STONEHENGE
'81
That summer of 1981
at the Stonehenge Free Festival, other people were lifting the veil
from their eyes - or from their third eye, at least - through copious
amounts of psychedelic drugs. Unswayed by the previous year's 'biker
riot' at the festival, a new generation of Punk Rockers were there in
attendance, swelling the ranks of the already flourishing and
criss-crossing tribes. For many, this would have been their first
encounter with a range of drugs beyond the accepted 'Punk drugs' of
speed, alcohol and glue; and no better place could there be to take a
first trip.
Careering around the
site from dusk to summer solstice dawn, the festival offered an array
of assaults upon the senses: fire breathers and flaming torch
jugglers, poets and ranters in hippy/Punk rags, hawkers and dealers
with spikes and dreadlocks, city hobgoblins and road rats, Hells
Angels on honeymoon and hippy would-be high priests. The outlandish,
the exotic, the weird and the frightening. Characters straight out of
Middle Earth, from the darkest streets, from all corners of the
country with accents to match.
Tents, benders,
wigwams, coaches, caravans, buses and ambulances. Banners and flags
declaring such messages as 'Happy Anarchy', 'Disorder - Complete
Fucking Chaos', and 'Anarchy England'. Drug price menus, nudity,
sound systems and a main stage graced by such bands as Ruts DC,
Androids Of Mu, Misty In Roots, Lightning Raiders (apparently
featuring a certain 'Wally' from the prototype Sex Pistols), Nik
Turner's Inner City Unit, The Mob, Flux Of Pink Indians (showing
either bravery or stupidity having under the guise of their previous
band name, The Epileptics, been bottled from the stage the previous
year), The Raincoats, Here And Now, and of course, Hawkwind.
A strange sense of
warmth and brilliance had descended upon those fields adjacent to the
standing stones, causing an air of common awareness. Though no doubt
magnified somewhat by the drugs, the people there were sharing an
insight into a vision of freedom where anyone could say, do and be
anything they wished so long as it didn't impinge upon the freedom of
others to do exactly the same. The very idea of anyone coming along
and saying you couldn't do this or you couldn't say that, or of
trying to assert their morals or their values upon another seemed
suddenly to be absolutely absurd.
In many ways this
was a representation not of an alternative society but of a true
society; standing in stark contrast to the society outside,
represented by the gangs of police waiting around on the edges of the
festival site busy training their binoculars upon the goings-on
within.
The festival made
apparent that these police officers were the real weirdos, especially
when harassing and strip-searching hapless festival-goers at the side
of the road, which was their wont.
Having suffered the
biker's violence of the previous year's festival, Stonehenge was
bearing up to be a life-changing experience in the positive. So much
so, in fact, that rather than simply returning after the festival was
over to the world of Thatcher and all which that entailed, a number
of people were deciding to continue the experience by moving on to
the next free festival site at Inglestone Common, near Bristol and
setting up camp there. Then after Inglestone moving on to the next
festival and then the next, and on and on.
Suddenly, adopting a
traveller lifestyle seemed quite an appealing career option...
Photo: Al Stokes
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