Jakartass Home thoughts from abroad. Alien thoughts from home.

Because our parents and teachers had “fought the war for the likes of us”, in the 50′s and 60s we were raised to be conformists. Many of our teachers had seen service in World War 2 and had subsequently learned how to teach in a one year course at one of the 55 emergency training collegs hastily established to meet the demand.

Naturally discipline was strict, almost military at times. In state-run schools, and also in private schools where at least part of the funding came from government, corporal punishment was not outlawed by Parliament until 1987.

The 1944 Education Act introduced the Tripartite System of secondary education which consisted of three different types of secondary school: grammar, secondary technical schools and secondary modern. It allowed for the creation of comprehensive schools which would combine these strands. As to who went where, the 11+ exam was introduced. The grammar schools were intended for children who would later be expected to go onto to tertiary education and gain a university degree before entering the workplace.

It was my misfortune to be the only boy from my primary school to go to a grammar school founded in 1652 with the Worshipful Company of Leathersellers, a guild granted a royal charter in 1444 by King Henry VI with the power to import, regulate and control the manufacture and sale of leather throughout London, as its Board of Trustees. I was lonely and ill-suited to the learning of Latin by rote, or mathematics come to think of it, and I was generally streamed in the lowest class each year. My reports always had the comment that I had ability “but could do better”.

Because I was extremely short-sighted, as my owl-like glasses proved, my sporting endeavours were confined to running the line for rugby matches, or going on cross-country runs. As the school playing field was in suburbia, this meant running through streets with little to view. Unfortunately, I was rather good at that and got picked to be one of the twelve in the school’s cross-country team against Shooter’s Hill Grammar. I made sure that I came in 23rd (not 24th and last) so that I wouldn’t be picked again!

I was not such a loner that I considered suicide, which poor Terry Stitson did by hanging himself from a clothes peg in the changing room. All the same, the only friends I had were similar misfits.

(If you really want to know which school this was, and still is although it is now co-educational, then you may like to know that noted jazz-rock musician Tony Reeves left two or three years before I did. A couple of other ‘Old Boys’, now deceased, were Henry Williamson, author of Tarka the Otter and a member of the British Union of Fascists, and Edward Nelson, whose “moving portrait of his wife won the prize for the best portrait in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1947.”)

I eventually moved on to a three year course at a Teacher Training College. Because I was not under any compulsion to take part in sporting activities, I took to them with alacrity and represented the college in the following sports: football, field hockey, badminton, tennis, and stoolball. I even on occasion played cricket and seven-a-side rugby (without my glasses), generally because there was a desperation to make up the numbers.  .

Obviously, being given the freedom to grow into adulthood, to be individually responsible for one’s actions, was liberating.

School was inhibiting and I had few outlets for individual expression, so greatly admired the few who broke the mould. There was a school band among my contemporaries, Karl King and the Vendettas. Karl was not at our school, but the others were. Thanks to the power of the internet, you can see some memorabilia and hear their demo single here.

One outlet we did have was the fantasy world of comics with the Bash Street Kids and the Nigel Molesworth books written by Geoffrey Willans, with cartoon illustrations by Ronald Searle, which ridiculed skool rools and dissiplin and pompus teechers at St. Custard’s.

It is the death at the weekend of Ronald Searle, at the ripe age of 91, which has occasioned this post. Apart from Molesworth, as “as any fule kno”, Searle also created St. Trinian’s, a fictional girls’ boarding school that later became the subject of a popular series of comedy films which were regularly shown on our (b&w) TV. (Ignore the 2007 remake.)

Searle’s publisher, Simon Winder said, “He created an alternative to the conformity of Harold Macmillan’s Britain. He gave Britain in the 1950s particularly a sense of anarchy. He was extraordinarily sceptical about all forms of authority and there’s something just astonishingly anarchic about Molesworth and St Trinian’s.”

Ah, anarchy. I’m not sure I knew what the word meant then, but I’ve learnt my lessons well since.
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Check out Perpetua – a Ronald Searle tribute blog.
Follow Nigel Molesworth on Twitter (@reethen)

"Impersonal forces over which we have almost no control seem to be pushing us all in the direction of the Brave New Worldian nightmare; and this impersonal pushing is being consciously accelerated by representatives of commercial and political organizations who have developed a number of new techniques for manipulating, in the interest of some minority, the thoughts and feelings of the masses.”
- Aldous Huxley fr. 1958 Preface to Brave New World

Ten years later the baby boom generation, or bulge babies as we were termed in the UK, reached adulthood. The American baby boomers found themselves embroiled in a doomed war in Indo-China, and in much of the western world, students discovered street power.

We had a voice, but also needed information, preferably not that brought to us by the mass media. One source I relished in London was the American-based Whole Earth Catalog, first published in 1968, whose Guiding Tenet was as follows:

"We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far remotely done power and glory – as via government, big business, formal education, church – has succeeded to the point where the gross defects obscure actual gain. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, person power is developing – power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the Whole Earth Catalog."

As long ago as their Spring 1984 edition they were foreseeing the future role of personal computer networking.

"…. the flexible nature of telecommunications inspires everyone who tries it to do something different. I've seen people play games, order products, start small businesses that span continents on nationwide conferencing networks, retrieve public domain software or seek romance from free bulletin boards, investigate background material about specific news stories, get stock quotations, and work at home, sending their reports to the office by electronic mail."

What they didn't foresee was that large corporations with pet politicos, or as with Aburizal Bakrie, politicians with large corporations, would continue to manipulate "the thoughts and feelings of the masses." (As the latest batch of Wikileaks suggests, the American administration, which is in hock to corporate power, think Bakrie is "a potential US favorite to run for president in 2014."

Leopards do not change their spots so when "the masses" do rise up, as they did here in '97 and '98 and as we're witnessing with the "Arab Spring", the elite forces change sides for the moment, then revert to their corridors of power when it is considered safe to do so. (The military remains in control in Egypt.)

A British version of the Whole Earth Catalog was The Index of Possiblities whose "aim was to try and encompass the breadth of what [was seen] at the time as a new revolution in thinking in a series of five volumes that took broad general themes – Energy & Power, Structures & Systems, Communications, Down-To-Earth Life and Survival Facts, and Inventions, Discoveries, Explorations, Games containing cross-referenced information from not only many areas of science but also mysticism and religion – to form a new kind of encyclopedia for a new age."

That wonderfully provocative publication fundamentally firmed up my approach to life, one of continually asking "Why not?" rather than just "Why?"

Another publication, which I subscribed to until I left the UK, was Omni Magazine which eschewed consumerism and according to its publisher, Bob Guccione, offered a "controversial mixture of science fact, fiction, fantasy and the paranormal."

The mind is a wonderful machine: unlike a computer it can create a private fantasy world and can ask "what if" rather than "What?"

The kids who are growing up surrounded by cyber technology will have better hand-eye co-ordination than their parents, but shorter attention spans. They will be better at holding many things in their heads at once, but worse at remembering them afterwards.
fr.Review of Cyburbia – The Dangerous Idea That's Changing How We Live And Who We Are by James Harkin. pub. Little, Brown 2009.

Although I wonder.why students need a pencil for computer marked tests, it can be a weapon of choice, a chance to opt out of cyberspace. A better use for a pencil is doodling. Not only can this sharpen and enhance eye-mind-hand co-ordination, but  what some view as idleness is the sub-conscious manifesting itself; just as a night's sleep can resolve a previous day's problems, so doodling can give one pause for thought, thus offering solutions or understanding, or much needed relief from a stressful situation. This is to be encouraged.

Pencils can also be used for sculptures, as accessories for idle film actors, or for self-defence.

Doodlage is a site for folk with a lot of time on their hands – like this guy who dismantles watches to make models of motorbikes.

Thus proving the central thesis of the post: with imagination it is possible to opt out of the rat race. Amaze yourself and try to be what you want to be.

… this week

What I've been listening to

1.  Arve Henrikson is a Norwegian trumpet player, renowned for his distinctive, flute-like sound on the trumpet, inspired by the sound of the Japanese shakuhachi flute. He also sings; his unique wordless vocalising was central to Chiaroscuro, where he often sings in a soprano's range. The control over his head voice is such that he could quite easily be mistaken for a woman.

He has played among others with Misha Alperin, Jon Balkes Magnetic North Orchestra, Nils Petter Molvær, Audun Kleive, Trygve Seim, Terje Isungset, Christian Wallumrød and recently with Iain Ballamy's Food for Quartet and Supersilent.He has also contributed to David Sylvian's Nine Horses project and his latest work, When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima.

Watch video here.

2. Petra Haden – daughter of Charlie, world renowned jazz bassist with Bill Frisell.

Haden's hypnotic vocals blend in well throughout the program, and she smartly imposes her own personality on certain numbers, like Lover Man, which avoids the same old, bluesy sentiments in favor of supple suggestions and woozy charm, and I Loves You Porgy, which sparkles and shines. Like Frisell, Haden is completely lacking in affect, which is made abundantly clear on the duo trip through I've Got A Crush On You.

Watch video here.

3. Beirut: Conch shells sound better than guitars
If anything could be said to unify their disparate sounds, a heady mix of Balkan gipsy flavours and French chanson, it is a highly imaginative take on rock and roll that makes much use of non-traditional instruments.

Listen here.

What I've been reading

1.  Geothermal Resources Could Power Canada One Million Times Over
And Indonesia?

2.  Dams Banned in Brazil and Burma.
People be praised, big business be damned.

3.  Would you do this?
He works 14 hours a day, often six days a week and says, "I love my job."

4.  There's an artist in all of us
"What I found in Rouffignac is that the children are screaming from the walls to be heard. Their presence is everywhere. And there is a five-year-old girl constantly shouting: 'I wanna paint, I wanna paint'."

5.  And the winners of the IgNobel Prizes for achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think" are ……..      
Peace: Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running over them with a tank.
Literature: John Perry of Stanford University for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which states: "To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important."

And this blog is proof of that!

What I've been writing

She got in our mikrolet; it was another tight squeeze, but our knees tried not to touch. She looked cultured yet pensive, worried even, protectively clutching her tote bag, a patchwork of batik scraps.

She had her fare ready, two plastic Rp.500 coins and a soft filthy Rp.1000 note which had passed through too many hands.

Too soon she called out to the driver, "Kiri bang," got down, passed him the Rp.2000 through the front passenger's window, and we drove off.

I looked back and watched her cross the road and pass through the gates of the hospital …

A hike in memory of David Jardine took place on Saturday 30th April at Gunung Salak. For a year prior to his death Dave had been resident in a Bogor guesthouse, where he enjoyed a fine view over the town rooftops, the Cisadane river and on to the cone of Gunung Salak. His expressed wish for his ashes to be scattered on the volcano fitted his love of nature generally, of the fells of his native Cumbria, and of the mountain landscapes of his adopted home..

On advice from Dan, our gunungbagging expert, our team opted not to carry the ashes up to the summit, a grueling whole day expedition suitable only for the young and fit. Instead we followed an attractive trail through montane forest to the Salak crater, some 800 meters below the summit. This path starts from the road adjacent to Javana Spa, a health resort with beautifully tended gardens and, germanely for us, a spacious car park.

Despite worries that a large vehicle might struggle on the narrow turns up to the start point, the Elf that Chris had hired for our eleven-person group turned out to do just fine along the narrow village tracks, past the clusters of warung on the way up to the forest and the gates of Javana Spa. For those who might want to do this hike themselves, access is from the Ciawi-Sukabumi road; just after crossing the railroad track there is a large Javana Spa sign indicating the turn-off to the right, with a further 12km up to Javana Spa. The hiking trail starts about 200m before the Spa entry at a small ranger hut with an iron gate and some steps leading into the forest.

Our hike started with an effort to find a shortcut from the Javana Spa car park directly onto the crater trail. This did not actually lead us where we wanted, but did give us a chance to view a large nursery of saplings donated by dozens of generous spa guests (including a few celebrities!). After contemplating the hope for reforestation we eventually backtracked down the road to the ranger hut and made our start from the “official” gate, which is also the starting point for the most popular Salak summit hike.

Our original plan was to walk the whole 5 km to the crater together for the scattering of the ashes. However it soon became apparent that our team- now twelve people with Byron having ridden up his trail bike to join bus-borne Terry, Lily, Jesse, Tim, Chris, Mark, Vonny, John (me), Iin, Simon and Dan-  were of such widely differing ages and speeds that a more sensible alternative was for only the fitter members to press on to the crater while the rest of us enjoyed just the first couple of kilometers along the forest trails. This is a beautiful lower montane forest, lush, green and cool, leaves dripping with moisture and birds twittering constantly from the undergrowth.

No wonder it is a popular destination. We met half a dozen groups heading up and down to camp or hike. One intrepid gang were even wheeling bikes up the trail. That, I suspect, was a misjudgment. Although the trail involves only a small overall ascent, it rises and falls over frequent small ravines of slippery rocks, where cycling up would be impossible and cycling down would be a kamikaze mission.

Besides a number of Indonesian hikers, we also met a fast-moving fellow Englishman, on an urgent mission to get ahead in a hurry. “I’ve got to catch up with some mates,” he explained breathlessly as he steamed past. “You mean, the guys taking David Jardine’s ashes up the mountain?” we surmised. “Yeah, that’s right!”

This, in fact, was Will, a late addition to our party who struck out boldly from Jakarta by train to Bogor and then by ojek up to the start point, all the while receiving cellphone updates from Simon about how to find the route and whether he had any realistic chance of catching up with us before we were already back at the car park resting our legs.

As it turned out he was well in time for the actual scattering of the ashes, which we divided into two phases, one at the crater itself, and one at the wooden bridge closer down toward the spa. This setting certainly inspired us with a sense of wonder and brought David back at one with the nature for which he had such feeling. As we Jakartans eye up the mountains on those haze-free days, Mount Salak will continue to impose itself on our senses, just as David’s memory will live on in our minds.

As a reminder that Indonesia can sometimes be a most frustrating place, as well as a most inspiring one, we spent six hours stuck in traffic on the road back to Jakarta, specifically Jalan Jaksa, where we recovered with a much-needed meal and drank to his memory. What would Dave himself have had to say about our little jungle jaunt in homage to him?

I don’t know. But I think he would have had a twinkle in his eye.
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Contributed by John Hargreaves.

Many Brits are leaving town this weekend because it's a national holiday, a long weekend. I'm doing the same, but for a different reason.

National holidays in Indonesia are nearly always a nod towards one of the six officially 'recognised' religions. For example, last Friday was a 'Good' one. In Britain, Easter Monday is also a day off, but not here, especially for teenagers such as Our Kid

On Monday he sat the first of four national exams. Like other Year 9s throughout the country, he has been reviewing, revising, regurgitating what he was taught, largely by rote, in years 7 and 8.

Today is the start of his 'holiday' which will last until he starts senior high school in July.

Today is also the 'Wedding`, sorry, The Wedding, a day when new-borns throughout the world will be named William and Kate.

I thought I might escape the palaver, but no. I'm not sure about National Geographic Wild, but a glance at the schedules of the other documentary channels on TV tells me that there is little escape, not even here.

I do have an invite to the Embassy do, but not having a suit or uniform, I've respectfully declined.

Earlier I settled down for my morning read of the Jakarta Post, anxious to read about the latest corruption cases. However, there was no escape from the fairy tale of the year, not even in the editorial column.

Thirty years ago, when William's father Charles married Lady Diana Spencer, many Indonesian girls born in the days, weeks and months afterward were named Diana. This time, Indonesian parents thinking along the same lines should pay attention to the spelling of Kate, which in Indonesian would be pronounced kah-teh, which means dwarf.

The editorial also wonders if anyone from Indonesia has been invited to the wedding. Good question!

I'm otherwise engaged. Tomorrow, at the crack of dawn, we set off on the Dave Jardine Memorial Walk, to scatter half his ashes on the slopes of Gunung Salak. (The other half will be taken to Carlisle, England, for interment in the family plot.)

Later, we'll adjourn to Pappa's in Jl. Jaksa, hopefully before dusk, and will raise our glasses to celebrate Dave.

Maybe we'll also raise our glasses to Bill and his 'dwarf' bride.

It was 30 years ago today that Brixton in South London erupted in rioting

I was there, but as a mere observer. As I was then living in a flat at the bottom end of the Front Line, Railton Road, and working with disadvantaged youths in Stockwell, to the north of Brixton, I was well aware of the impact of "Operation Swamp". This was so-called because of Margaret Thatcher's infamous comments that "people in some communities were feeling swamped by alien cultures." This was a deliberate attempt to persuade fascist National Front supporters into the Tory party fold.

If I'd been of West Indian heritage – an alien culture (!?) – I too would have built up a store of resentment at being singled out by the forces of Thatcher law and order and regularly arrested because of the colour of my skin on "suspicion of carrying drugs, or theft." I'd probably also have been unemployed and therefore hanging out on the neighbourhood streets with my mates.

The so-called "sus law" was used seemingly indiscriminately in terms of the numbers hauled off to the local police station. One lad I'll never forget was 16 year old Derek. He was a feature at the go-karting project and adventure playground in the 'catchment area' of the charity I was director of. He had a very low mental age and in spite of his size behaved like a seven year old. Everyone liked him.

One day he'd gravitated down to the skateboard park at the end of Stockwell Road which was exactly opposite Brixton police station. He was carrying his collection of toy cars in his pockets. When he was picked up on 'sus' of stealing them, he said nothing. He was bemused, unused to anybody not treating him as a seven year old but as a teenage thug.

Extracting him from the clutches of the coppers drained us all emotionally.

How fucking dare they!

Well they did, and finally Brixton exploded, and few of us were surprised.

It was not a race riot as some media said; purely and simply, as the resultant Scarman Report made clear, the riot was an outburst of violence against the police, and that local community leaders and police should share the blame for the breakdown in communications. It also stated that the police needed to be better organised for riot control, and made clear the extent to which increasing unemployment coupled with discrimination against the black community in a variety of ways were vital contributory factors.

Someone else who was there was Kim Aldis. His photos bring all my memories flooding back.

Electric Avenue
Down in the street there is violence
And a lots of work to be done
No place to hang out our washing
And I can't blame all on the sun, oh no
CHORUS:
We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Oh we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Workin' so hard like a soldier
Can't afford a thing on TV
Deep in my heart I'm a warrior
Can't get food for them kid, good God
CHORUS
Oh no…
Oh no…
Oh no…
Oh no…
CHORUS
Who is to blame in one country
Never can get to the one
Dealin' in multiplication
And they still can't feed everyone, oh no
CHORUS
Out in the street…
Out in the street…
Out in the playground…
In the dark side of town…
CHORUS
Rock it in the daytime
Rock it in the night ..
Eddy Grant

Actually, I'm not, but when I started teaching in an inner-London primary school in '67, I did get to experience some of the counter-culture.

My first contact was at a party in a penthouse suite of the London offices of a construction company in Baker St. where I was intrigued by a 'hippy' dancing with his shadow on the wall. Shortly after, as I went to fetch another beer from the kitchen I was offered a take on a joint, a roll up of tobacco and marijuana. At first hesitant, I demurred, but then I accepted after considering a couple of factors: one, my grandfather had enjoyed it whilst on service in the Middle East during the first World War, and two, my reading about the 'evil weed' was clear on one thing: this is not an addictive narcotic.

But it certainly is a tool for changing one's outlook on life, basically by freeing up inhibitions – and I had many – and releasing one's imagination.

Continuing my quest for self-knowledge, once I'd proved to my satisfaction that I could teach, I set off on my first set of worldly travels and ended up in Ibiza, which I didn't then know was the setting of the German film More which "deals with heroin addiction on the island of Ibiza."

Not that that interested me. As my funds ran out, I scraped a living working in a leather workshop – where I made the belt buckle I use to this day. I rented a small finca (rural dwelling) and occasionally dabbled in the uppers (Boostade), downers (Dormadina) and in-betweeners readily available from any apotique. I also got to meet some of the other expats living a much richer life of sybaritism.

They included Howard Marks, aka Mr. Nice, who was building a drug smuggling empire which, at its peak during the mid 1980s had eighty-nine phone lines, and twenty five companies trading throughout the world, and he had had forty-three aliases.

At the time I met him, in '72, his finca was on a hillside with a magnificent view over the surrounding terraces and fields. One Saturday he held a party for his neighbours which I felt grateful to be invited to. In his fromt yard a large fire had been built which his landlord was using to cook up a magnificent paella (fried rice/nasi goreng) for the guests. There was also a large quantity of wine, but it was one bottle in particular which I was most interested in and the landlord was most definitely not allowed to imbibe from.

I was given to understand that Mr. Nice had taken delivery of a large quantity of Orange Sunshine LSD (acid), a hallucinogenic drug, and that a wine bottle of two had been 'doctored' with tabs which had broken in transit. Suffice to say that the party was wonderful and my abiding memory of it is sitting alone on a terrace watching the sun rise over the sea and gazing around me: there were dozens of us scattered around the hillside, each of us alone luxuriating in the morning glow.

Apparently Orange Sunshine was produced by Timothy Leary's Brotherhood of Eternal Love, but until today, I thought that it was a product of the (in)famous Augustus 'Owsley' Stanley (aka The Bear), who died four days ago on March 13th. This Rolling Stone interview with him gives extensive information on the man who "did more to alter the consciousness of the generation that came of age in the 1960s. Long before the Summer of Love drew thousands of hippies to Haight-Ashbury, Owsley was already an authentic underground folk hero, revered throughout the counterculture for making the purest form of LSD ever to hit the street."

Having spent a term as head of the Ibiza Free School, I returned to the UK at the end of 1972, obstensibly to head up a 'free school' in Kentish Town, at the behest of a scion of the Johnnie Walker whisky family. It was Johnnie junior who suggested that I should squat in Kentish Town.

And this was where I first met Sid Rawle who was squatting in a recently vacated vicarage in Gospel Oak. I've just sadly discovered that he died last year garnering an obituary in the Guardian which makes minimal reference to his influence in the London squatting scene.

It was at Sid's suggestion that we moved from the shop premises that were to be our free school premises to a large empty house in Adamson Rd. in Hamptead. And it was Sid who brought us so many homeless families, many of them refugees from the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland that we ended up squatting another four houses and formed the Hampstead Occupiers Group as a front for our activities.

It was a high-energy but low to non-existent income existence for a few months, and we rapidly learned the laws of trespass, then not a criminal matter, and how to enter buildings without 'breaking' in, which would have seen us arrested.

After we were (illegally) evicted from Adamson Rd. by the police, we moved south of the river to Charrington Street in Somers Town, behind Kings Cross station. (Further snippets of my time there can be found here.)

There was a notable morning in 1974 when all but one of the c.60 squatted houses were raided by the Bomb Squad. (The occupant of the sole house without a sledge-hammered front door was most upset to have been left out.) The police were supposedly looking for SAM missiles with which we were supposed to bring down jumbo jets bound for Heathrow airport, a laughable notion as most of us were busy leading 'normal' lives. For example, the raid made me late for work at a special school in Islington.

That was a time when there was much anger with the Conservative government of Ted Heath; coal miners were on strike and trade unionists traveling by bus to a demonstration or picket line were stopped by the police on a motorway and not allowed to travel on for several hours.

Given that the Bomb Squad had managed to net such heinous criminals among us as a guy who hadn't paid some parking fines, we were concerned at the heavy-handed approach being displayed by the authorities. So it was at Sid's suggestion that the Ad-hoc London Civil Right's Ctte. was formed and was given police permission for a protest march – to New Scotland Yard, the police H.Q.

We made a banner and, as a focal point, made a 'bomb' out of chicken wire and papier-mâché that we painted black and mounted on a dexion trolley which we could march behind. We had an escort of a few, a dozen or so, uniformed policemen. The first theatrical moment occurred when we were about to leave Trafalgar Square but decided to circumnavigate it once more.before heading for Victoria St.

Before we reached New Scotland Yard, our 'bomb' was confiscated and the police attempted to put it in the back of their van. To out great amusement, it was too big for them to be able to close the rear doors, so our last sight of it was something like this.

Once at the Yard, we were escorted to the back door and six of us, with Sid at the front, of course, entered the lobby whilst everyone else stayed outside and sat down in the road for a gossip session. A portly sergeant came down the stairs and approached us; behind him came an inspector and remained on the bottom step. The pair reminded me of a ventriloquist and his dummy, partly because it was the inspector who asked for our petition and please would we give it to the sergeant.

We said that they already had it; they took our names when they'd raided us and, please, don't do it again.

He was a bit of a ranter was Sid, and dressed in a cloak and obviously not a member of 'straight' society so he was not universally loved. Maybe that's why the media labelled him as the "King of the Hippies". Considering that he didn't smoke or drink or, to my knowledge, indulge in any form of illicit drug use, they certainly failed to understand that he was, by anyone's lights, an honest man, with steadfast views about Man's connection with the land and what he felt was 'right'.

I last met Sid in 1983 or 4 at the proposed cruise missile site at the disused US airbase at Molesworth in Cambridgeshire, where he had set up the Rainbow Village.

Sid retired from the fray to the Forest of Dean, where he continued his work through numerous smaller camps and festivals. His heart attack occurred as he sat in a chair by the campfire at the end of his annual SuperSpirit summer camp.

I'm sure he died content.