THE COUNTERCULTURE
See Also: COUNTERCULTURAL MAGAZINES; POP & ROCK; SQUATTING
The Alchemical Wedding
In 1968
the Royal Albert Hall hosted The Alchemical Wedding. At this John Lennon
and Yoko conducted a bag happening to promote bagism. Jack Henry Moore (1940-2014) acted as the
silent master of ceremonies.
Location:
Kensington Gore, SW7 2AP (red, brown)
The Arts Lab
In 1967
Jim Haynes opened the Arts Lab in two warehouses that were located on Drury
Lane. The lighting designer and
long-time Lindsay Kemp associate John Spradbery (1930-2014) was active in the
Drury Lane Arts Laboratory. He described
it as being an extraordinary place where Hell's Angels and squatters lived
among the debris and paraphernalia of artists ambition. Moore designed the facility's cinema and
theatre space. The productions that were
mounted there included Jane Arden's Vagina Rex and The Gas Oven (1967)
and Steven Berkoff's adaptation of Kafka's In The Penal Colony.
Those
who frequented the Robert Street Arts Lab included John Hoppy Hopkins
(1937-2015). In 1970 the Arts Lab
invited the writer J.G. Ballard (1930-2009) to curate an exhibition. He based Crashed Cars on his
transgressive short story Crash which had been published in The
Atrocity Exhibition collection.
Later that year the Arts Lab closed.
Moore moved to Amsterdam where he co-founded The Milky Way. He went on to establish The Videoheads
archive of film that pertained to the counterculture.
Location:
182 Drury Lane, WC2B 5PP (blue, red)
1
Robert Street, NW1 3JU (red, turquoise)
See
Also: ARTS VENUES
Jenny Fabian
The Queen
magazine features editor Ann Barr's (1929-2015) encouraged Jenny Fabian to
write about the counterculture for the publication.
The Glastonbury Festival
Randolph
Churchill hired Andrew Kerr (1933-2014) to be his researcher for a biography of
Sir Anthony Eden. Kerr was an
undiagnosed dyslexic, therefore, Martin Gilbert (1936-2015) carried out much of
the work. Kerr became Randolph s
personal assistant; his talents included being the only person in the household
who could work out how to operate the boiler.
He effectively became a member of the family and their social
circle. Randolph died in 1968. By then Kerr and Randolph's daughter Arabella
(1949-2007) were particularly close. An
interest in the writings of John Michell led him into the hippy demi-monde
and this in turn to the shambolic Isle of Wight Festival. He and Arabella decided to organise a
countercultural festival that would not have an element of rampant
profiteering.
Their
first choice was Stonehenge. Jimi
Hendrix agreed to headline. However,
subsequently, he died thereby forcing the organisers to cancel. However, the site did not prove to be
practicable. Michael Eavis had staged a
musical festival at Worthy Farm in 1970.
This had been by Marc Bolan, however, the dairy farmer had made an
overall loss. He proved to be open to
co-organising another one; he soon that Kerr's charisma and charm would
facilitate doing so. Eavis was to
conclude that the crowd of upper-crust hippies were slightly unhinged . Upon one occasion he and they were in
disagreement. The hippies decided that
the matter should be resolved by a tarot reading. The apparent message No one with the name
Michael should be involved with the festival.
His response was to point out that it was his farm. He continued to participate in the
decision-making. He appreciated their
commitment to ecological and environmental issues.
The
stage was designed by Bill Harkin after he had consulted Michell about the
matter. The result was a 1:10 size
replica of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
Arabella furnished the 4000 that it cost to build. Kerr believed that the property stood a
leyline that connected Glastonbury to Stonehenge. He dowsed the in order the exact site upon
which it should be erected. Elsewhere,
sites were set aside for flying saucers to land.
Kerr
resolved that the Fayre should take place at the summer solstice so that it
would be attuned to the pagan calendar.
The acts that attended five-day-long event included Arthur Brown, David
Bowie, Fairport Convention, Hawkwind, and Traffic. The model Jean Shrimpton made a generous
contribution so that free food was available.
There was no advertising, no programme and no tickets. 7000 people attended. Onlt two people were arrested and one
detained under the Mental Health Act.
Nic Roeg and Peter Neal filmed the occasion. The result was entitled Glastonbury Fayre.
People
were still turn up several weeks after the event asking when was it going to
happen. A few continued to appear each
June. In 1978 Eavis helped them hold an impromptu
event. He secured a bank loan and
allowed Kerr and his associates to organise a small ticketed festival the
following year. This made a large loss. Eavis then took over the planning. He proved to have a gift for
organisation. Glastonbury became a
regular event in the early 1980s.
Subsequently, Kerr stepped down from acting as one of the principal
organisers.
Website:
www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk
John Hoppy Hopkins
After
reading physics at the University of Cambridge, John Hoppy Hopkins
(1937-2015) was determined to avoid national service. He did so by joining the staff of the Atomic
Energy Authority. He became part of the
local beatnik milieu and joined C.N.D..
He went on a tour of the Eastern Bloc in a yellow hearse that was
painted with the organisation's emblem. The
Daily Mirror newspaper ran a story about how Soviet agents had tried to
recruit him. He was sacked. He became a photojournalist first for the broadsheet
Sunday newspapers and then for the music paper Melody Maker. By reading the band dynamics of the Rolling
Stones and opting to take them to a cafe rather than try to shoot them in a
studio, he became the only photographer who was reputed to have secured
photographs of them before midday.
For
Hopkins the moment when the British counterculture coalesced was when 6000
people attended a poetry reading that Allen Ginsberg gave at the Royal Albert
Hall. In 1964 he met the record producer
Joe Boyd, a London resident American.
In 1964
Hopkins visited the United States for the first time. What he saw there, turned him on to the idea
of an alternative society . He decided
to set up a free school where anyone who had knowledge to impart could do so
in lessons. Those who attended the Free
School included the future actress Anjelica Huston, who at the time was a pupil
at Holland Park Comprehensive Park. To
raise awareness of the project he and Rhaunie Laskett, a local community
activist, organised a street process.
This became an annual event and evolved into being the Notting Hill
Festival.
The
School needed sources of income. A
series of fund-raising concerts were staged in All Saints Hall. At these bands such Pink Floyd and Soft
Machine made some of their earliest performances. Hopkins and his friend Barry Miles assumed
control of The Gate, a local newspaper.
They transformed it into the International Times. The metamorphosis was financed by Paul
McCartney. The publication launched the
underground press in Britain. It was
launched on 15 October 1966 with a party at The Roundhouse. The publication acquired a circulation of
40,000.
Subsequently,
Hopkins was to admit that the London Free School. What it did do was act as a magnet for a
group of disparate thinkers and thus as a catalyst.
At the
close of 1966 Hopkins and Joe Boyd opened the UFO nightclub on the Tottenham
Court Road to raise funds for IT. A week
later the former's flat in Westbourne Grove was raided by the police. He had left a block of cannabis by his
bed. It was found and he was charged
with possession of it.
In
March 1967 IT's offices were raided by the police.
The 14
Hour Technicolor Dream was held on 27 April 1967. The event was filmed by Peter Whitehead. The result was entitled Tonite Let's All
Make Love In London.
Hopkins
opted for a trial by jury. He did this
in order to have an opportunity to try to publicise his belief that marijuana
should be decriminalised. In June 1967
Judge Gordon Friend sent Hopkins to prison for nine months, admonishing him as
a pest to society . Hopkins took this
declaration to be a compliment. The
sentence marked the start of a clampdown on the counterculture. On the same day Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band was released.
A long
list of social and cultural luminaries signed a document that called for
cannabis to be legalised. Those who put
their names to the document included Francis Crick and Jonathan Miller. It was published in The Times
newspaper as an advertisement. McCartney
paid the cost of running it. The
mainstream media did not pay much attention to a campaign that was run to try
to secure Hopkins's release. Rather, it
opted to focus upon the arrests of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
The
Stones bust. Their release was swift. Hopkins served six months in Wormwood
Scrubs. As a result, he did not
participate in the Summer of Love. He
had been one of the phenomenon's principal architects.
The International
Times was charged with obscenity. It
had published gay contact ads.
The
spell in prison had an adverse effect on Hopkins's confidence. Following his release, he was not the same
organising force that he had been prior to his arrest. His subsequent employers included the Home
Office.
Without
Hopkins's guiding influence, the UFO lost its focus. It closed in the autumn.
The
events that took place in Paris in May 1968, prompted Hopkins and Miles to turn
IT into a workers co-operative.
Location:
The London Free School, 22 Powis Terrace, W11 1JH. The basement. (red, blue)
105
Westbourne Grove, W2 4UW. Hopkins s
flat. (blue, brown)
See
Also: FAIRS The Notting Hill Carnival; NIGHTCLUBS, DISAPPEARED UFO; SQUARES
Tolmers Square
Website:
www.hoppyx.com
The London Traverse Theatre Company
Jim
Haynes was an American who had settled in Edinburgh. There, he had opened the Paperback Shop,
helped revitalised the city's festival, and founded the Traverse Theatre
Company. Jack Henry Moore (1940-2014), a
gifted Oklahoman, became his close associate.
Moore was openly gay. This was a
factor in the two men's decision to move to London. With the backing of the Arts Council they
established the London Traverse Theatre Company. This was based in the Jeannetta Cochrane
Theatre. The productions that
transferred to the West End included Joe Orton's Loot (1965). Moore became a member of the group that
coalesced around the UFO nightclub
The
Jeannetta Cochrane Theatre hosted Yoko Ono's first U.K. happening.
Location:
The Cochrane Theatre, 48 Southampton Row, WC1B 4AP (blue, purple)
See
Also: FRINGE THEATRES & SMALL THEATRES
Release
In June
1967 Clive Goodwin, the editor of Black Dwarf magazine, asked Caroline
Coon, a student a Central St Martins College of Art, to help organise a
demonstration in Fleet Street to protest at the role that the News of the
World newspaper had played in the prosecution of Keith Richards and Mick
Jagger. During the demonstration she met
Harris, who was also a student at St Martins, beneath the statue of Eros in
Piccadilly Circus.
Release
was founded in the summer of 1967 by Caroline Coon and Rufus Harris (1946-2007)
to provide legal advice and welfare services to young people who had been
arrested for drug offences. Coon and
Harris, both of whom had attended art schools, had met a few weeks before
during a demonstration. The organisation
was prompted into being by the imprisonment of John Hoppy Hopkins, the
partner of Joe Boyd, for cannabis offences.
The folk singer Julie Felix provided the initial funding. Jonathan Aitken aided the project. Those whom it helped included George Harrison
and John Lennon. Harris developed a
close working relationship with H.B. Bing Spear, the progressively-inclined
head of the Home Office Drugs Inspectorate.
In 1969
Coon and Harris published The Release Report on Drug Offenders, which
described excessive drug sentencing and police corruption.
To
generate income, Harris organised the Implosion concerts that were held at the
Round House from June 1969 to October 1973.
These superseded the Middle Earth and UFO clubs.
Release s
activities were reviewed by the Rowntree Foundation. As a result, in 1972, it was granted
charitable status. Subsequently, it was
awarded a Home Office grant.
At the
end of the 1970s Harris left release although he continued to act as a
consultant to it. He became a solicitor.
Release
and the Notting Hill Carnival were the only aspects of Alternative 1960s
Notting Hill that survived in the 21stC.
Location:
61 Mansell Street, E1 8AN (red, purple)
50
Princedale Road, W11 4LY. Oz
magazine was based next door. (orange, purple)
Website:
www.release.org.uk
The Society of Mental Awareness
Steve
Abrams (1938-2012) was an American who in the 1960s was involved a
parapsychological research group at the University of Oxford that sought to
investigate behavioural engineering. It
was financed by the C.I.A.'s MK Ultra project.
In 1967 he emerged as a public advocate of cannabis. He established the Society of Mental
Awareness (S.O.M.A. - a reference to Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World
(1932)). This organised a letter that
sought to bring pressure to bear on the Wootton Committee. The letter, which was signed by 65 public
figures, was published in The Times newspaper on 24 July 1967 as an
advertisement. The 1800 bill was met by
The Beatles.
THC,
the active property of cannabis, was still legal. S.O.M.A. synthesised some and two doctors
were licensed to prescribed it. The New
of The World newspaper demanded, in reference to Abrams, This dangerous
man must be stopped!
The
Wootton Report was published in 1969.
The document's findings were liberal.
However, by then the Home Office had reverted to an authoritarian stance
on drugs.
In 1970
Abrams closed's.O.M.A..
Abrams
research materials were vested with the Wellcome Trust.
Location:
4 Camden High Street, NW1 7JE. A
S.O.M.A. office. (purple, red)
438
Fulham Road, SW6 1DU. A's.O.M.A. office.
(blue, yellow)
David
Backhouse 2024