who
inspired me to delve deep into the magic of the free
festival and who passed away Sept 3rd 2010.
R.I.P.
Roger .....
Tangmere
(Seasalter ) Free festival.
August
27th-5th September 1976.
Broadoak
Valley. Kent.
After the experiment of the Watchfield Free Festival in 1975, where the government gave the freaks an old abandoned RAF airfield in which to hold a festival , there was a backlash.
Just as there had been a backlaash post the Windsor Free Festival in 1974, where the police had gone over top in dealing with festival attendees, now there was an opposite reaction. Watchfield had been too noisy, too anarchistic and too many drugs had been consumed openly for the average country persons lking.
The ever present dichotomy of the free living freaks who were attracted to the country , imposing themselves on conservative country folk raised its head yet again. In 1976, it appeared that nobody was prepared to allow a few thousand hippies to whoop it up in their backyard for ten days . The battle was on once more and it was waged for months as the government , police and country people did their best to prevent a free festival being held anywhere in southern England .
There was also the issue that the site chosen was the iconic world war 11 aerodrome of Tangmere, home to no less than flying ace Douglas Bader and which was bombed in 1940 wirth considerable loss of life . The aerodrome had closed in the 1960s and it had fallen into disrepair, but this did not stop ex pilots and RAF personnel from feeling that their sacred ground was being invaded and by no less than a bunch of" drug sodden layabouts' as one veteran put it .
Articles courtesy Wally Dean and the late Roger Huchinson.
Barracades
go up to prevent access to Broadoak , another prospective site that
was shot down in 1976
from
the collection of the late Alan Jones . courtesy Ken Horne
Heaven knows what would have been the result if Mr. Lanser had actually gone ahead with his threat to bring down dozens of pensioners to battle with hundreds of 20 year old hippies ( many of whom were prepared to take part in a rumble, as Windsor 1974 had proven ) . if this had happened , and any of the veterans had been injured , one can imagine the reaction of the gutter press and the public in general.
But the freaks prevailed regardless ........
Any way, the festival DID go ahead, but all the disruption led to very few people turning out to the site at Seasalter. Instead of existing buildings to sleep in and some solid ground to camp on , there was just an open field and no shelter or facilities.
Roger Hutchinson, the creator
of the lovely poster explains .
"The
Tangmere/Broadoak
Valley Seasalter Festival was a replacement event for the Windsor
Festival in 1976. It drove me mad changing the location on the poster
because all the negative reaction from the police, press and society
in general. In the end it was never really distributed and we turned
up at Seasalter after making a phone call at Dartford Tunnel that
revealed the location. It was a good festival with a special mention
to Tim Blake from Gong doing the business on stage to a spaced-out
crowd. "
"I remember talking to a group of film students from the Oxford School of Film (?) at the festival who were documenting the whole festival in sound and 16mm film including public meetings in Sussex and Broadoak Valley. Subsequently I have searched for any mention of the film project as it could be a unique record of one Free Festival but have drawn a complete blank hopefully a copy lies in a film can somewhere......."
Roger
continues his narration
" The
Festival was held in a field right of the north coast of Kent just
to the east of Margate. The police acted at every opportunity like
sadistic bastards trying to put the punters off - one example was
where two guys hitched down from Tyneside only to be stopped by the
gate by the police and taken to Canterbury and stripped searched and
held for six hours before being let free. At 3am they then walked
miles back to site only to be stopped again and in a gentle rain had
the thoroughly searched contents of their rucksacks tipped out in
a puddle then the police walked away laughing. "
The
festival was shifted from pillar to post in a mad scramble to see it off
from any site that was chosen by the organisers and the advisors from
the government committee who were liasing with the festival coterie,(
amongst whom was Sid Rawle of Windsor fame , who by now was living with
the tipi people, a staple ingredient of all the free festivals of the
era) .No matter where the festival was supposed to be located , residents,
,MP's police and local authorities were united in their resistance, mostly
because the festival was associated with Windsor .Originally meant to
happen at Tangmere airport ( famous as a Battle of Britain fighter base
) the location was detected by the infamous Thames Valley Festival Intelligence
and Discouragement Group (what a lovely name ) , who of course informed
the locals so, as usual , an injunction was slapped on the site. The local
council also was worried that a batch of vacant houses on the site might
be squatted in , creating a semi -permanent settlement of freaks in their
midst- so servicemen and their families were rapidly moved into the vacant
houses.
Various
other locations were inspected and rejected for different reasons, including
Plumpton and Lewes, and finally Broad Oak Valley in Kent was announced as
the venue. Once again the authorities brought forth their big guns and did
their best to prevent the event from taking place. Injunction (aren't you
getting fed up with that word )police roadblocks and fences were erected to
keep out the hairy hordes and the organisers and the government advisor were
told to keep off this site. At this juncture the only thing that could be
done was to chose another site near Broadoak at the last moment and hope that
by occupying the site as quickly and with as many people as possible before
the authorities had time to act. Once residence was established they were
reluctant to remove a large crowd for fear of another Windsor, so the attendees
just had to worry about being harassed or busted en-route to and from the
site.
When the vanguard of the Tipi
people arrived at Broad Oak Valley they were met by the police and turned
back at the roadblocks , undeterred ,they moved to the local coastal village
of Seasalter and occupied a marshy field next to the estuary. Agreement was
somewhat reluctantly reached after some negotiation with the farmer who owned
the land and the festival was allowed to go ahead. The police then began to
stop and search people who were on their way to the festival , as Roger will
attest in his story.
The
weather, which had been gloriously warm for most of the summer , predictably
turned over the bank holiday and the resultant cold , wet and windy
weather put a damper on the proceedings. Because of the last minute
change of venue many of the scheduled bands did not show up and facilities
were also limited . However, The Hell's Angels did manage to show up
, an event that was not welcomed by some ( especially after their activities
at Watchfield in 1975) however, they seem to have been pretty peaceable
on this occasion as there were no internecine gang wars to blight the
scene.
The
absurdly high costs of policing about 1000 people in a field came to
£200,000, around £20,000 per attendee. and even the locals
felt that there had been an over-reaction. It would have been cheaper
to have provided a government site that could have been more easily
policed and to concentrate on providing decent facilities rather than
busting small time recreational drug users and dealers . It is interesting
that there were never any huge hauls of drugs made at these festivals.
The major dealers would have known that the chances of being busted
were far too high and would have stayed away, as usual it was the small
timers who got caught .
Any info to add
?-well don't just sit there , Contact
email
This
French bootleg, now an official release , entitled -CRYSTAL MACHINE
, with some tracks recorded at Seasalter and at Le Palace Theatre
, Paris is available Here
.
Midnight
Metro Logic
Last Ride Of The Boogie Child
Synthese Intemporal
Crystal Presence
1. Joining Hands (incomplete. no beginning)
2. A Woman’s Name (Cut short by power cut)
3. Celestial Dream Song (incomplete. no beginning)
4. At The Gates
5. Land Of My Travels
6. Cassiopeia
7. Centre Of The Winds
8. Funeral March
9. Contemplation ( last chord missing )
Now
here is the best bit, I had bought a portable Sonny stereo cassette
recorder a couple of months earlier and was eager to try out some field
recording so speeding
through the police lines we managed to go and pick up the machine from
my place, get some new batteries (it took about eight of those big D
batteries) and some other supplies and get back on site without much
hassle.
That night I
recorded the band Visitor 2035, a jazz fusion prog rock funk band. I
had never heard of them before but decided to record their set. So I
set the tape recorder just behind the mixing position, I had two battery
powered directional mikes with nice long leads which I put each side
of the mixing position to achieve proper stereo. Once I was all set
up I pressed record and slowly brought up the recording levels and watched
the two needles dance and sway to the music. After about twenty minutes,
suddenly, in the middle of a synthesizer solo, all the power went, the
generator had broken down All that could be heard was the drummer still
furiously beating at the drums hoping the power would come back on soon,
it didn’t and the drummer eventually gave up, as did I. I switched
the recorder off and went back to the tent and partied on down for a
while.
Some time later
the music returned and I resumed recording. I have managed to keep the
tape all these years and although it has lost some of its original brightness
it is still not a bad recording capturing not only the music but also
the atmosphere of the crowd, to me the best bits. There are some cracking
comments audible from the audience, and all in stereo. The first side
of the tape admittedly was recorded a little too high and the wind gets
in the mikes a bit, but the other side is damn well nigh on perfect.
I have spliced the two halves together on the computer and it comes
out at 57mins.31secs.
Jake
Recollections
Memories
of Seasalter Peoples Free Festival 1976 by Jake
I was in Paphos, Cyprus, at an art summer school
when I first learned of a free festival right on my doorstep in Seasalter.
I had been in Cyprus for over four weeks and had heard nothing about
any free festival before I left.
Then
somebody had a copy of the Times, which you could get a day late printed
on very thin tissue paper for air mail. Inside it read something like
Free Festival Goes Ahead, I read on..bla bla bla bla, hippies, bla bla
bla, police, bla bla bla, Seasalter Kent...What !! I exclaimed spitting
out my Turkish coffee, "A free festival in walking distance from
my house in Whitstable and I’m in Cyprus" don’t get
me wrong Cyprus was a brilliant place to be but the thing is nothing
ever happened in sleepy old Whitstable in those days, not though much
happens now of course, but at least there is a nice little music scene
there now, but back then, it was pretty dead. Not only that but I was
about the only so called hippie in town, me and a couple of mates. Soon
as my back was turned there was this free festival in my home town and
here I was over 2000 miles away.
The good news was that I was due to fly back a day or two later. On
my return to the UK I contacted my mate Charlie and learned the festival
was still on. I grabbed my big old frame tent and got a lift to the
site on the back of his old Beazer.
When
we got to the site we where greeted by hordes of police searching everyone,
but somehow we managed to slip through unchallenged.
The things I remember about the festival are a bit sketchy being 35
years ago and the fact that after being in Cyprus for about five weeks
with no "blow" or "charge" or whatever we called
it then, I was determined to make up for lost time and get completely
out of my tree, which I did.
What
I do remember is that the pub opposite "The Old Sportsman"
was used as police headquarters much to the disgust of us locals, and
there were a lot of strip searches being made especially on young girls
by male police officers, and they thought we were scum!
I
remember some guy emerging from the dyke at the back of the stage carrying
a large supply of hash and shouting "shit man, its six feet deep
in places in there!". Apparently dealers or their "mules"
where being dropped off on the Thanet Way, the main coastal road, and
wading through the system of dykes that cross the marshes to the festival
site to avoid the police, and it worked, as far as I know the police
never sussed that one.
Also
I remember one of those hairy naked dudes clearing rubbish out of the
dyke, not rubbish that had been dumped by festival goers but rubbish
that was already there, old bike frames and the such. Later the same
naked dude walked around giving out free apples from a tray, probably
scrumped from one of the local orchards.
I
bought a lovely little brass water pipe somebody was selling on a stall
which I proceeded to smoke copious amounts of hash in. when it was time
to leave the festival I was understandably a bit paranoid about getting
the pipe with all its residue through the police lines, so being local
I simply buried it and returned a few days after the festival had gone
and dug it up. That was my favorite pipe for years, until it broke.
Jake
courtesy
Paul Clark
Hi
just chanced on your site. I was at Seasalter festival 76.
best buzz for me was finding out where the festival was happening
by looking at my parents Daily Mail, which was running usual tory reactionary
shit story about degenerates in a field. So I hitched to London from
West Midlands. Hitched lift in Release ambulance down the A2 which got
stopped by fuzz and detained- "dodgy brakes". Got kicked out
,hitched with 2 guys from Dublin got lift from lovely local couple all
the way to site. There was so much hassle from police , not as bad as
Stonehenge 77 but fucking over the top.
Tim Blake was amazing
Smiley
I remember seasalter,sort
of anyway,I was in a Band called Hazy Jane,we were booked to play, (left
) I even have the original contract and booking details, however the
other two members decided not to turn up because of the police ripping
every thing apart to find dope etc! An oportunity missed! Tim Blake
was excellent, I can`t remember many more bands playing.
Cheers
Paul Clarke
Click to see larger
version
Strip
search by the law every time that you left the festival, I gave my name as Robert
Sole, took them a while but eventually the penny dropped. Tim Blake played for
three nights and all the dope was sold by the Hell's Angels
Regards
Nic Dyde
I
went to the Seasalter free festival in 1976. I was living in Cornwall at the
time and me and my girlfriend bundled her 2 children into my Reliant Robin and
drove to Littlehampton to stay with her brother hoping to find out where the
Bank holiday free festival was going to happen. We listened to the news on the
radio and eventually learned that it was going to happen at Seasalter near Canterbury.
So
we set off along with the brother and his girlfriend and us 4,(quite a carful)
!! We arrived in the area well after dark and met up with other cars trawling
round the country lanes trying to find the festival site, police cars were very
much in evidence.
Sometime after midnight the convoy of cars turned into a field gateway and we
followed suit. We parked up and proceeded to put up a tent and a homemade geodesic
dome and got some much needed sleep.
In
the morning we woke to find we were in an enormous field with quite a lot of
different vehicles and people. There was an atmosphere of excitement and trepidation
due to the huge police presence on the road by the sea wall.
It seemed that everyone trying to come onto the site was being stopped and searched,
and soon a long tailback formed along the road.
After
a while the police began letting people in just to ease the traffic chaos,
but still stopped and searched everything that left the site.
It was a lovely sunny day, as was most of that summer, and at around mid-day
there appeared a long line of large bikes all glinting in the sun and
riding two abreast they ignored any attempt to stop them and turned in
to the festival field, THE HELLS ANGELS HAD ARRIVED !!!! All of us who
usually feared those guys were elated to see them, protection and anarchy
rolled up together.
The
police seemed to delight in stopping any trucks that looked like they
carried musicians and turned them over searching for anything illegal.
I remember one band who when they came to play made a loud announcement
(audible to the police on the road) about the hassle they'd had from the
authorities and told everyone to come to the front of the stage to recieve
a free joint each, rolled by the roadies from gear the police had failed
to find.
There
was this one guy who almost literally danced his way through the entire
festival, he was about as well worn as his clothes and had wild hair that
enhanced his dancing, he earned the nickname "Fucking -fucking",
as that was all he said and shouted as he danced, he's probably spiralled
into the ground by now, or become an investment banker !
The
only other band to play, that I remember was Tim Blake and his synthesizer,
he seemed to play all night every night and one long number was all to
do with the generator running low on fuel and Tim was urging us all to,
"think into the generator", which I think we did, and later
tried to think it to run out of fuel so he would stop :)
The
toilets were a sight to behold, just a long long trench open to the elements
and other's eyes and that was it, crapping etc in public, not nice to
say the least.
For
the whole festival there were 6 guys who constantly drove around the site
in a hearse dressed as undertakers in dark glasses, not talking to anyone,
just cruising and crawling and posing,.... memorable though.
There
wasn't much in the way of stalls or food so most of us were forced to
leave the site daily to get food and baccy and whatever and this turned
into running the police roadblock gauntlet, in and out of the field every
time. One morning I went to get milk for the kids breakfast and was stopped
as usual, but this time they said they were going to strip search me and
was told to "wait over there", which I did. Later this copper
asked to remove some outer clothes and he began to search the pockets
and creases etc and then suddenly told me to leave as I was the most disgusting
smelly foul person he'd ever had to search, so I legged it before he changed
his mind, (which I now realise wouldn't have happened). Another time I
was waiting to be searched and the policeman was making notes on a clipboard
when some fellow festival goers,(one wearing a toy policemans' helmet),
came up and deliberately spilt milk and food all over the notes he was
making, so once again I was let off the search.
I
was incredibly lucky the next time I was pulled, the guy made me turn
out my pockets and much to my horror there was a small plastic bag that
I'd picked up on site that morning, thinking it may be useful later, and
in it was a smidgin of "blow". I can still feel the adrenalin
as he held it aloft in a triumphant way, the officer in charge came over
to view the contraband and I started to plead my innocence in what I thought
would be a futile way, but for some reason the officer said I had a trustworthy
face and believed my story, which was honestly true, phew....
courtesy
Paul Clark
Just
a couple of days before the end of the fest there was an almighty storm which
marked the end of the blistering summer, tents were blown down and washed out,
our dome collapsed in the gale during the night and 6 of us ended up trying
to sleep under the cone that was the top of the dome, it being all of 3 foot
square, trying to hold it to the ground in a force 9.
On
the morning of the last day, all the bikers lined up in pairs across the field,
revving up and parading around a bit, and the police used megaphones to tell
them that they would be escorted along the roads and had to be in single file.
So they massed together and ignoring the police made their way down the road
in double and treble file, brilliant.
It
was a pretty memorable experience all told, and on the last morning we collected
every "money back" bottle we could find, went to the local pub and
cashed them in to get enough money to get home again,
Richard Rowe
courtesy
Paul Clark
Hi,
It was bloody hot and the facilities were
… well there really weren’t any. I can remember the procession
of bikers arriving down the coast road. That was spectacular –
there just seemed to be hundreds of them going on forever coming onto
the site one by one in a long train. The police had encamped themselves
in the local pub and loads of people that I talked to were convinced
that we were going to be evicted at any time – until the bikes
turned up. There were only a few bands, but Tim Blake was the only one
I can remember – and he played for hours (well, it seemed like
hours at the time !!).
We hitched down and were moved on from the first site, which I think
was Tangmere somewhere near Canterbury. I’m still not sure how
far away Seasalter actually is from there, but I have a hazy recollection
of a bus ride to Whitstable. We arrived with almost nothing –
a sleeping bag or two here, a few bits of groundsheet there. I can remember
searching the site for anything to use to make some shade and ended
up with a few sticks to turn into a makeshift tent with a bit of that
groundsheet, supplemented by black bags. We alternated on sleeping under
this and spent most of each morning trying to rebuild it after it inevitably
collapsed overnight.
But it was a great festival and Tim Blake
was just brilliant.
Phil Moakes
I
was at 14 the oldest of the 3 of us that walked from Maidstone to Seasalter
for the festival I can’t remember a thing about it except a lot
of naked hairy men. The week before we had been to Knebworth for the
Stones. What a childhood!!
Steve Parks
Ian Colville
Richard Stanley
Hi
there
I was just reading Rogers Sea Salter adventures part 2 and found a great reference
to my parents Sheila and Colin from Thurrock, Essex and a description of their
journey home from Sea Salter. I was only 3 years old at the time, but remember
Roger at various festivals throughout my childhood. I have vivid memories of
him making lanterns out of tissue paper and setting them off during the night.
I
must have been to at least 50 or so festivals as a child, Stonehenge, Glastonbury,
Windsor, trentishoe, psilocybin, deeply vale. The memories have all blurred
into one as I was so young. Some memories are:
· Boiling water because of the lead content – I think at deeply
vale
· The white ambulance – I think at psilocybin
· Catching rides to the top of the site at Stonehenge on the back of
vehicles travelling up the track
· Some guy called Jesus who always seemed to be naked – which freaked
me out a bit being under 10 at the time
· The rickety bridge into the children’s field at Glastonbury
· Finding loads of money/jewellery and other stuff down at the stage
in the mornings when all the adults were asleep
· My parents amazing dome tent
· Getting hassled and searched by the police
What an amazing childhood my brother and I had, travelling around to different
festivals gaining a wealth of experience.
Becky
Free Festivals List
Any info to
add- well don't just sit there ! Contact
us
Free
festivals and small fayres held in the United Kingdom between 1967-90.
We
are proud of the contribution we have made to Andy Worthington's sociological
history of Stonehenge and the free festival scene in the UK .This
new book gives a fascinating insight into the various counter cultural
obsessions with the Stones and provides a variety of new perspectives
to many of the key events surrounding the Henge such as the Battle
Of The Beanfield and the more recent attempts hold a celebration at
the Stones during the Solstice.
Many, many
thanks go to Roger Hutchinson ,
Big Steve , Roger Duncan, Celia, Will ,
Chazz, Jeza ,Chris Hewitt ,The Fabulous Time Tortoise ,
Peter Piwowarski - ( 70s music site/photos ) Martin S, Steve Austin
,Traveller Dave, Herb, Tim Brighton, Vin Miles, Haze Evans , Noddy Guevara,
Chris Brown, Janet Thompson, David Stooke, Gary Gibbons , Nigel Ayers, Rich
Deakin ,Glenda Pescardo,Justin Warman,Brian F, Steve Bayfield, Kev Ellis, Paul
Seaton and many other minor contributors for their help in providing the archival
material related to these free festivals which has at enabled us to construct
the site .
Any info to add ?-well
don't just sit there , Contact
us
