[This is George's personal account, first published in GREENLEAF in August 1986]

1. First convoy departs the West Country and is broken on the Stoney Cross

When the convoy that left Beach near Bath rushed to the Stones on May 16th, [1986] the authorities reacted quickly. We hear the Judge was hauled off the golf course on Saturday morning and by the afternoon the Sheriff was on the site ready. The travellers withdrew intact and settled near Cadbury in Somerset. Thier next move was the worst cock-up since 60 sheep were ripped apart by uncontrolled convoy dogs at Hay-on-Wye. They surged onto an uncut grassfield owned by a struggling farmer, Les Attwell who promptly collapsed with a stroke. A blaze of publicity resulted, led by Eddie Shah's Today who paid the eviction costs. Attwell wept on TV, John Gummer visited the site and told them to get jobs (many having cut hair already) while there was agitation in Parliament for a criminal trespass law. In more sober mood The Guardian editorial (May 30th) thought MOD could find a site on the Plain for a Festival, and the travellers had to go somewhere.

Meanwhile some 60 walkers started a Stonehenge Peace March from London on June 1st while others gathered to picket Lord Montagu's Estate at Beaulieu in the new Forest. Montagu is Chairman of English Heritage who manage the Stones and known for his opposition to the Festival. We hear that he slipped quietly abroad for a time. The travellers in Somerset were made to separate at the Dorset border, but regrouped at Corfe Castle, where the police had them blocked in a narrow lane. Their escort followed them for many miles until they turned off the main road and halted near Stoney Cross in the New Forest, by the site of an old airfield now covered in scrub. Police refused to let them onto this site, but filling in part of the ditch they entered and made camp.

At a hearing for possession Mr Justice Alliot tried to cool the situation by recommending the Forestry Commission to allow a week for the travellers to go. Hailing this a victory the convoy declared the site a Festival. However the police made life difficult for anyone who joined them, even arresting visitors. The Judge took the unheard of step of holding a press conference to explain his decision. He had meant the travellers to disperse slowly over the week but it has got to be said that if he allowed any of them to stay the whole week he gave that right to all of them. The convoy bound they hoped for Stonehenge, had no intention of dispersing.

Observed by a team from BBC Southern Region, who produced a programme recently about this "Operation Daybreak" 500 Hampshire police in 200 vehicles moved in early on June 9th outnumbering the camp and soon managed to separate people from their vehicles which were mostly declared unroadworthy and impounded, some on genuine but others on trivial grounds. Not all accepted the arrangements offered to go to a reception centre where tea and rail vouchers were given out. To their credit many set off on foot aiming for Glastonbury. The first day they were forced to march about 18 miles by constant police harassment. Their courage and the mean and outrageous treatment awakened a response from ordinary people many of whom brought free food and blankets for the destitute pilgrims. Meanwhile Chief Constable Donald Smith of Wiltshire and John Duke of Hampshire were well pleased with having "decommissioned" the troublesome convoy, as the latter put it.

2. Second Convoy miraculously materialises in Wiltshire

Meanwhile a group of 15 met at Castle Green in Bristol on June 7th. As the [local] band struck up a march from the stand old folks in deckchairs waved and the walkers set out in high spirits. After meeting on Walcot Green in Bath they spent the night in Rainbow woods and then vanished into the bush heading for Wiltshire. The walkers from London came along the Roman Road from Andover and camped for the last night at Figsbury Ring, to which the National Trust had ironically recently established a public right of way in a court hearing.

To prevent the threatened nude event in Salisbury police had conjured up an Act of 1847 and vehicles were made to drive round and round the ring road. However a successful protest meeting was held in the Market Square on Saturday 14th Jun attracted some public support. Then the walkers, their support vehicles and others who had arrived in the area headed up into Grovely Woods where police allowed a camp to set up on a Forestry road while they guarded and patrolled the private land adjoining it where I had my tent. In the morning I had the pleasure of harassment by vigilantes who pulled out the pegs, stealing some of them.

Later that morning I parked at Steeple Langford and walked up to Yarnbury Castle which is an ancient fort. On the other side I met the farmer in a truck, his mate in a tractor and two helicopters. He told me the police had rung him in the middle of the night. "Of course", he said "We have no right to block the road up the droves, but the police told us to do it". Later I heard that a group of suspicious looking walkers had been chased away from Yarnbury during the night. On Monday another ancient camp at Scratchbury was occupied for a few hours recieving the attention of MOD police.

Some 600 formed up at Groveley Wood site that Sunday afternoon into a convoy to look for somewhere better. Strange rumours came down the line of vehicles, such as the police were negotiating a site. But having forced the vehicles to go West along the Wylye, they left them boxed in a side road by Stockton for the night. In the morning they were told to get moving again, it was thought the police plan was to drive everyone towards Glastonbury. Disputing this the lead vehicle turned left, which led over the bridge towards Boyton. I have been told a police van partially blocked this road and the officers leaped on Willie X pushing his face into the road before arresting him. Outside this area it was like the eye of a storm. Aerial patrols went to and fro, police were ordering lorries to turn round at the transport cafe and local people who had never seen the like felt intimidated although some blamed the "hippies" for being there in the first place.

After this incident near Boyton Bridge things looked ugly but senior officers realised they had blown it and the convoy were now allowed the right which they had always legally possessed, to go in the direction they wanted. They crossed the Wylye and going East along the B road, set up a site at Hanging Langford. The name refers to the steep slope of Groveley Woods, not to the aftermath of a peasant rebellion as was suggested.

I described how this group met. There were the walkers from Bristol and London, Stonehenge Campaign supporters from Bradford and Liverpool, a group from Dundee, another from Germany. One man is said to have walked from Grenoble, Switzerland. Most were total strangers who had never met before. Most were on holiday, or on the road for the summer. Very few were full-time travellers and hence no large vehicles or proper 'travelling homes'. With some exceptions, we were not part of the so called "peace conovy" and had no established leaders. But mutual support and solidarity was very strong. All organisation was spontaneous or else derived from direct democracy of site meetings. One problem was not being able to discuss or plan anything confidential such as where to go next, particularly as meetings tended to coincide with the snap arrival of police or other strangers.

3. Meeting and mingling with divers denizens of the said County

We agreed however to allow the BBC documentary team from Bristol to film us and travel with us. Many of us thought this was our best, or only protection against police violence or other irregularity. Thanks to the funding from London squatters, Robin's Greenwood Gang managed to send out volunteers each day for a ton of fuel wood which was then free for the taking. Finally a stage was set up and we had a night of music. We had become "Stonehenge in Exile" with a population of about 1000. But where were we to go ?

Hanging Langford parish supported us and donated some large refuse sacks. We had good relations with the tenant farmer although he wanted us to quit the meadow (some of us set up home among the nettles instead). However, the first term of his lease prohibited trespassers and an eviction order was obtained, execution timed for Friday 20th June, while the Forestry Commission and Wilton Estate injuncted thousands of acres of forest. On the Friday morning a letter also arrived on site from Donald Smith detailing his terms for people being allowed near the Stones at Solstice. Mr Mills of English Heritage had made plain to me that access to the Stones was being dictated by the Chief Constable for the second year running. Smith's first condition was that we would not be allowed to attend "as a group" and further that 300 could go, 100 at a time, in chartered buses, all of which was laughable and was duly laughed at when Brigg Oubridge read it to the site that morning.

As I described the Chief Constables had, at great expense, dispersed the first convoy consisting of travellers, but now found another had appeared from nowhere, escaped control, and set up camp seven miles from the Stones. What was worse we had established good relations locally and were about to clear up every scrap of rubbish from the site. They had told us they would stop vehicles at five miles and this was generally known. But what if we camped outside this zone, peacefully walked to the Stones and had a celebration as we planned? The whole of Operation Solstice would be proved a multi-million pound farce and heads might roll. So an ambush was planned.

Where the A36 is a dual carriageway at the top of the hill by Deptford vans were pulled across the road blocking all passage. Transits in wire riot cages waited on the grass reservation behind each packed with officers representing between them eleven English Counties. At a meeting police demanded that the vehicles split into groups of 3 or 4. This remained hypothetical as we were blocked in front and behind. The general feeling was that we were safer if we stayed together. Now the officers were unleashed from their cages and wearing their black gloves, moved down to the end of the line. About 210 were arrested on the laughable charge of obstructing the highway. Some were arrested while attempting to leave. Others got away and a field was briefly occupied at Stapleford. Police then closed the road leading to Stapleford Village. Meanwhile apparently an "advance guard" had actually reached Yarnbury Castle.

Each arrested person had an arresting officer and we travelled in coaches to HQ Devises where we all occupied a garage for the rest of the day and well into the night. One object was to accumulate data on the prisoners. One question led to another. When you gave your address the next question was "what is that, a flat or a house?" one woman near me answered a question about whether her mother was divorced. Then she was asked if her sister was divorced. However the main spin-off of the operation was a degree of fraternization. Officers shared their food with us. They were forced to remain with us for over eight hours. Few could have gone home believing stories about evil hippies in quite the way they did before. "What's the name of this operation?" asked one prisoner. "Operation cock-up" was the opinion he received. Many felt they could have been better employed catching criminals. When a white shirt (Wiltshire senior officer) tried ordering the men to treat us more like prisoners the rot had well set in and he got a negative response. "You see the shit we have to put up with" said one turning to his prisoner companion. I dwell on this as a significant feature of the 1986 Campaign.

4. Clowns, razor wire, planning officers and twisted subterfuges of law

There were no free cells in Wiltshire and at four in the morning we were bedding down in police stations in Bristol, Gloucester, Cheltenham and the Isle of Wight. I'd like to mention how George of Truro kept out spirits up with his outrageous clowning, standing on his head in front of the police and doing mime shows, that we were handcuffed in pairs and taken to Swindon and only released on condition that we stay out of Wiltshire and how when I got to the vehicle pound they'd locked it early. Another court sat in Salisbury and there was a carnival spirit in the Square there with guitar music and members of the public argued riotously about hippies in front of TV cameras.

Relatively few found their way to Stonehenge on Solstice day. It did depend on which road block you came upon. But it was said that there were 42 from Hanging Langford site. Tim Sebastian announced Secular Druids would not perform their ceremony in protest at "Our brothers and sisters who could not be here" but the ancient druids [probably Loxley's Church of the Universal Bond] invited others to join them in a simple ritual in the road in front of the razor wire. Thus there was a new understanding of the situation.

Two owners offered us sites in the Test Valley in Hampshire. One who was vexed about the refusal of planning permission as apparently told by a councillor "you're more difficult to deal with than the hippies" and this gave him the idea. He built a plastic greenhouse in which people slept. But the travelling tribe the Mutants did not want the "weekenders" to stay and had hysterical rows among themselves. So we were quite happy to move to the second site at Stoney Marsh near Mottisfont, the owner of this was in Australia and disabled children had ridden motorbikes on the land until neighbours complained at the noise.

The weather was very hot and we hunted for access to the rather privatized river to bathe. After a while the site changed hands, filling up with first convoy people from Glastonbury who were trying to save their vehicles at Stoney Cross. The pound was nearby and when they had to quit the site later an attempt was made to squat the pound and arrests took place. The struggle over these vehicles continues, an injunction was recently won halting destruction of some of them.

I think we had a marvellous campaign. I was particularly struck with how civil the inhabitants were towards us. This included tenants of land, councillors of the parish and parsons as well as ordinary villagers, some of of whom were on our side against the police and they also had a similar sense of community to ours, of a kind I think is rare in cities. I think it must be only a matter of time before the lawlessness and twisted subterfuges of the police are apparent to all and we shall negotiate and win our site as well as access to the Stones. It has got to be said it was a marvellous adventure and we will come back next year!