into a movie some day -Love / Forever Changes quote “The news of today will be the movies of tomorrow”-
And note LRC headed paper – LRC = London Rubber Company. My contribution to the revolution… I was an agent in my place of employment. Subvert…
Tony Puppy • Post Author •
February 21, 2008 at 1:16 amSorry, didn’t realise my link only went to one page.
Try here,
http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Tony%20writes%20to%20Bob/
One page at a time sweet jesus, one page at a time.