130 FANS CHARGED
AT ROCK FESTIVAL.
by JEREMY BUGLER
THE
outlawed rock music festival in Windsor Great Park started yesterday with
thousands of fans running the gauntlet of road blocks, searches and, arrests
by the police Drug Squad. Police
arrested more than 130 people. By yesterday evening over 40 of them had
been charged, most of them with possessing cannabis , but there were also
a number of cases of alleged theft.
A police laboratory worked overtime analyzing Windsor 'substances'
and also drugs from the rival, fee-charging festival down the road at
Reading.
A Thames Valley police spokesman said more
than 70 fans at Reading had been charged with various offences. Many appeared
in court during the day and 30 more were expected to appear before magistrates
tomorrow. Inside Windsor Great Park the most popuIar drug was the sun,
which shone steadily in defiance of the locals who had prayed for rain.
An old fashioned drug was making a comeback in the heat. It was beer.
|
The
festival's organiser , Bill Dwyer, a hirsute Stationery Office clerk,
was mainly pleased. "I deeply resent the Drug Squad;
everything else is great." Few
latrines were dug, despite promises, and most people made for the
bushes. Yet the festival has eight more days to go.
The drug aid association Release
ran a field station.: Dr John Guv, working part time, said he had
a few cases of people with bad trips. One man threw himself on a
fire. Firemen were called to put out several fires lit in some of
the park's great old oak trees. Other people pulled down branches
to make fires.
This was at odds with the Festival's
claim to be 'a festival of Ecology.'
|
 |
|
