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Updated July 2021

Magick Musick Party Heathfield. East Sussex. 1985

   In the early 80's I was living in the market town of Heathfield , East Sussex. I was chairman of the Heathfield Musicians Collective, a loose collection of local bands and performers, who had decided to pool resources and equipment for mutual benefit One August (83, 84 or 85...sorry, can't be sure which year), one of the HMC members, Des, was getting engaged to his girlfriend Carol. Her family were very well off, living in a big house with a large paddock adjoining, in the nearby village of Horam. Des's plan was to hold an engagement party in the paddock, erect a stage, and have about half a dozen local bands, (including mine), perform. Several HMC members helped prepare the site, then Des and Carol went off to Stonehenge (or was it Glastonbury?) with the party planned for the following Saturday. Of course, while they were at the festival, Des got totally out of it, and invited everyone he saw to the party, including the Hippy Convoy...

  Somehow the police got wind of this, and when Des and Carol returned from the Festival the police told them that if the party went ahead, they'd be arrested. So the party was cancelled, but the problem was that the Hippy convoy, (or some of them, about 30-40 vehicles), were on their way...

  The day before they arrived, Roger Daltrey, (who lived near Heathfield), stepped in to save the day, and to avoid a Police / Convoy confrontation, offered the use of a field he owned in Heathfield, opposite a housing estate. The police and local council agreed, provided the music stopped at midnight. (Guess they figured it was better to contain the convoy in 1 place, than to have them arrive with nowhere to go). So the stage, wood for fires, etc was hastily moved from the Horam paddock to the site in Heathfield. The convoy duly arrived, and the event went ahead. My band played late afternoon. Everything went fine until midnight, when one of the local bands, (who had insisted on playing last,) were told they couldn't play cos time was up.

   They tried to play anyway, but the power was cut, which annoyed most of the by now pissed, stoned, etc crowd of maybe 1000...Roger Daltrey made an announcement from the stage to try and calm things down, which more or less worked with the local attendees, but the Hippy Convoy lot didn't give a shit, and brought out kettle drums, horns and anything else they could find to make a noise and created a racket until the early hours.

   Also in the early 80's, before the above event, were the Vines Cross festivals. Vines cross is a couple of miles from Heathfield. They were on every year for 3 (I think) years, and attracted crowds of 2000 - 3000. I played at 2, with different bands. The Tibeteans were there one year, as were The Enid. The festivals were stopped after someone took a sheep from an adjoining field, and killed and roasted it.
Keep up the good work with your site, it's an excellent resource.
Benjamin Horrendous

Hello there,
I was just reading your site and came across the report on the Heathfield Free Festival.
I was there. My recollection is that it was 1985 and was called the MAGICK MUSICK PARTY. I was told about it by my friend SIMON WILLIAMS of the band MANDRAGORA - their album "Over The Moon" even includes the track "Magick Musick" in homage to the festi! My band played (can't even remember what name, if any, we might have gone under) - other bands I remember being there are MANDRAGORA, OOROONIES, ZEN (?, power cut out during their set but they continued on with all manner of wierd percussion sculptures sprayed gold)
Those were the days!
Steve Baker
London