THE STONEHENGE PEOPLES FREE FESTIVAL

The Stonehenge Peoples' Free Festival is said to have begun in 1972, and it then carried on each year including 1984. The eccentric called Wally Hope was a prime mover, and in a document that is preserved, he calls upon the name of God in asking permission for his gathering to take place. Among his visionary sayings are these "Every day is a Sunday" and "Everybody is a Department of the Environment". It was tightly knit tribe, all of whom were called Wally, as transpired when they appeared in the High Court in answer to a summons, together with Wally the Dog. This lent a light hearted air to the otherwise solemn proceedings, it is said.

The sad death of Wally Hope, of an overdose, following release from confinement in a mental hospital, caused many to talk darkly, that the government had managed to do away with him. An invasion of Stonehenge took place in which the ashes of Wally were scattered, and this led directly to the festival people acquiring a right to religious access to the stones. This was generally in the daylight, in the afternoon of the longest day, and I can confirm that I attended the gathering of the Children of Albion in 1984, and a naked priest initiated me by placing a spot of mud on my forehead with his finger. Access to Stonehenge is a separate topic, so I will say no more about it, in this paper.

To begin with, the gathering at Stonehenge was small and focussed on the Wallies. The largest alternative gathering of the day was the Free Festival in Windsor Great Park, but in the Summer of 1973 police closed down this camp in an unexpected dawn raid, ripping up tents and considerably frightening the peaceful campers. That this did not become a cause celebre in the way the incident in the Beanfield later did was probably due to two things.

Firstly the government of Jim Callaghan provided an alternative venue at the derelict airbase at Watchfield in 1974, so the government firstly admitted responsibility, for the police action, which is interesting, and as a one off Act of Reconciliation with the alternative community, colluded in a free festival. Secondly, according to Mr Sid Rawle, the representatives stated, that if they kept away from Windsor Great Park, they would be left alone at Stonehenge. The government thus were seen to be colluding with, the free festival at Stonehenge.

It must be questioned, if the government had indeed the power to do that. The National Trust is not a government agency, but an independent Association. Whether representatives of the government spoke to the National Trust asking them to show leniency is an interesting question for historians. Also it could be argued, that the independence of the Chief Constable, which is always trotted forth in reference to later events, was theoretically compromised by such a deal. Finally of course, it must be supposed that Margaret Thatcher's regime would not have felt bound by such an agreement, and would have repudiated it.

The extent of government involvement is an interesting question for historians. It may be that papers will emerge under the 30 year rule, so we may soon hear revelations about Windsor Great Park and about Watchfield, but we will have to wait to 2015 for any papers referring to the Beanfield.

The expression that is generally used is that the National Trust "acceded" to the Festival. They did not approve of it, nor give permission for it, but over many years they took no action to stop it. The press referred to it always as an "illegal" event. Also there was for a while an ad-hoc committee from the festival side that talked to the authorities, on the basis that, "You may not like it, but it may be assumed that the festival is going to happen, and there needs to be some discussion about the practicalities". The National Trust would certainly have contributed to those meetings. Practicalities would surely have included such matters of Health and Safety as water, sanitation and rubbish disposal.

In 1984 the last year of the festival, there were estimated to be between 30,000 and 50,000 campers. I was there and I got involved in investigating the problem as to why people were cutting down live trees on the site. That story belongs elsewhere, except to say that I tried to locate members of the festival "Committee" but all those that I could locate said quickly they had resigned and even walked quickly away terminating the conversation. By 1984 those individuals who had volunteered in any way to help the organisation felt threatened by being named in injunctions and lawsuits. Many of the problems experienced by the festival stemmed from this unavoidable inhibition of initiative and responsibility. It was not even the theory of anarchy subscribed to by some participants, but a result of the respective positions of the festival people and the authorities that ensured that the festival remained unorganised and unorganisable.

Now one very interesting piece of folklore is about the cost of the festival. This was said to be some £10,000 each year for water, rubbish clearance and repairing the fences. The bill was footed by the government, by The Department for the Environment, and 1984 was the last year they would have done that. With the devolution to English Heritage proceeding at that time, the DoE were no longer involved, the government washed their hands of the affair, English Heritage said they would not pay the costs in 1985, the National Trust were not willing to pay either, and then applied for legal injunctions to stop the festival.

Another strand of thought is that it was Wiltshire Constabulary who were advising the National Trust of the need to seek legal injunctions, in order to empower their plans to prevent the festival. There were law and order problems, which were perceived as these:
(1) the site was a no go area for police
(2) drugs of all kinds were openly on sale
(3) there was a suspicion of a protection racket against traders
(4) many burnt out cars, some allegedly stolen cars, were abandoned on the site in 1985
(5) local farmers were literally up in arms and threatening to use their shotguns.
I do not intend here to go into detail, about the truth or otherwise, and the context of these claims, but these were I think the main concerns of the Constabulary at the time, which led to the horrific incidents in the Beanfield in 1985 as detailed elsewhere.

Was there a collusion between the government, the police, councillors, landowners, EH and the National Trust, to prevent a free festival? Briefly I would say, yes, there was, and it continued for many years, and it is still in force today, although it is not such an issue as it was, because the threat of a free festival is much less and there are now laws that can be very quickly used to stop an unauthorised event. From the angle of the National Trust I do have a document, a letter from Mr Stirling, the then Director General, denying their complicity in a "pogrom" as I had alleged.

My concern in correspondence with the National Trust in 1986 was to get them to explain their actions. They came up with a Press Release which explained that it was purely because of damage to the land. Without being specific, this report mentioned a hole dug in a barrow, motor cycle track marks over a barrow, fire pits dug in the field damaging valuable and hitherto unexplored archeological evidence. I then requested to see a copy of the original reports by the National Trust's officers detailing the damage, so that it could be discussed and evaluated. I was giving the National Trust a chance to put their case and the community could either understand the National Trust's position, if it was genuine, and take the accusations to heart, or if the accounts could not be substantiated, expose them.

I was considerably annoyed and frustrated to be told that there were no such documents, a claim the National Trust has repeated in recent years. While papers dating back to 1984 may well have been shredded by now, to say that they had never existed did not make sense. I had to publish that the National Trust had not responded, with any evidence to back up their claims.

I also took into account the following reports:
(1) That the barrows had all been excavated and pillaged by somewhat unsystematic Victorian archaeologists. Their treasures were gone and they were only surface features.
(2) That a bread oven had been dug into a barrow in Fargo Woods by people occupying the land, earlier in the year, and NOT during the festival. The National Trust had also "acceded" to this occupation after the parties had apparently argued that they would protect the environment.
(3) The late Doug Read, former Amesbury Councillor, pointed out that the land had all been ploughed up during the "Dig for Victory" campaign during the war, so that there was not a precious layer of undisturbed archaeological remains, and the digging of small pits although perhaps undesirable, would have been largely irrelevant.
(4) When Doug and I visited the land, we found that it was grazed by a herd of bullocks, who were seriously eroding the edge of The Cursus. We both agreed this exposed the National Trust's alleged concern for the surface of the land as a naked sham.
These points were made to the National Trust, but they have never responded to them so far.

I therefore conclude, to the best of my knowledge and belief, that the National Trust put a stop to the Free Festival, not for archaeological reasons, but as part of a social and political agenda, as outlined earlier.

It is probable that they conspired with other parties to create the circumstances that led to the horrific events in the Beanfield, and must share some responsibility for what happened.

While I do believe, that to advance the Peace Process, the festival community should be offering some Act of Reconciliation to the National Trust, I also believe that the National Trust should make an Act of Reconciliation, the first part of which is to assist in the unravelling of the history, to which this memorial of mine is but a draft.

George Firsoff
21 Sept. 2002

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