I never saw the Beatles.






The first album I bought was Sergeant Peppers, played on a Garrard 401 turntable with an S.M.E. arm, a Leak stereo 30 tuner and Jordon Watt Jupiter speakers.

In May 1968, I had decided to visit Paris and hitched from Calais having got the boat over the channel. Paris was celebrating a small revolution, though I spent most of my time in a youth hostel talking to a plump girl who was using amphetamines. When I did wander out I saw a riot policeman in a grey leather, full length coat and steel helmet, armed and looking like a cyber man. I went back to the youth hostel and then being broke went to the British Consulate, who kindly paid my fare home.


The summer of 1969 was bright and fair and at the age of 18, it was time to set out into the world.
I had a good life in a large detached house on a hill, a third of a mile from the BBC TV and radio mast in Four Oaks, Sutton Coldfield, a Warwickshire town that had just joined the city of Birmingham.
When I was 13, I had seen a UFO high in the sky, probably catching up on an episode of the Archers.
My mother had come from North Wales to find a job after doing war work as a supervisor in a munitions factory at Marchwiel near Wrexham and she had met my father at a dance. He had spent his war in shadow factories as a toolmaker and had joined the family engineering business in Bath Street, Birmingham. This had gone from strength to strength and on the winnings, we had moved from Small Heath to Sutton in 1958.

Having escaped from a minor public school in Colwyn bay, I had finished my education at Ryland Bedford secondary modern in Sutton town centre, leaving with a toolbox of exams. My auburn hair was growing over my ears and my school friends had introduced me to the pleasure of smoking herbs. Having had a number of jobs I was not in education or work and getting up my parent’s nose was put in touch with a shrink, I did not take up my fathers offer to go and see him.

I got a bed-sit in Sutton town centre which my school friends and their partners used for a bit of adolescent fun, the youth leader of the local YMCA which did an excellent disco on a Friday, called me to see him. I met a bunch of professional do-gooders who advised that I should get a job, needles to say I ignored them and carried on signing.


Moving to a bed-sit on the Lichfield Road I set out for Devon and Cornwall with a friend Alan Garner, ending up at St Ives. In London on the way down I had sold the camera my grandmother bought me for some black hash, though to be honest I got little  out of it at the time other than paranoia, so I didn’t smoke that much.

St Ives like many places had a number of young people living the alternative life, we generally looked after each other and slept in the hills around the town, there were even two young runaways who were madly in love, the police came looking for them and I threw my herbs away. The next day we all went down to Saint Erth and left our doss bags at the train station, one of the older lads had a coat in which he kept some food and a little stove, so we had something to eat, when we got back to Saint Erth our stuff had been moved by the railway people and we had to go and fetch it.

We hung around St Ives for a bit and then decided to hitch back to Birmingham. On reaching Okehampton we met a kind farmer who invited us to stay at his small farm. It was a beautiful farmhouse with no electricity and fresh, pure water drawn from a stream that ran beside the farmhouse. Arthur Owen Greed was a good man and lived on his own, we spent a week or so with him and I slept beside him in an old wooden bed, he took us both up to the nearest pub and introduced us to the delights of the local scrumpy cider. The days past quickly and though Arthur would have let us stay had we desired, we felt we had to get on our way, he paid for our fare back to Birmingham on a coach and as we left their were tears in his eyes. It is said that what is in a name? for Arthur Owen Greed was a generous kind and loving man, who offered shelter and rest to two city kids for no payment.

Getting back to the bed-sit in Sutton which had been borrowed by my friends, we settled down in front of the black and white TV with a coat hanger for an aerial and watched man land on the moon, it was not made of green cheese, but in honour of the moment I’d made a spliff rocket of the finest Afghani hashish. As they touched down we touched of, I wandered out onto the quiet Lichfield road in the bright sunshine and watched an old man on an ancient bike slowly making progress up the slight incline and I felt great, things were looking up.

Then I got a job, original art distributors was a scam using young hippy looking sales persons to sell art from door to door. As people had an interest in art and some surplus income we went round selling what was a very cheap product for what our verbal skill could get, although it was not our work we used all the tricks of a salesperson to make out it was. In the afternoon a sales team would meet, have a meal in a café and then have a sales talk. Split up in teams and in a car we would pick an area and spend the evening working. We had to give a set price to our team leader and could keep the rest, it was fun and gave us a good income. The creators of this project lived in a modern, detached, rented house in Edgbaston and as the organization was expanding I decided to go up to work for them in Glasgow.

The first city of Empire was charming in its Victorian vista and most welcoming to this young Brummy. I found a bed-sit near Byres Road and soon got into knocking the doors of the Glaswegians. One of its delights was the large number of cafes that would sell you a foaming cup of coffee, followed by a scoop of ice cream in a stainless steel bowl, all served on a formica table by a girl in a black and white uniform. There was also a neat underground system with rattling cars and staff that had a black band on their uniforms in remembrance of Queen Victoria. Getting to know the locals through the sales team I met Richard who was selling herbs and due to the time would take you on a little walk and dig your purchase out of some hidden place. He bought a small tenement for a couple of hundred pounds in Maryhill and I would often go there to have a smoke and pass the day away. This small dream consisted of two rooms, one with a kitchen and sink the size of a wardrobe and a small coal fired range, with a nook for a bed. In the corridor was a toilet and if you wanted a bath we would go to the Victorian bath house that was doing a roaring trade and for sixpence you would get a fresh towel, marked with Glasgow’s council motto “let Glasgow flourish” and a huge stainless steel bath with acres of red hot water that came out of a wide fawcett.

The days passed quickly and I got to know many of alternative Glasgow, moving to a small one roomed flat at the top of a large Victorian house with two artists who went to Glasgow art school, here I fell in love with a beautiful local girl. It may have been a slum but to us it was a small heaven. One of my friends and his girlfriend were expecting a child and buying a beautiful, Victorian, carved oak nursing chair from some passing boy scouts who were taking it to a jumble sale, I presented it to them when they left for more accommodating accommodation.

The winter came and went and I was getting quite good at selling the original art, but in the spring their was a tragic accident when a car with a sales team came round a corner and went straight under a flat bed lorry. The roof was ripped of and all were killed, I went to my first funeral, but my joy in the work had gone, as it had for many of us and I left. Such was the footprint of this disaster that legislation was passed in parliament requiring lorries to have a steel bar placed at the back to stop this sort of thing happening again, they had at least not died in vain and many thousands of life’s have been saved by this simple piece of law.

I was getting into the tarot and the I Ching and studying the life of Aleister Crowley, hanging around the central library and marvelling at the art works in the Kelvingrove art gallery, as well as learning about the life of artists at the Rennie Mackintosh art school, a world class work of art on its own. As students all their course fees were paid and they got a grant for rent and living expenses as well as free art materials. In the meantime I was smoking draw with friends and generally have a good time, I didn’t need much to survive and the dole provided me with a small but adequate stipend. Even signing on was painless, their was so much work available there’d be more people serving you in the labour exchange, as it was then called than people signing on. No identification was needed, they never hassled you to get a job and you got your money in cash, their being a delightful absence of security screens. Once coming back from signing I saw the white champagne, flute prow of the Queen Elizabeth the 2nd in dry dock, towering above the grey granite of the warm tenements.

 



Bath and West.



Then I heard of a music festival being held at the Bath and West showground in Somerset and without a thought packed a small bag and headed to Calder Park Zoo to hitch a ride going south. Hitchhiking as well as squatting were along with the welfare state and peace part of our inheritance from the long war against fascism, we were the baby boomers and very much the hope of our parents for a better life. While waiting for a lift playing jack stones and looking for four leaf clovers where part of the art, passing the time and keeping your spirits up. Within half an hour one of Castle Bromwich’s spitfires, a brand new white Jaguar pulled up and a smiling face invited me in, he was going to Bath and I was to get there quicker than the train. Finding the site I got in under a loose chain link fence and entered my first music festival. I wandered about for a bit taking in the atmosphere and crashed out in a communal tent. The next day I spotted some bloke in a wizard’s costume handing out free LSD, this had come over with one of the bands hidden in their speaker cabinets and was the best Kool-Aid Owsley acid. I went up and took the sacrament and within about half an hour was beginning to feel it coming on. I walked through a large dark barn type building that gave me some real bad vibes and came out to the bright sunshine of Ravi Shankar playing sitar that split the light blue sky into a heaven of emotions, the day went fine, looning about and taking in the music and the laid back atmosphere, it was the best trip I ever had. Their was no security and I watched as someone selling yoghurt turned to put his takings into the till, only to have the punters help themselves to his goods, while his back was turned. The stage was a poor affair of corrugated iron though on it where to appear some of the best music at the time, Donovan, Mothers of Invention, Santana, Led Zeppelin, Country Joe McDonald, Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat, The Byrds, John Mayall, Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention amongst others, though to me the music was just the excuse to have a fun time with like minded people.
I then decided to get a free tea stall together and set out to get the necessary kit, within a few hours I was up and running, but people could not get their head round the fact that the tea was free so I put a little tin out for contributions and at the end of the day found I had raised £40. I gave half of this to Caroline Coons Release a newly formed drug charity and decided to treat myself to a train journey to the town holding the next festival I had heard about, Phun city in Worthing. This was to be Britain’s first free music festival, that is Mick Farren of International Times, the alternative news paper of choice and the MC5 and Edward Barker the creator of the Largactylites and one of the countries top cartoonists provided the cash and the audience who built the infrastructure, provided the food and libations and the bands who played for free. Arriving in Worthing I needed somewhere to sleep and asking the first likely lad I saw, he invited me to doss on his bed-sit floor, the next day I signed on.

Worthing was a charming holiday resort and I got into a local café and it’s life of youth, one of the customers was an art student who had done a rather fine screen print of Tolkien’s the Hobbit and spending a good part of my weeks dole on a ream of paper, I sneaked into the art college and ran of a hundred or so screen prints which I started selling for 50p around the town. I managed to get picked up by the local police and stuffed my small bit of draw down the side of the seat in the panda car and after explaining myself was let free to carry on. I had a bad trip on the South Downs but got over it as soon as I had come down. The summer was bright and sea fresh and soon the Phun city free festival was calling, I said goodbye to my bed-sit friend and headed out to the festival site.

 



Phun city.



Phun city was Britain’s first free festival, held outside Worthing in a field that had a small wood leading from one side. I found a road diggers caravan and moved it into the wood with some help and watched as the festival took shape. A small festival like this one didn’t need much info structure, a stage built out of scaffolding and planks, some power from generators and a stand pipe or two for water, some bogs helped but this one had few and like bears most of us did it in the woods. Dave Mother an hip and beautiful guy set up a little hut at the entrance to the woods and I set up a free food kitchen, using a new galvanized dustbin as a cooking pot, Dave Mother asked Mick Farren for some money to buy some food and he generously handed him a bundle of notes. To stop the local bus to Worthing Dave lay in the road, the bus came to a juddering halt and we climbed aboard, finding a supermarket we got our supplies and Dave treated himself to a flagon of cider, paying the bill with a flourish of notes, like magic the phun began. Just before the festival started a biker called Buttons turned up and drove his car straight at Dave’s hut, coming to a swift stop he got out and they started chatting. Buttons was a Hell’s Angel and had brought chapter accreditation over to the UK from the USA, Dave and Buttons talked away and he told me after that they had come to an accommodation whereby the freaks and angels would work together, something I believe that still holds to this day. We were treated to the sounds of The MC5, Kevin Ayers, Free, Edgar Broughton, Mungo Jerry, The Pink Faeries and Michael Chapman all played for nothing except apparently Free. The straight caterers Red Umbrella were given a hard time and a lot of their stuff was “liberated” as my free food kitchen filled the gap. The man who ran Red Umbrella had to throw a lot of food away, although some was recycled at the end of the festival to keep us going.

There was a neat sign on display that consisted of illuminated words moving along the front, that could easily be made to say anything; like “Londinium’s been nuked, you are now free” amongst other things. Soon it was all over and those of us with nowhere to go stayed on to clear up, only to watch the police arrive in buses and enter the back of the woods, trashing the tents and generally harassing people, it was rather a sad end to a great gig and we had done nothing to warrant such treatment other than being young and free, I left and wandered back to Worthing, the next festival was calling. It was the 28th July 1970 and after nearly another week in Worthing I headed out to the Plumpton jazz and blues festival held on a horse race track. The owners of a café nearby the bed-sit I was crashing in gave me a servants bell to take with me, which turned out to be lucky.

 




Plumpton jazz and blues festival.



On arriving I started to set up another free food kitchen and went about begging funds from the crowd at which point I was given a tab of acid and was soon coming up on the trip. Then a farmer’s son asked me if I was doing a vegetarian or non vegetarian kitchen and decided to do both, he appeared with a legal shotgun and ammunition used on his farm and we set of to shoot some rabbits. Getting on to the nearby railway embankment he handed me the loaded gun and I took my first ever shot from some hundreds of yards at a black cat sitting in a circle of rooks, needless to say the shot went nowhere near it was supposed to and the birds or the cat didn’t move a muscle. He then took the gun from me and expertly bagged a few rabbits, as most had myxomatosis this wasn’t hard. He took the rabbits and I wandered back to the site sporting a bandolier of cartridges and a broken and unloaded shotgun. I soon got the attention of the rugby club security and got jumped on and taken to the local police station in the back of a mini moke, my luck then changed and the local copper was a friendly sort and obviously used to farmers and guns, after I’d explained myself and with my friend turning up to add his story, we were allowed to go after being given a warning about the danger of guns on festival sites and had the shotgun confiscated. I look back in horror at our wide eyed innocence and am extremely grateful to that thoughtful police man, still the lesson was learned and I’ve never handled a gun since. The acid was roaring round my head and I got into an ecstasy of dreaming thinking that a cotton bag of corn which I thought was glowing gold contained the secret of life and promptly went round showing it to all and bemused sundry, eventually I came down and their was talk of Hawkwind and the Pink Faeries turning up to do a free festival, it was wishful thinking and the event finally came to an end. I headed back to Worthing and after a couple of weeks set out to for the Isle of Wight festival where James Marshall Hendrix was to play, it was the to be the most amazing festival I ever went to.





The Isle of Wight.



I arrived at the Isle of Wight by ferry hidden under a blanket in the back of a mini van I’d hitched a ride in, the site was huge with a long small hill on one side and I made my way to Desolation Row an encampment hiding in a small track way bordered by a thick hedge and trees, most of the festival goers paid up and as their were many hundreds of thousands of us, a colossal amount in used notes was carted of, I doubt if much of it was declared. The first night I was a bit lonely, but in the morning the fresh air and some breakfast cheered me up and I set about getting another free food kitchen started and went to raise some funds. I met a dealer who laid a few ounces of good draw on me and swiftly knocked it out amongst the crowd, purchased some spuds and started to boil them up, the fresh sea air doing the rest and they were soon eaten with some butter by my fellow campers, time to inspect the site. I came across two film makers with an arriflex 35mm camera, got into conversation and turned them onto some good acid, they wandered of filming the sunshine. Then I stumbled on a band set up on the cut straw ground in a large white marquee, their was no audience and directed them to the fairground dome a large inflatable that held hundreds of people, they got a flat bed lorry in as a stage and played free form all night, to the delight of all who where there. The band were Hawkwind and as a thank you Nick Turner the saxophone player got me onto the main stage, at the time no one was performing and I thought it would be fun to get Nick to play his flute to the sea of faces, unfortunately we didn’t know how to turn the power on and so we left the main stage and went our separate ways.

I crashed out in a small encampment on Desolation Row that night and the next day went in search of Dave Mother who I knew was around.
I wandered all over the site calling out “Dave” “Dave” but amongst 600,000 people I had little chance of finding him, so I sat down by the main entrance letting the flow of people go past me and low and behold he appeared, “Mr. Livingstone I presume” said I, we hugged and he went on his way. On the corrugated iron fence perched a naked girl and a river of piss flowed out from the bog area. I watched as French anarchists and others flattened the fences hurling their bodies against this hated structure, it was double skinned and uniformed guards patrolled with alsatian dogs, the festival creators appeared on stage and said to the jeers of the huge crowd that this party was now free. Going into Ryde I watched as a tripping friend James who we called the Hobbit because of his small stature and furry feet, get picked up by the police for standing bemused holding a world wildlife panda, that had been handed to him. He was taken to a court set up at the festival site and to the delight of us all when told by the magistrate that stealing a world wildlife panda was a serious offence replied that he was the world wildlife, we fell about, James’s fine was paid by monies that had been collected from the crowd and he was let free still tripping to go about his business. That night I sat on the hill and watched James Marshall Hendrix perform like a small bright faerie in the Dunkirk distance, it was the early hours of Sunday morning and I laid my weary head down having watched the most electrifying performance I had ever seen. The next day rose bright and fresh and I decided to look around the edges of the site and came across a small beach area where numerous people where making love in the open air, in the middle of this bacchanalia a “normal” family where in the best British tradition merrily having a picnic, oblivious to all around them. As quick as this dream had started it came to an end, people drifted away in droves and soon the wreckage of the largest gathering of human beings ever in these islands had come to an end, the few of us left began to glean amongst the rubbish, often finding a good draw in a lost stash, usually an empty box of matches and began to think of moving of the site.

I hitched to London and dossed with the film cameraman who I’d met earlier, he was an actor who’d had a part in the film the dirty dozen, after some time with him I crashed with a hip doctor, his wife and young child who I knew, I’d visit Ladbroke Grove where at least one in ten of the houses were squatted and dropped a trip with the good doctor and went attaching balloons on the Albert memorial, it was a fun and easy time.

 

 

Glastonbury festival 1970.

 

Then I heard about a small festival being held on a farm at Pilton near Glastonbury, rolling up my doss bag I hit the road. Soon arriving at Worthy farm I found that although their was an entrance charge no one really minded if you didn’t pay and their was free milk being given away in cartons. It was a real farm as an abandoned old bath lay on the grass in front of the farmhouse being used as a water trough for the cattle. I blagged some food and went in search of music, finding Marc Bolan with Tyrannosaurus Rex performing in a field not far from the left of the farmhouse. The band where set up on the grass, with a haphazard bit of scaffolding covered in a green tarpaulin forming this small stage, only a few people were watching and Marc produced a professional set and I wandered of.

The farm was at the top of a small valley and it seemed to me that the best place for a stage was near the bottom of this natural curve in the largest of the small mediaeval fields. Ceasing the moment and under the impression that the farmer had lost a lot of bread, having heard that he’d been fined 2K for selling milk from a brucellosis unaccredited herd though it was never confirmed and what with the cost of the bands, I felt he’d taken a big hit and I felt sorry for him, though at least he was trying to create a festival. I learnt latter that he to had been to the Bath and West showground having like me got under the fence for free. I went into the farmhouse’s main room and put my ideas to Michael, full of festival culture and a few pages ahead in the book of fools we made a strange sight. Michael was small and intense with an upside down face and a small, dark beard sans moustache, regulation farmer gear of jeans, wellies and an old thick woollen sweater. I was over six feet tall and my auburn hair fell in ringlets to my waist, sporting a thin gingerish beard and road gear of sailor’s trousers from the army and navy stores, an huge first world war flying officers greatcoat from Oxfam, with the pilots name in dip pen on the inside pocket, topped of with a second world war flying helmet, a big old wool sweater and baseball boots. Michael listened patiently as I put on my best spiel, honed from many months selling original art and explained that I would endeavour to find the money for him to put on another festival and that the natural amphitheatre that the farm presented was the best place for a stage. Having said my piece coloured by my travels, I thanked him and left to hitch hike to London, the only person who I knew who might help was Mick Farren of International Times and in no time at all I was talking to him. Mick is a nice bloke and had treated us well at Phun city, I laid my trip on him and the only person he could think of was Geoffrey Ashe the magical writer and historian, though I was to contact him other things were happening. I decided to go to Kensington market which at the time was a magnet for alternative people and while wandering around I saw James Marshall Hendrix trying on a pair of leather snakeskin boots, I sat on the few stairs leading into the shop but did not involve him in conversation, thinking he must get enough hassle from fans of his music and art.

I’m a talkative person and get on with most people and at the front of the market I got chatting to a lady on a stall and told her my festival tale, she listened generously and to my surprise mentioned a bloke called Andrew Kerr who wanted to put on a free festival, like the Queen I carried no cash, I was broke, so she gave me a few pennies to ring him. We got on fine and he invited me to see him, she then gave me the bus fare to travel south of the city near the river and I duly arrived at a smart new house in a small close and introduced myself to Andrew. He was good looking and had an assured air about him, I told him about Worthy farm and seeing I was on the road kindly let me have a bath and a good supper. A young man about my age was also there, he had a tight hand knitted sweater on and in the middle was a colourful God’s eye , he didn’t say much and I settled down for a good nights sleep after Andrew had telephoned Michael. Before I went to sleep Andrew told me that he was the private secretary for Arabella Churchill a relation of the late Sir Winston Churchill.

In the morning Andrew decided to go and meet Michael at Worthy farm and we climbed into his 3 litre non coupe Rover and headed out, it was a treat not to be hitch-hiking. We stopped at Avebury on the way down and did a bit of dousing with a hazel stick I had cut from the hedge row. After this rest we arrived at the farm where the festival was winding down and standing near the farmhouse Michael appeared, Andrew having not seen him before took no notice of him, so I told him that that was the farmer and he went over to introduce himself, at that moment the free Glastonbury festival of 1971 was born.

(The time line for this adventure is a bit mixed, it seems from some Facebook posts I must have got to the farm on the 15th or 16th September 1970 and saw Michael and headed for London on the 17th. There I think I saw Jimi Hendrix in Kensington market before heading out to see Andrew Kerr. The next day the 18th we arrived at the farm and Andrew met Michael. On the 19th I heard that Jimi Hendrix had died the day before.)

I wandered of into a small outhouse and was told that Jimi Hendrix had died, it was a shock and expected the usual hippy scum dies of drug overdose in the press, it was a great loss to both world art and culture but life goes on. I watched a fly zip energetically across the outhouse and felt the road calling, it was time to move on.

I knew nothing about Glastonbury and its myths, but after I spent a night in a cricket pavilion getting covered in white marker paint. I went up the Tor and in a very short space of time was given a rundown of the magic of this place and the main players, Joseph of Arimathea, Katherine Maltwood, Alfred Watkins, Dion Fortune and John Michell, just after I was warned of the danger of these myths, it was good advice. I soon met up with the freaks living around the town and found that a local café proprietor whose business was at the side of a car park at the bottom of the main drag was friendly and would let us leave our doss bags there. This place had a mural by John Michell on the wall with a light at either end looking like a flying saucer. The local library had many of the books written by these myth makers and my days passed easily there, meeting and greeting and generally enjoying a small market town in Somerset as the apple season approached. It was a local custom for us dossers to walk with bare feet, some small hangover from its Christian past that fitted in with the underground culture of the day, it was OK as long as the weather was hot and dry.

We slept wherever we could and signing on gave us enough to keep body and soul together, it never occurred to any of us to get a job even though their was plenty of work. Drugs were mainly absent and non of us took to the local cider. The town held some artists who were friendly and we would spend time at John Shelley’s a potter who lived at the bottom of the Tor. As the winter approached a warm place and decent shelter was needed so I headed back up to Glasgow where I was to spend the winter hanging out in Maryhill, enjoying Kelvingrove art gallery and spliffing the days away. Dave Mother who had made it to Glasgow had headed of to Canterbury as spring approached and it seemed like a good idea to go and join him, he was living in a squat on the Whitstable road and with my magic thumb soon arrived in the heart of Christian England.

The large, empty, detached three storey house that Dave had squatted was made into a labyrinth of bed-sits all with a coin operated electric meter. As the electric or gas wasn’t on and we would keep warm by burning scrounged and found wood, I took great pleasure in hacking dozens of these little slave machines of the walls with a found fireman’s axe, I then took them all up to the top floor and dropped them onto the concrete courtyard below, it was a small symbol of our freedom. We began to take up the floorboards and doors and soon had a roaring fire going, time to discover Canterbury.

Canterbury was an apple sized town, with an ancient cathedral and the remains of medieval walls. It had a large modern university which I soon found was a welcoming place for young out of town squatters, I got to know some of the students and helped myself to the subsidized food and even went to some of the lectures, I looked like a student of the time. The cathedral was a jaw dropping marvel that you entered through a small town gate and it opened out like a tardis. I found a café where I was welcome and soon settled into the life of the town. Someone found an abandoned piano in a garage and we trundled it up through the town to our squat and chucked it down the basement stairs, where it lay for the length of that summer, it’s back open to the elements and used by all and sundry to make a cacophony of sound. One of our lot borrowed a bowler hat from a visitor to the cathedral and as he was a senior member of the British establishment two special branch spent sometime looking for it as he looned about the place wearing it covered in stars. We got a visit from the police who those days wouldn’t wear flack jackets and helmets and stove the door in with cameras in tow, in the early hours, but knocked politely and showed a warrant. At first we told them to go away but when they said they were the murder squad we let them in, it was nothing to do with us and we went on squatting. One of us used to work the railway crossing and we would spend the night with him in his warm hut tripping, as he let the cars over the railway track by working the large wooden gates.

I got more and more into the university and began selling the students herbs, bought from two wholesalers who lived in a flat above a toy shop by Clapham Common, they had being doing a PhD for some years, claiming a full grant and putting in a little work once a year, they were friendly and I often dossed with them when up in town. I used to visit a large Edwardian students house in one of the villages around this cathedral city and one of the occupants took me to see his family in Canterbury, they had a collection of English civil war weapons just propped up against the wall. Time passed quickly and I got involved with local squatters and became their advisor. Once when squatting a large country house the owner came back and we had an interesting conversation about property and theft, the police arrived and we all disappeared into the fields leading them a merry dance, before we got away.

I visited my friends in Clapham one more time and we all went to score in Maida Vale, the head man wandered of to make a huge deal of some dexedrine and I and another bloke who weren’t involved in the transaction settled back to have a smoke. There was a knock on the door and the drug squad entered having mistakenly raided the Australians upstairs, also missing the gear in plastic bags in the loo cisterns. The bloke who had opened the door quickly went to the table we had been sitting at and swallowed a quarter of good black hash and I got the roach. We got gently searched as did the punters who where arriving to score but they were found clean, except for large amounts of cash, at which point the head man turned up with a large bulging hold all, there was absolute silence as the police asked him to open his bag only to reveal his washing, he’d got a bad vibe and not done the deal. My friend who’d swallowed the hash had to be propped up against the wall as he was in danger of crashing out from the effects of the gear. We all breathed a sigh of relief and got searched again, the police found one lone pill in a matchbox and carted of the sad miscreant, the bust and the day being over, we relaxed for a smoke and happy chatter. My friends said they would be coming to Canterbury for a break and had just bought a beautiful blue S type jaguar for fifty quid and after I arrived back in Canterbury with some very cheap herbs that just didn’t get you stoned but looked the part. I knocked them out at the university, finding that even though they were duff, the punters came back for more. Not being in it for the bread , it seemed unfair so I stopped this line of trade for a bit and went back to signing, one of the students was a beautiful ginger haired girl, latter to become Risla Rosie Boycott.

 

 

Glastonbury free festival 1971.



The spring had turned into summer and I’d heard that my work at Worthy farm had been fruitful and a free festival was planned for the solstice, just before I left Canterbury my baseball boots had fallen apart and I found a pair of army boots that were repaired for free by a kind local cobbler, different times indeed.

Arriving at Worthy farm on the thumb, I found there were two camps, the farmhouse and the people in the field. Andrew, Arabella and Bill Harkin the stage builder who’d had a dream and us lot living in a third world collection of tents, a bamboo and plastic igloo and a huge sheet of plastic making a crude TP round the remains of a tree. There was a fire and food store that had a lot of whole foods donated by a kind lady that consisted of large branches lent together in a small pyramid and covered with turf. I spent the first night keeping warm round the fire and next day went in search of something to do. Their was no real plan and I spent the day laying clay pipes in shallow ditches that had been dug for drainage that was needed to replace the natural drainage of the ancient hedges that had been ripped up and burnt, with a grant from the government. Then I found a maze maker who’d been given the only swamp on the farm to build a maze and had been there for some weeks digging six foot deep trenches, that naturally just filled full of water, perverse was the least of it and I felt sorry for him as he obviously had skill and endeavor, there was about 11 of us on the farm. I went to get something to eat, but as the only cooking implements were a frying pan and a kettle, the whole foods remained untouched and we existed on whole meal flour and water pancakes, fried with margarine on the battered frying pan and finished of with a some cheap jam from a large catering tin, tea was also on tap thanks to the kettle, not exactly the diet of the gods, still it kept us going, their was very little draw and no cider at all. In Glasgow I had invented a perfect macrobiotic/vegetarian meal, very cheap and nutritious.


1970 version.


Take a fistful of brown rice per person, check first for stones and bits of twig.

Especially watch out for little stones, teeth have been lost!

Peel and cut up some spuds, carrots and brussel sprouts.

Put in a pot with a little salt and cover with an inch if water.

Put the vegetables on top.

Slow boil until the water is absorbed and the rice and vegetables are cooked.

Remove the vegetables

Take one egg per person, mix with a little milk and butter, add to the rice and stir.

Let the latent heat in the rice cook the eggs.

Serve with a little Worcester sauce.



For pudding chop up some bananas, apples, grapes and oranges and serve with custard.



A good way to feed hungry freaks.



The next day we started on the foundations of the stage, Bill had had a flash of simple genius and instead of building a large bus shelter, which was the default stage of choice had decided to build a pyramid. Some wag had declared that this was on a ley line, if you read the old straight track by Alfred Watkins something I'd done but the majority who believed in this hadn't, you'd know that the most powerful ley line in Europe was the M6 going through Spaghetti Junction, you couldn't make it up. A large square had had its turf removed and we picked up any rocks lying about that were to act as the solid foundation, this took up most of the morning and in the afternoon I was lying by the fire in the sun reading a superman comic, when an older bloke appeared whom I didn’t know, he started shouting at me to put a large log on the fire and to humour him I did so. This was Sid Rawles whom I nicknamed Sir Sidney Rolls Royce, he later explained that he’d been with a commune on an island called Dornish given to him for the use of “the people” by John Lennon, unfortunately it flooded every day and with little bread or info structure the commune had failed.

By now I was living in a small igloo made of clear plastic sheet and bamboo skeleton that I had moved some way away for a bit of peace and quiet. On waking the next morning after a good nights sleep, lying in the warmth of the sun I watched a ladybird climb up a stalk of grass, I felt good.

The next day was bright and windy and the scaffolding had arrived on a flat bed lorry to build the pyramid stage. Bill had chosen kwik form scaffolding from Guest Kean and Nettlefold of Birmingham, skilled labour costs serious money so this kit was as lego to real bricks and instead of using ties it used a pin and was not beyond mere amateurs like us. We first laid down planks onto the rock base and then slowly under instruction began to make the pyramid, by the end of the day so easy to put up was the scaffolding that most of the stage was finished. A petrol builder's lift was to be used to get the amps and musical kit up to the stage and a long tied in ladder would get the performers and stage hands up. The stage floor was made of building planks with gaps of a few inches here and there. We did our best that afternoon to get a good meal together and while finishing my superman comic one of the lads said “who’s that guy over there, he looks like he owns the place” I looked up and saw Michael striding purposefully on the horizon, “he does” I said “ that’s the farmer”. It was the only time I saw him since getting Andrew to him the year before. I then got a raging toothache and Andrew gave me some aspirin and I managed to get a nights sleep, having been told I might get a lift to Bristol and its dental hospital. I went to the farmhouse and had some porridge for breakfast, I ate alone and looking round the kitchen found a jar with some weak home grown in it. The lift had disappeared and I hitched to Bristol after I was told to take a message to some freaks in Bath. At the dental hospital there was a row of dentists chairs that a number of patients sat in, then someone came down the line and numbed our mouths with a syringe full of novocaine and after a bit I had 6 teeth pulled out. Blooded but unbowed I went to Bath and gave the message to a group there, staying the night to rest after my ordeal. Arriving back at the farmhouse the next day to find that the it had been taken over by Sir Sydney and his merry crew, although I would squat a castle at the drop of a hat I hadn’t thought of doing this even though we weren’t treated very well. I decided to inspect the farmhouse and was about to go upstairs when a woman with nearly white blond hair and a young face came out of one of the rooms, it was Arabella Churchill the only time I saw her and not wanting to be less than a gent went into the kitchen where soup was on the stove and people where drying their clothes. I heard that the revolution had been brought to a swift halt by a big American, (these Americans where spread about alternative England as currants in a cake, if asked they said they belonged to the peace corp, which meant of course they were fleeing conscription and the Vietnam war) apparently he had laid Sir Sidney out with one blow and the occupants of the farmhouse were letting us get warmed up as a peace offering.

I didn’t do anything the next day, someone had some draw and I just wanted to chill. The chicken wire skin was being put on the pyramid and the farmhouse people appeared as we were running out of time, it looked like a load of six form kids from a minor public school were crawling all over it, I went up to the farmhouse but apart from Andrew rapping away on the dog and bone nothing much was going on. Someone had got hold of some 2nd world war searchlights which rather fitted in with my apparel which hadn’t changed since I first met the farmer the year before, I was of course dressed by the army and navy stores, talk about swords to ploughshares.

In the morning a JCB had arrived with driver and had started to dig some deep pits that were to be the bogs, the driver was highly skilled and with a few flips of his wrist managed to scoop out a perfectly rectangular trench. Three long scaffolding poles were laid across the middle of the trench and the whole thing covered in a modesty screen of hessian and wood. You stepped onto the lower pole, put your ass over the middle pole and let fly, God help you if you slipped. It was a shame that the maze builder didn’t get use of the digger as he was Britain's foremost maze creator, a maze by him would have been real fun. To be honest the people in the farmhouse had little communication with us and the farmer lived in the village, it was amazing anything got done at all, but it did.

The next day Bill invited me to have a welcome bath in the farmhouse and I removed the grime of the road and the fields from my thin white body, as was usual I had to put on the clothes I was wearing as I only owned what I stood up in. The stage was now finished and as a final touch I climbed up the scaffolding on the side and hung two large bed sheet sized flags on the front of the stage, hanging down above its level, that I had bought in the Barrows market in Glasgow. I didn’t know why I carried them with me except their pure colours which were scarlet and light blue were strong and pretty, to me these were not the colours of a football team or institution but represented in the scarlet the colour of socialism, that is the socialism of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” and in the light blue not the colour of the summer sky but of the United Nations and the hope of a world that had been shattered by war and was still recovering, their was a buzz in the air and the stage was set.

People were starting to arrive and down by the stage a group of people allied to the band the Pink Faeries came past bashing a big drum, it was a good start, I went up to the farmhouse and was getting a free food kitchen together in one of the outhouses, when two vicars arrived to hold a drum head service. Usually used in a time of war near the front line, the symbolism was not lost on me and with little ceremony this beautiful article of craft (a painted drum) was placed in front of the farmhouse and prayers were said for the success of the festival and the welfare of the people. I went back to see about the free food kitchen to find that Sir Sydney had taken it over, I was grateful as it set me free to enjoy the celebrations. I went into the farmhouse looking for something to do and was sent to one of the car parks to help marshal the cars. The car park was slightly muddy from rain the previous night and a policeman guided the cars into the field, at which point they went over a slight rise and a steepish drop to the bottom of the field where I was putting them in neat lines. I had lined up about twenty vehicles when a mini van came over the rise, I pointed to where it should go and they set of down the slope, only to lose control in the mud and career into the back of a van, the doors of the mini van opened and a breeze of dope smoke followed, the van’s occupants came out to see the damage and in no time at all they were all sharing a spliff, only at Glastonbury, the sun was getting warmer and drying out the ground. By that night a few hundred people had arrived and I settled down round a fire swapping tales and sharing some dope and cider, I slept well.

Waking late on Friday morning tents were appearing as swallows coming back from Africa and their was a real good vibe developing, the music was about to kick of and the sun was high in the sky. Needless to say the festival passed in a rainbow blur and for the life of me I can’t remember any of the timeline of what happened, so I’ll just put down the bits I can remember.

Being given a tab of acid and just feeling a little queasy as I watched Arthur Brown sing “I am the God of hellfire” with his flaming hat, as three crosses burnt in front of the stage and a lone American rescued his rescued chicken from one of the crosses arms, to much for me, I strolled of to hear the Doors and Melanie. Numerous cool dudes in multi coloured wool sweaters, beads and flowing locks tootled about naked from the waist down and a lone young woman pranced about in the nude looking frightened. I went to the free food kitchen and got a runner to go down to the stage and ask if anyone could donate some herbs to keep the kitchen staff going, within 10 minutes we had about 2oz of the finest world draw in a little pile, I started skinning up and passing out free spliffs. Some bloke with a film camera on his shoulder arrived at the kitchen, I went down to the stage area were some self proclaimed God was supposed to be arriving. I climbed up onto the stage, a dude out of his head was wandering near the edge, it was quite a drop, as this guru person arrived with a farmhouse dining chair covered in a bed sheet and two Indian heavies in jumble sale suits looking as if they were tooled up, I watched them for a few seconds and decided to get chummy of the stage before he fell of. Depositing him safely in the crowd, I listened to this blokes spiel, it sounded like a load of psychobabble to me and we christened him guru margarine, being the light weight version of the guy who'd conned the Beatles for a bit, he was only after people’s bread, but there’s one born every minute and I believe quite a few people fell for this. Still each to their own, whatever turns you on being the rule, if any. That afternoon I had a bath in one of three large metal tubs (water tanks) which had a small fire lit under them, set up by the free food kitchen that were full of tepid grey water, still it got rid of some of the festival grime.

The nights passed round fires rapping away, passing joints and sharing ale usually crashing out round the fire and the days communing and listening to the sounds, before I knew it was all over, a midsummer nights dream of a festival, it was to take Michael, Andrew, Arabella and Bill nearly ten years before they got this vibe back. People started leaving and in the week we took the stage down and I had a chat with Andrew as the sun beamed down and we loaded the kwik form scaffolding onto a flat bed lorry, it was a nice feeling like at the end of a good party, I’d been in the right place at the right time and we’d done it. I did a bit of gleaning among the leftovers and found quite a bit of draw, time to move on, I blagged a lift to Glastonbury where I spent the rest of the summer before heading back to Glasgow. A triple LP of the events was produced a year latter and sold, any monies paid out for the hire of the scaffolding, the JCB and a few bits of kit I believe were recovered. Looking on eBay yesterday the triple album is for sale at £145, 40 years latter! The last thing I did before leaving the farm was to talk to a guy called Scorpio and told him that a city would arise here.

That winter Dave Mother and I squatted a huge Georgian blockhouse on Glasgow’s south side, it looked as if it hadn’t been lived in since before the war and had a grey patina of dust over everything. There was a kitchen as big as a house with a huge Belfast sink and a main room that you could hide a Harrier aircraft in, the main hall was also massive and had a dozen bedrooms running of it. We spent some time here and then Dave squatted a tenement near Sauchiehall street, the council were building a concrete collar of a ring round the city and most of the area was being pulled down or was abandoned. one night he heard two people making love while standing in inches of water against the wall of the tenement, his front door was propped up with found planks. Later I was on the way to knock out some acid tabs in a pub on the Byres Road, I had put these microdots between some sticky backed plastic so as to make them easier to handle, having just made love to a Glaswegian girl who had come from India. I was in a high spirits and went to where I’d hidden my stash, the rain was chucking it down as I pretended to tie up my shoelace and recover the stash from the bottom of a fence when a commer van pulled up and all these men piled out, I took of and chucked the gear with the men in hot pursuit and legged it up some steep steps, for some reason even though I was pulling away and well fit I stopped, only to find myself nicked by Glasgow’s finest. They had found the tabs which if they had been loose would have dissolved in the dreich weather. I was held over night in the local cop shop and taken before the beak the next day, pleading guilty I got a £100 fine or ninety days, being broke I was sent to the Bar L a medieval palace of haunting reputation and spent one day there, where my lovely auburn locks became a short back and sides. I telephoned my parents, the fine was paid and I was left to go about my business. It had been a salutary lesson born of naivety, it wasn’t that illegal substances or their sale were bad, it was just that I was completely naff at it. I decided it was a bad career move and my spell as a salesperson came to an end. That October I celebrated my 21st birthday in the tenement in Maryhill, cards from family and friends and a few presents made for a great day in front of a roaring range with those I cared for around me.

I made one more visit to Glastonbury and finding myself in Pilton went to see Michael on a dark winters night, only to find him struggling to help a cow give birth, he had some twine attached to the calf inside the cow and was trying to help it out, as he didn't have the strength I wadded in and soon a healthy calf was born. Even though I was dossing and broke as usual I don't think I even got a cup of tea for my efforts.

As the spring came I headed to London and found myself homeless with only a fiver, so I joined the Krishna’s to get some food and a roof above my head, they kept me at their London headquarters. I went out daily in robes and nothing else and was supposed to sell their magazine which I just gave away, my robes weren’t attached securely and flashing as I chanted didn’t go down a storm, so I was moved down to their mansion in Hertfordshire. There I was fed on the left over’s of the head blokes dinner, a bit of salad, this would not keep a rabbit fit, so I stormed into the main hall where his nibs was holding court and railed at him saying above other things that he was just a fat rip of and used gullible people to get a rich free ride and that their was more spirituality in a boggy than ever in his head, job done the heavies chucked me out, the only man ever to be thrown out of a cult. I set out for Eel Pie Island and on arriving found that a film crew from ITV had arrived, I blagged some money out of them and sent someone to score some hash, which we skinned up in one of the rooms and with carrier bags full of spliffs went round the place handing them out, things went mellow, smiling and quiet. Time to move on, this time down to Devon where I had the strangest lift ever, an old dear with a blue rinse in a light blue Triumph picked me up while hitch hiking and on getting in gave me a lecture about the danger of picking up strangers, she thought I was someone else and I doubted whether she could see me very well, on looking at the back seat I noticed a live monkey on a lead, I chatted away amiably and got to where I was going, incredible.

I headed out for Glastonbury with bare feet, in Glasgow I thought that I could control the weather by thought alone, now they want to control it by reducing greenhouse gases and when visiting my parents home had realised how far I'd travelled, the alternative lifestyle that I had chosen was supportive of those of us who were different. I hitch hiked and walked in the early summer weather and finally made it, went into a café and ordered a meal even though I was broke, thinking I would be made to do the washing up they called the police and I was kept in the local cells where I sang the blues for a night and was fined a fiver when brought before the magistrate the next morning, my mother sent me some bread and I paid it. Then I found a home in the back of a removal van and one night when tripping in a black Moroccan cloak and with a mate in a white cloak, we ran down the high street to end up having a nice chat with a copper by the toy shop at the bottom of the hill. Madness for me was intermittent and most of the time I was OK, at that time in Glastonbury their were some serious abusers who would prey on the homeless. One sunny day we heard that work was available and we were to gather on Chalice Hill, a women came by and gathered us into a circle and chose those of us who looked gullible enough to follow her to a house in the town, there we had to get our kit of and went into a room with a naked middle aged man in a state of arousal, we had to lie on the floor in a star shape and a naked girl was brought into the room. She looked really frightened and I’d had enough of this crap, so I stood up and gave the bloke who thought he was some Golden Dawn wannabe a right Brummy mouthful, this brought the proceedings to a full stop and we left the house. How long this bloke had been preying of the itinerants of Glastonbury I don’t know, but at least I’d marked his card and wouldn’t fall for such abuse again, time to go back to my parents.

On arriving in Birmingham city centre I went into Lewis’s department store and looking like something that had been dragged through a hedge backwards, tried to steal a 25p badge, the police were called and after the paperwork I was bailed for £5. I fled to squat in London and fell in with a girl called Hilary, we moved to a Christian household that looked after dossers and after another squat I headed home only to be arrested for jumping bail. I was sent to the Green to await the sentence of the court. They put me in a lone room that was used to store stuff and I was sent to see a shrink and then taken in handcuffs to the court. I had no chance to represent myself and was sectioned to Highcroft hospital an old workhouse in Erdington. On arriving there I was put in a padded cell and escaped through the window, heading to Sutton park where I spent some time in a catatonic state in the woods and then went to my parents, the next day the police arrived and I was carted of back to the bin. On entering I was thrown to the floor and forcibly injected in the backside with major tranquillizers, after a few days of drugged sleep I was told that I was to have ECT, electro convulsive torture was just that, everyone regardless of madness industry label was plugged in, it's use was banal and like its first appearance in the lives of first world war veterans suffering from post traumatic stress, it was applied so that being a quiet and submissive patient was better than enduring it. The veterans though traumatized would be forced back to the front line after its application, its use was creating an epidemic of brain damage in the asylums of the UK and it had nothing to do with healing or science and everything to do with the abuse of power. This was against my will but having been treated brutally already I had little choice but to agree to this. I had no breakfast and then was taken into a ward where a number of people lay on the beds asleep, a gag was put in my mouth and then I was anesthetized and a muscle relaxant administered, this was to stop me breaking my back under the force of the electricity, asleep the current was applied to my head, the only sign like a hanged man that this was working was the twitching of my feet. On waking after a deep sleep I was walked into the day room. “You look like the roadrunner” said one of the inmates kindly, “what do you mean?” I said “you know the cartoon character that went over a cliff” I was just one of over 250,000 men, women and children who had been incarcerated in this Victorian institution since 1840, I was now a fool from the planet schizophrenia, they did it eight further times to me over subsequent weeks, though I have no memory of this, I was to be left permanently damaged. It was to be a few years before the film "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" took the field and informed the world of the routine indifference and arrogance of the madness industry, it was written by Ken Kesey after his time at Menlo Park veteran's hospital, a man who lived up to his time as a merry prankster.

After this ritual abuse, I was to spend nearly a year there. Their was never any choice, everyone was on far to many seriously damaging drugs, you either took them or were forced. Their was so called therapy, which included cooking, art and industrial. As a vegetarian I had to become a meat eater and learn how to cook meat and two veg. Then their was art therapy, were you got a cup of coffee and the sort of art materials an infant would use and finally industrial therapy. About 250 human beings were forced to pack things and test things, as we were only paid the equivalent of a couple of packets of fags for a weeks full time efforts, they must have made millions out of us, many had been doing it for over four decades. The union went on strike, which we supported, it was the first ever strike of a whole NHS hospital. During the strike curious Bedlam watchers were brought in, one turned up on our ward and seemed confused that we weren't swinging naked from the rafters, we made him do the washing up. It never occurred to the trade union members that we might have rights and that forced labour was in breach of these. After all this my spirit was nearly broken, at which point I was thrown out with no support. No history was ever taken, no diagnosis given and no kind word ever spoken.

I was cast into bedsit land and unemployment benefit for a few years and in 1978 I came off my medication. I worked as a volunteer for a Birmingham Community Transport for three months and then got a job in London as the assistant manager of a Community Transport. I was living in a squat and decided to got to Worthy farm. 

 

 

Glastonbury festival 1978.

 

There was a small collection of people and though no festival was planned one just happened.(I later learnt it was planned) As I entered the farm I took a few tokes on a spliff and became psychotic feeling that I shouldn't walk under the pylon wires crossing the land. So in my madness I decided to climb a pylon and left my boots and money at its base and set on up this huge structure. I was a danger to myself and had also climbed out of a hotel window and down the hotel wall via a drainpipe in Wells, on the way to Worthy farm.

I survived this even though I was in bare feet and it was raining and on stepping down from the pylon saw my money had been stolen and my boots left. I didn't see any music and got a lift back to London the next day. Arriving back at the squat I went to bed and became catatonic, lying in the bed for a few days in this dream like state and then thankfully my brother and sister arrived and took me home.

I stayed a few days at home and then the police took me back to hospital. More ECT and depo major tranx though at least it wasn't forced. I made a chess set in occupational therapy and after a couple of months was once more back in the community.

This time I claimed disability benefits for the first time.

 

Stonehenge free festival 1984.

 

I heeded out from my bedsit and started hitchhiking at Spaghetti Junction, or junction 6, M6, I wanted to get to Worthy farm. After a few lifts this white van on the M5 services picked me up and whistled me away to the Stonehenge free festival, the last one. I only had the clothes I stood up in, a few bob and a draw. I also had my camera with me and a few rolls of film  which was a present on my birthday, a Fed Zorki 4, with an f2 Jupiter lens....the poor mans Lieca.

Any festival in a summer and so it rolled on. I was photographing a dude knocking in a tent peg with his metal arm, while his friend held the small tent up, they told me to shove the camera where the sun don't shine. Wanting to defuse the situation I bought a harpic line of wizz from them and wandered of into the festival site.

It was like a church fete with drugs. It was smallish and the stage as a scaffolding pyramid covered in a green tarp was the only focus for the trippers. I danced a bit and wandered about and found some friends from home who were selling hot knives, Balf says I stripped naked but I can't remember doing it. Hawkwind as always stole the show all for free, no fences, no security and all the charm of innocence. There where signs advertising draw, wizz, acid, mushrooms and other festival bus tickets. The state decided to stamp its boot in its face, it really was harmless and much gentle fun... they put razor wire instead of chillums sparking into the medieval starry night. I got this poem out of it all.

 

Glastonbury festival 1984.

 

I hitched from the stones to Worthy farm and got in for free, no fences see, I had my camera with me, (Glastonbury festival) it was funny like crossing into another land. I parked myself, boots, sweater, a stripped suit top and shorts, by a bloke to the right of the farmhouse. He had a hut surrounded by a fence and a union jack flag on a flag pole. I pulled my coat over my head and crashed out, the first sleep for a couple of days after snorting that wizz at the stones.

When I woke up it was a glorious summers day and chummy with his flagpole leaned over his fence and said "24 people walked over you last night", you couldn't make it up, he must have counted and so it was festival time.

All I remember was the mud and Ian Drury getting it throw at him as he performed. He stopped singing and then went into Spasticus Autisticus, you could have heard a pin drop when he finished and then they went wild. The finest piece of stage craft I have ever seen. And that was it.

 

Glastonbury festival 1987.

I got a job that paid my ticket taking money at the entrance, I carried thousands of pounds in a carrier bag to a store room in the farmhouse. Loads of money, no lock and no guard..only Glastonbury. I remember feeling lonely in the crowd, it was the last festival at Worthy farm that I was to attend.

 

In the 1990's I joined National Mind and helped create Survivors Speak Out, it was very good for my mental health.

Now retired living peacefully in a terraced house in Birmingham.

The Glastonbury festival has become a legend and is loved by many, for a few days you can forget and dream and never has the world needed its dreamers.

 

 

 

 

Stonehenge peoples free festival 1984, 

Glastonbury festival 1984,

Stonehenge free. 

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