1979
The
weather was somewhat better and the festival had grown noticeably in size
of attendance. Fewer of the old hands around this year, but there was one
strange middle-aged skinny bloke, suntanned and bald, who stripped off completely
and jiggled about irrespective of who was playing, to the evident discomfiture
of some of the people near him! I later saw this guy climbing in and out
of his car, which was not some banged-up old hippie wreck, but a completely
unremarkable vehicle that you wouldn't have noticed in Tesco's car park.
It struck me that he wasn’t some incomprehensible loony but was probably
just a free spirit who liked to dance naked when he could. I had forgotten
all about this guy until I saw a photo of him at
http://www.geocities.com/ocknroll/festis2.html (Luke B's site) - he
is in front of the red bus, in the bottom left photo.
I think it was in 1979 that
I saw Gong at the festival. Not the pothead
pixie version of Gong, but Pierre Moerlen's worthy-but-dull jazzy version.
Patrice Lemoine was on keyboards. Not many people seemed to be into this
as I had no difficulty getting up to the front of the stage. I got bored
though, and wandered around to the back of the stage. Gong's tour bus was
there and was a real contrast with the efficient band up on stage. It could
have come straight off the cover of Camembert Electrique, being a ramshackle
hippie wagon par excellence, with a psychedelic Gong logo painted on it
in yellow and blue.
We
were camped near a tent that flew a confederate flag. We thought someone
had nicked our stove and I asked the DJ to read out a message asking
for it back. There were a number of messages like this being read
out all the time, and the guy reading them out was appalled at this
litany of petty theft etc.. Of course, it subsequently turned out
that the stove hadn’t been nicked at all, just that someone who
shall remain anonymous was too stupid or stoned to remember what he’d
done with it.
Another
who shall remain anonymous was a friend of mine whose name was always
being read out by the announcer:
'Can Ian X come to the front of the stage….Ian
X to the front of the stage…'
Another deal going down! |
©
Paul Seaton
|
© David
Stooke
|
Drugs
were all around but it was still uncommercialised. Stonehenge 79 was
the last time I saw any Red Leb being offered for sale…you would
just stumble across a home-made cardboard sign by a tent - it was just
an individual selling whatever he or she had. Another thing you would
see occasionally was people with a few instruments jamming at low volume,
and sometimes another home-made cardboard sign: '
feel free to use these instruments '.
Little things like this were what made Stonehenge so totally unlike
going to a commercial festival like Reading (which I also went to in
1979). |
The
only other band I remember seeing for certain at Stonehenge in 1979 was
either Crass or the Poison Girls. They were a cut above the usual drossy
bands that played there, sounding tight, aggressive and very uncompromising
. Unfortunately a friend of mine had dropped some acid and this was enough
to turn his trip bad. His girlfriend and I walked him over to the Release
tent, where he was 'talked down'. We had a prior agreement that my girlfriend
and I (who were sleeping on a groundsheet with a blanket over us, but no
tent) would come into their tent if it rained in the night. It did start
to rain at about 4am, but as I started to go in the tent, my mate moaned
' You can't come in here',
and the reasons why struck me immediately. He had crapped and/or puked into
every available receptacle (mostly saucepans) and it was not nice in there.
My girlfriend and I decided to take our chances with the rain. It was cold,
we were really thirsty too, and the only thing there was to drink was warm
cans of Kestrel lager. We sat on the stage, wrapped in blankets sipping
this cheap horrible beer at 4 o’clock in the morning. It was one of
those moments when you thought 'what the
hell am I doing here when I could be warm in bed at home?'
I think I did go home, as a matter of fact, unwashed and with my clothes
stinking of woodsmoke, as was normal at Stonehenge.
This major report from Mark
came in June 2003
STONEHENGE 1979
A friend & I hitched down from the far north,
much to the surprise of people that we would travel that far for an event
(then again there was absolutely nothing where we came from).
©
Paul Seaton |
Stonehenge,
in some respects, was an introduction to democracy in action, which
has stayed with me all these years. The "co-ordinators"
would call a general site meeting & several hundred people would
debate what needed to be done – organising the stage, bogs, and
liasing with the local police etcetera.
I’m
afraid to say that it was rather spoilt by one of the Tipi people
threatening to pull out “& if we go, the police will roll
over the site” unless we all coughed up a (considerable) sum
to finance the stage. What really hacked me off was that I later heard
the allegation that some people kept 10% of donations back as a "tithe".
|
The
weather was OK for most of the week, it did rain heavily one night
though – our tent got flooded out (ever tried bailing out a tent
in the pitch black & you are "stoned immaculate"?).
The Solstice itself was fine & sunny; there was a parade of
Wally Smith’s ashes round the
site & the ritual storming of the gates to the Stones/people shouting
"WALLY!!!" (The other version was "ALBATROSS"-
usually at 3:00 am & "anybodygorranyasid")
There
was a "wedding"and a christening in the inner circle led
by the (infamous at the time)
"Rick the Vic". A
Church of England vicar who had "dropped out" & whom
(I think, was living with the Tepee people. (He later wrote an article
for High Times, which differed significantly to how I remember the
festival!)
As
it was hot & sunny that day, a few people stripped off, much to
the excitement of a few passing Italian tourists, who proceeded to
photograph everything that moved.
I remember the "old" naked guy. Somebody told me that he
turned up to all the festivals & stripped off regardless of the
weather. Equally incongruous was an Asian family who turned up in
a camper van & duly opened a shop. |
©
David Stooke
|
©
David Stooke
|
Then there was Rufus,
who lived in the basement of Jayne’s squat, he who used to wander round
naked declaiming "love & peace brothers & sisters".One
night, round 3:00am, there we were all huddled round the campfire, Rufus
appeared out of the darkness, declaiming as usual – stark naked.Rufus
was pretty well out of it mentally. Unless he got help, I hate to think
whatever happened to him. He once took 30 minutes (in the rain) to roll
a joint, which fell apart in a shower of sparks after several draws.
(I later heard he was busted at Stonehenge 80 – some local coppers
found him in possession of a joint, whilst he was having a shit in the woods.)
©
David Stooke
|
I
suppose this is an opportune moment to mention the bogs. As I remember
there were the public bogs, where one could get a wash in the morning
and the "open air version"– a series of bore holes.
A pretty dangerous area to be wandering around in when it got dark…
There
is a deep & dark memory of wandering past some hippy, sat on
a chair reading the paper… with the seat taken out & a
hole dug underneath.
Bands…
no real recollection bar:
Keith Christmas & band played an
absolutely storming set (Keith has reminded me that halfway through
somebody set off a paper hot air balloon painted with a Chinese
dragon, in front of the stage. Later on, or perhaps the following
year, some one had discovered that if you taped the handles of a
plastic carrier bag together, held it over an open fire (so that
the bag filled with hot air). The clever bit was to then set the
handles on fire. Voila! The bag would rise for a 100 feet in the
air (they looked pretty weird from a distance) before exploding
into a meltdown of burning plastic – onto the heads of watching
stoners below.)
Nik
Turner (whom I
didn’t recognise with short hair) stood on me as he walked
by and Here & Now organised the stage/running order of the bands.
|
Some
band called Looney Q took upon themselves to
disregard the set running & were promptly thrown off the stage by a
Here & Now cohort. An aged relic from the 60’s took offence to
this "fascist dictatorship"& grabbed the stage mike to hold
forth at length about this being "the peoples festival" until
hauled off – probably to have a heart attack.
©
David Stooke
|
|
An
enterprising couple set up "Mr & Mrs
Normal’s Tea Party". Which consisted of a bell tent,
entrance 25 pence for which you received a spliff & a cup of tea.
It was situated next to one of the minor stages.
(
our professional Henge consultant , Android Hoop comments "the
wrappers you enquire about were wrapped around the famous Mrs Normals
Hash Cakes - on sale at stonehenge and all good free festivals from
circa 1980 till 1983 ?.The eponymous mrs N (who i think was called
Vega) was the partner of Bill Normal - a fiftysomething playwright
and anarchist who was a frequent resident of stonehenge festivals
in the G O D (good old days). he was a great guy who once chased a
sunday mirror reporter off site at s/henge with an axe - the poor
guy shat himself !!." )
He
also ran a gentlemans club in the back of his converted ambulance
- where, for a few quid , one could become a member and be assured
of a welcome, cup of tea, slippers, daily paper and a fat joint upon
signing in.
A
local band, whose name I have completely forgotten, were doing extremely
bad heavy metal cover versions. The lead singer launched into a word-perfect
recitation of the intro to the live version of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s
Freebird – "what’s that song y’all want to hear?"
to shouts of "fuck & die" from assorted (very, very
stoned) denizens at the tea party. Needless to say, they carried on
regardless & we all headed for relative safety far, far away from
the trashing Freebird was receiving.
I’ve
forgotten who organised it, but there was a circus tent (?) that also
held a stage & would hold "light shows" once it got
dark. I have a vague memory of getting too stoned to find our tent
& sitting there (at three o’clock in the morning) watching
the 1930’s version of King Kong being projected onto the tent
wall.
Left
: One of Mrs Normals bags for putting cookies in, courtesy Andy Barton
.... |
©
David Stooke
|
Getting
too stoned to move was a regular event. One awful morning I woke up
around the remnants of a campfire & realised that a biker gang
had moved in during the early hours… The term "Oh dear"
springs to mind. Somehow I managed to slide away. I think the gang
were preoccupied with waking people up & telling them to "move"–
before they drove the bikes over the tents.
Acid
was in short supply (at least in that I failed miserably to find any)
though as above hash was everywhere & I was stoned all the time.
But… somebody brought on site a big supply of Diconal –
a pretty powerful painkiller (& "drug of choice" as
utilised by one Dr Harold Shipman).
|
|
Poster courtesy
John Atkinson
|
"Word
on the street" was that you had to intravenously inject it
– which is apparently nonsense; it’s an oral drug (though
I suspect you X10 the effect if you inject).
It
got so bad, everywhere you went were bodies of people flat out,
Here & Now resorted to making regular announcements over the
PA to request that users do so in a tent rather than outside.
I
think people with children -Sid Rawles lot brought a tribe of kids
with them -had started to complain about the number of people jacking
up in front of the kids.
Well,
Stonehenge 79 draws to an end. By this point we were flat broke
& starving. We met up with some hippies (who laughed at us urban
dwellers unable to cope without a shop) and they treated us to "nettle
soup".
The
recipe is as follows:
Mounds
of nettles
Water
Anything
else you can find (including an apple core thrown into the fire
but missing the target…)
Boil
over an open fire; serve with hand made chapatti’s (wood
smoke flavour non optional).
I
hung around on the Sunday as Nik Turners Inner City Unit (version
1) played a set (they had played Glastonbury the day before). It
was mainly stuff from Xintoday & a version of Brainstorm.
I’ve
heard that the BBC filmed it & it was shown as part of a documentary,
though I have never seen it.
I
then had to hitch back north. The first lift from outside the gates,
decent people who had a van & offered every hitchhiker a lift,
got pulled on "sus laws", much to the bemusement of a
couple of Germans who had travelled over for the festival.
Our
driver seemed to think that it was because one of the passengers
was an organiser of the "Alternative Miss World" contest
(Miss World in drag). I later found out that the film director Derek
Jarman was heavily involved. I often wondered if that passenger
was Mr Jarman.
I
got another lift off some creepy character, who insisted on talking
about flagellation - "tell me, (leer, leer) did they, er, beat
you at school"? & who promptly dumped me in the middle
of absolute nowhere (at dusk). Just to compound things, after walking
for a mile or so, another bloke appeared out of the woods &
started following me down the road.
Thankfully
the next passing car stopped & I eventually made it back home
for a bath & sleep in a real bed.
To
read more of Mark's festival exploits visit
this page
|
| |
©
David Stooke
|
Hey, thanks for the
site - seems like a 1,000 years ago now, not 31. Couple of details to add:
remember that during the week I was there, it was pretty hot for the UK in
late June and everyone was being treated for sunburn. Also playing: The Mob,
which the DJ went on and on about, but who were crap when they finally came
on. The DJ redeemed himself later by ordering everyone to get up and see off
some police officers who thought taking down people's number plates in the
car park might lead to the next Operation Julie sting. Can't remember Gong
playing, but I do remember Here and Now. I do have some pictures somewhere.
Keep looking for my tent in amongst your shots, but alas!
Mal
Oliver
Here
is my ''Stonedhenge stashbag...I bought it from some stoners who had
just come back from India, and had these mirrored bags lying on the
parched grass...It was a great thing to be able to keep all one's drugs,
rizlas, lighter ''near at hand'' apart from going out to Amesbury, when
they had to be left behind, with a trusted friend..the risk of 'busts'
was always near the gates, where the coppers hung out.
1979,
I had been given a lift to the festival by my parents..a fact that was
colossally embarrassing, as I had not lived at home for a while, but
they offered to take me 'to avoid hitching' which was kind.
Dad drew up in his Orange Lozenge, a Volvo estate, and as he waved me
goodbye, he called out, in his poshest voice ''bye, darling! have a
wonderful time!''...just to embarrass me.I was mortified, and said to
some bemused hippies, ''I hitched a lift with them'' ..oh the lies one
tells...but REALLY it just wasn't cool to be given a lift to the Henge.
But
with a heavy canvas tent, I was very glad to have had a lift. The tent
was a veteran of Isle of Man TT races, and was very 'oldskool' with
toggles to do it up, and no zips anywhere.
I
plonked my tent down on an almost empty site, near some friendly looking
blokes, and that was how the site evolved, lots of circles formed around
campfires..the fires moved a few inches throughout the course of the
week, with the direction of the wind.
The
'drug stupourmarket' was amazing..I couldn't believe how the police
just stayed away, and the myriad little signs appeared 'Leb' 'Black'
'morphine'...and later that night, while on a search for milk for coffee
I saw a long queue, and asked what it was for 'Opium' was the reply..I
joined the back of the queue, and indeed, the sellers had Indian opium
in a Gale's honey Jar, and were scooping it out with a knife, and put
it on some cellophane..£6 a gram.
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I
had no idea what to do with it, and was going to put it in a joint...but
back at the tent, there was a very 'posh' very straight looking private
schoolboy who had travelled a lot with his parents, and he said ''I
thought you hippies knew everything! you never put Opium in a joint,
it burns it...you have to Vaporise it'..and he pulled a biro apart,
and found some tinfoil, and said ''this is how they do it in Hong
Kong'' 'chasing the dragon'......He showed us how to do it, and the
effect was quite wonderfully soothing..a sense of supreme lightness,
and when one's eyes were closed, it was like watching a cinema screen..clear
images played out across the back of one's closed eyelids..never had
I felt so comfortable..there would have been about six of us in the
two- man tent, but we just lay in silence, no one talking, just wrapped
up in the warmth of the experience.
Eventually
the straight guy said he wanted to get some proper sleep, so I went
to my tent next door, and lay there in the dark, marvelling at the
gentleness of the experience.
Acid was so much more 'chaotic', but this gentle drug...sadly, of
course, this is how it gets it's claws into people, it seems so benign,
so gentle, but of course, it is addictive.
Mr and mrs Normal, an older couple, sold hash cakes, and mr Normal
was also after the younger hippy girls, asking ''would you like to
be the new 'mrs Normal?'..but this may have been a joke on his part...
I
was in love with the horse drawn vehicles on the site, and tried riding
one of the horses by flinging a blanket over his back, and riding
like a Native American...big mistake...the horse began to trot, and
the blanket started to slip, and I slid off , hitting my hip on a
rock as I landed. Tonto did not ride again that week..
|
The
loos, dug by the Army were bloody dangerous, like deep wells, how no one fell
into them was a miracle...they were perilously deep, and I never had the courage
to use them. One
night, the Army did a 'flyover' using helicopters, flares &c, which was
terrifying...it was like war had broken out....does anyone else remember this?
I do remember Squaddies wandering about...they must have hated us, all undisciplined,
while they had to toe the line, and do their duty to Queen and Country
The St John's did a great job, with their first aid tent...there was a girl
I remember who had fallen asleep in the sun, and had been cruelly sunburned...she
was crying and sobbing as the staff gently placed lint and cold water over
her scarlet limbs...
My
big regret is not taking more care of my Stonehenge photos....they were small
square 'Kodak Instamatic' shots, of dope, of tents, campfires and sunsets
over stoned hippies...such ephemera tends to get lost and discarded over the
decades.....Somewhere I do have a 'Smokey Bears' stencilled flag from 1980,
Hyde Park.
All
the best, Cathy
Hi,
my
name is Harry from Poole,my main memories from that year was getting kicked
in the arse after swimming naked in the river at Avebury while I was doing
what comes naturally after meeting a beautiful young girl while bathing. After
a few days the cops tried to enter the site in one of their vans and were
bodily picked up by about 30 young lads and carried off site. This crowd that
had grown to a few hundred wandered down to the fence by the road opposite
the Henge. The main local cop a chief most definitely was on the road trying
to explain to all present that wasn't it time to go home now. I very impulsively,probably
cos I was pissed and tripping jumped the fence,pulled down my pull string
pants and nakedly declared," do you wanna look up my ass for drugs like
you've been doing up in the woods to people" , I then climbed back over
said fence to the cheers of blissed mob and carried on having a good one.
Later
after injuring myself trying to knock dead wood out of a tree in the woods,
I was accosted by a news crew at 6am in the morning who were curious why I
was singing and wandering around with a crutch and two pints of milk. I found
out when I got back to Poole that they were the BBC Nationwide after the news
camera crew, they inquired why I was there and I said that anyone who wants
a bit of peace should come to Stonehenge, the interviewer asked why people
were so peaceful at Stonehenge and I said it was because everyone was tripping
off their heads, which I thought was particularly funny.If you remember seeing
that particular segment I was the limpy guy with the milk and crutch,don't
fall out of a tree tripping it can get you on TV. Ahh! Those were the days,
I live in Oz now. Like alot of people I left after I saw what the cops did
at Windsor 74' and every time I came back I could never reconcile myself to
the septic isle again for very long. Great times tho, if your still breathing
and were there,
bless
yiz'all,....Harry de Bastarde
1979
FWS Festival Report.
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-Stonehenge-Free-Festival-1979-(June-16th-19th).jpg)
