Stonehenge and the Summer Solstice: On the 28th Anniversary of the Last Free Festival, Check Out “Festivals Britannia”

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Stonehenge and the Summer Solstice: On the 28th Anniversary of the Last Free Festival, Check Out “Festivals Britannia”

So today, as 14,000 revellers at Stonehenge faced a rainy summer solstice morning, with some of them, at least, echoing the reverence that those who built this giant sun temple over 4,000 years ago had for the great axis of the solar year, many of those in attendance may not have known of the long struggles that enabled them to party in the world’s most famous stone circle, or of the free festival that sprawled across the fields opposite Stonehenge every June for 11 years from 1974 to 1984, or of the brutal suppression, in 1985, of the convoy of travellers, anarchists and environmental activists heading to Stonehenge to set up what would have been the 12th Stonehenge Free Festival, who were violently set upon and “decommissioned” in what has become known as the Battle of the Beanfield.

Those who want to know more can check out my books Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield, and can also find out more via my most recent article on the Beanfield, three weeks ago, and my recent radio interview, which I posted yesterday. However, I believe this is also an excellent opportunity for people to watch “Festivals Britannia,” a 90-minute long BBC4 documentary by Sam Bridger, first broadcast in December 2010, which I’m posting below in six parts, as available on YouTube.

This is an important programme, with excellent commentators and some astounding footage (including dreamlike Super-8 footage from the ’70s by Chris Waite, and equally dreamlike images from the last great gathering of the tribes, at Castlemorton in 1992), even though watching it was a rather surreal experience, as its narrative arc seemed to be drawn entirely — but without credit — from Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion.

As the BBC’s blurb stated:

[T]his documentary tells the story of the emergence and evolution of the British music festival through the mavericks, dreamers and dropouts who have produced, enjoyed and sometimes fought for them over the last 50 years.

The film traces the ebb and flow of British festival culture from jazz beginnings at Beaulieu in the late 50s through to the Isle of Wight festivals at the end of the 60s, early Glastonbury and one-off commercial festivals like 1972′s Bickershaw, the free festivals of the 70s and 80s and on through the extended rave at Castlemorton in 1992 to the contemporary resurgence in festivals like Glastonbury, Isle of Wight and Reading in the last decade.

Missing from that description of the counter-cultural forces that drove the various phases of the festival scene until its mushrooming as a mainstream phenomenon in the mid-1990s is the Battle of the Beanfield, which is the film’s dark heart. I was pleased that the film then proceeded to explain well the buoyancy of the rave scene that suddenly revived festivals and dissent in the late 80s when all could have been lost, and although I slightly drifted off towards the end, when festivals became thoroughly corporate and mainstream, I thoroughly enjoy, every year, attending WOMAD with my friends and family, where our kids have been growing up accustomed to five days of brilliant camping and communal existence every year, and, of course, it must never be forgotten that festivals are so successful not because of corporate involvement, but because the pioneers of the festival movement created something that was more successful than they could have dreamed — alternative social gatherings that provide escapism, but also provide hints of a utopian worldview that is sorely lacking from everyday life, and which, from their counter-cultural beginnings have ended up attracting 1 in 10 of us out into the fields to attend festivals every summer.

Now we just need a bit more politics involved — involving a sense of history, and an urgent engagement with the current problems we face, in which our savage and misguided government, fully committed to destroying the state in an orgy of malignant, ideologically-driven austerity, would like nothing more than for people to indulge in a long weekend — or a rainy night — of escapism, and not to suffuse their experiences with anything dangerous — like a burning desire to not let the UK slip back into the Dark Ages without a fight. I hope some of those at Stonehenge last night and this morning picked up on the temple’s long fascination for dreamers and dissenters, and caught something of the oppositional spirit that played such a major part in the Stonehenge Free Festival, and without which we are all merely the puppets of a savage, corporate, materialistic world.

“Festivals Britannia,” Part 1 of 6

“Festivals Britannia,” Part 2 of 6

“Festivals Britannia,” Part 3 of 6

“Festivals Britannia,” Part 4 of 6

“Festivals Britannia,” Part 5 of 6

“Festivals Britannia,” Part 6 of 6

Note: For reflections on Stonehenge and the summer solstice, see Stonehenge and the summer solstice: past and present, It’s 25 Years Since The Last Stonehenge Free Festival, Stonehenge Summer Solstice 2010: Remembering the Battle of the Beanfield, RIP Sid Rawle, Land Reformer, Free Festival Pioneer, Stonehenge Stalwart and Happy Summer Solstice to the Revellers at Stonehenge — Is it Really 27 Years Since the Last Free Festival? For more on the Beanfield, see my articles, In the Guardian: Remembering the Battle of the Beanfield, which provides excerpts from my book The Battle of the Beanfield, and The Battle of the Beanfield 25th Anniversary: An Interview with Phil Shakesby, aka Phil the Beer, a prominent traveller who died two years ago. For more on dissent from the anti-globalisation movement to the Arab Spring, see The Year of Revolution: The “War on Tyranny” Replaces the “War on Terror”, and for commentary on how gypsies and travellers still face persecution in the UK, see my articles about the disgraceful eviction last year of gypsies and travellers at Dale Farm, The Dale Farm Eviction: How Racism Against Gypsies and Travellers Grips Modern-Day Britain and The Dale Farm Eviction: Using Planning Laws to Justify Racism Towards Gypsies and Travellers. And if you have time to trawl some excellent archives about the entire festival and free festival scene, check out the astonishing Festival Zone archive.