Since
Midsummer's day of this year, the year of the Tiger, 30 people have been
living on and around Stonehenge, all answering to the name of Wally. Dancing,
frolicking, acting out the Gospel of Free using Stonehenge as a cosmic wrist-watch
with domes and dogs, and horses, and music , and troubador costumes , and
glant T shirts embroidered with the Eye of Horus.
At the beginning of the French Revolution there was a movement known as
the Jaquerie in which everyone called themselves Jacques.
Your name is your mantra. Eskimoes believing in the Seven Ages Of Man, that
one changes, as is known, totally , every 7 years , have a different name,
every 7 years. The Canadian Government, who, as all Governments, try to
undermine the recording angel, by keeping tabs on people for no reason,
are confused. How can a baby mean Priscilla, or Sebastian, or Donald...
maybe one only hits the mantra by which one is known for a few seconds.
One can only be known by God.
How can one own land ? The Indians roared wlth laughter when the first white
man arrived in the North Indies and offered the Indians gold in exchange
for their land. The Indians wandered all over it, and thought it as an earthly
sky. How much is a cloud worth? But when they saw what whitey was up to
they became embittered. Shambala, the founder of the Dreamer Religion said:
the white man drives stakes into My Mother's Heart, he cuts her hair, he
slashes open her womb, before she is ready to give him her fruit.
Suns of the Sun, the Wallys, are letting the mysteries of Stonehenge work
through them, despite the barbed wire that surrounds it, despite the Army
bases, and despite the state nets of secular legalisms. Freedom is a career.
Wally Green completed his walk on crutches from Hyde Park to Stonehenge;
the distance is about 85 miles. Will anyone who agreed to sponsor him send
the money to him c/o Bit, 146 Great Western Boad, London ¢9.
About 30 Wallys are squatting a house in Amesbury, close to their encampment
by Stonehenge. They intend staying until the Christmas Party on December
21st.
Guy
Rowe was also there
I
went down to the henge in 74 from Watchfield, the old R.A.F base near swindon,
it was not until years later locally here that I met craig scott who works
for derby city council gardens section and recognised him from back in those
days.
The photo from the documentary - I would have been there about 3 weeks in
84 when that was taken, so I would have been... pretty...... well.
It's
just a small tribute to ad about the 74 festival but this is to remember
Dick Holman from Wantage who got up on the small stage then to deliver his
poem: "He was Herbie the cosmic parrot - he kept on keeping on....."
which Dick did several times a day as he did at Watchfield.
Tom
sent us this account of how he started off at Windsor and then moved
on the Henge - thanks to that bastion of the establishment- the Daily
Mail !
For
the past 3 months, I'd been working fulltime as a volunteer on a north
london parish council playscheme. My contract was coming to an end
and I needed a break. Out of the £5 a week pocket money I'd
been getting I managed to save enough for a bus ticket to windsor
park.
The
site was great, so was the weather and the vibe, loads of sunshine
and colour, the atmosphere was remarkable and people who, although
strangers, made you feel safe and able to relax.
Early
one morning, I'd just got up and was sitting besides my tent, I noticed
a group of people a few yards away preparing breakfast. A couple of
young guys, with their girlfriends, I remember feeling a twinge of
envy, tho no more than a twinge! at that precise moment one of the
young girls got up and walked straight over to me and without saying
a word gave me half of her breakfast of dried fruit, then walked back
over to her friends. Totally blew my feeling of being on my own right
out the window! |
Windsor
stage © Roger Hutchinson
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Can't
recall much in the way of music, execpt that their were an awful lot of
single guys with guitars who couldnt play them. An army of bad guitarists
who flocked to every festival, too fucked to bother about things like tuning
up. I know, I was one of them hahaha!
The
day before the bust, I went into the town and phoned up windsor council
and explained that there was an enormous effort being made on the site to
clear litter and deal with things like sanitation. Trenches had been dug
for shit pits etc. I explained to the council how we needed help with things
like black plastic bags and they said that they would come on site the next
day with loads of stuff, to help keep the site clean. They never got the
chance, courtesy of the boys in blue who turned up to conduct their own
form of ethnic cleansing.
I
find it hard to get my head around the contrast between the wonderful atmosphere
that hung around the event like a particularly pleasant incense, and the
terrible atmoshere forcibly injected into the event by the Thames Valley
police.
On
the day of the bust, police flooded the site and hung around waiting for
orders. A meeting was called in front of the main stage, with various people
going onto the main stage to reassure people with talk of negotiating with
the police, who were obviously going to give us a good kicking, I got up
on the stage and grabbed the mike and explained that their was going to
be a police riot and that we should make a note of the number on the epaulettes
of any cop seen kicking the shit out of anybody.
A thin blue line of cops formed at the bottom end of the site, a young hippie
girl undid her top and pulled out her breasts and proceeded to do a wild
dance right in front of the cops shaking her tits right under their noses!
Then the line started advancing up the site anything, anyone in their way
got trashed tents, people, personal belongings.
Lots of confusion, fear, horror.
A
small skinny hippie with a toddler clutched tightly to his chest ran
past me like a greyhound. I'll never forget the look off total fear/sheer
terror on his face as he flew past moments later a huge cop built
like a rugby player went fying past in pursuit, he flung himself at
the skinny hippie in a classic rugby tackle around his legs and brought
the skinny hippie to a violent halt, the hippie slammed to the ground
with the toddler in his arms, the infant hitting the dirt with such
force that I felt sick.
I'm ashamed to say that I ran away, mostly because I was afraid of
losing my temper and making things worse, and cause I was expecting
to be jumped by the cops mates. The burly cops helmet went flying
as he brought down the hippie,
I scooped it up as I ran.
I
found a bunch of journalists and proceeded to yell insults at them,
assuming they were going to do an airbrush job on what was happening.
Then yelled abuse at the cops, who just laughed.
Never
forget the seige of stage 1, some young guy on top of the scaffolding,
with a guitar raised above his head silouetted against the sky, beating
back the cops underneath, with his battered acoustic guitar!!! |
Resisting
the stage invasion 1974 © Jenny |
End
of the day, down in the dumps, exhausted, shocked, wondering around seeing
tents, personal belongings piled into big heaps, upset people wandering
home, felt like shit!
Instead
of fucking off. I got this crazy idea to stow away in the back off a furniture
removal lorry that had the disassembled main stage inside, absolutely did
not want to do what the boys in blue wanted. Jumped in the back off
the lorry only to find a whole collection of shellshocked people, who'd
had the same idea!
Shortly
afterwards the lorry moved off and slowly trundled through London, was really
surprised to see all these newspaper boards in the streets with headlines
about the police violence at windsor park! The lorry was heading for Exeter,
but intended to stay overnight at Stonehenge, which was what happened.
The
next morning, a group of us were standing around a fire, rubbing the sleep
out of our eyes, when a guy in a suit walked up introducing himself as a
journalist from the Daily Mail, he said that he had heard that the windsor
festival was moving to Stonehenge.
We all looked at each other, the idea hadn't occured to anyone, but it sounded
spot on . Then I turned to the journo and said "yes, thats right"
and pointed to the lorry behind us .saying it contained stage 1 from the
windsor festival
The journo was delighted and scurried back to London.
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Not
the Daily Mail article but an ultra rare newsletter confirming that
stage A from Windsor was moved by truck to the Henge.
Thanks
to Chris Hewitt of Ozit
records for the image.
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From
the collection of the late Alan Jones, kindly suppiled by Ken Horne
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The
next day an article appeared on the front page of the Daily Mail, in the
middle of the page, something about the festival moving to stonehenge and
carrying on from there. The headline was bleating on about a new Camelot!
Thanks Daily Mail u know not wot u did! Maybe someone can go thru the Daily
Mails archive and dig up the article!
There
were a lot of people who had arrived at stonehenge for the solstice but
for the most part they looked like ordinary tourists, so this gave the impression
of some kind of event happening.
Over the next few days, courtesy of the mail spreading the word, lots of
people began turning up and a festival was born!
The
security guards were pissed off with people setting off the sensors
around the stones so a deal was negotiated whereby we'd stay away
if they agreed to let us in for a holy ceremony,we were allowed in
late one night, there must off been upwards of several hundred of
us, all very calm and quiet except for the resident bad guitarist,
some guy badly strung out on speed, who mounted a stone and intermitently
bashed out a sound intensley discordant, his voice crying like an
animal hopelessly tangled up in barbed wire, naked horribly painful,
yet somehow it worked and was totally appropiate, everything else
was dead quiet.
We
all gathered in a circle and held hands, and gradually we all began
to chant OM only it came over more as an MMMMMMMMMMM that got
louder and louder, as this was happening the entire landcape started
rumbling like constant thunder, in the distance, a deep throated growling
uuummmmmmmmmmmmmm sound.
I
looked up and in the night sky I could see a string of lights approaching
the Stones, It was a convoy of military transport planes using the
Stones as a navigation beacon, the closer they got the
louder the rumbling became until our ohm chant became a roaring thundering
sound that made everything shake and tremble, the ground the stones,
the entire landscape!
I stayed at the stones, met Wally Hope and lost my blue suede shoes
(thats true as well) got seduced by a hippy girl from east anglia
and ended up in Norfolk.
Think thats it!
Tom
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from
the collection of the late Alan Jones, kindly suppiled by Ken Horne
