Some confusion about the date for this one. Some are saying that it was the end of November, but one newspaper article (coming to this page soon!) published on Tuesday 10th December indicates that the party took place on 7th December.
A Spirals document entitled SPIRAL TRIBE’S CALENDAR OF POLICE HARRASSMENT AT FREE PARTIES – 1991-1992, still accessible via Wayback Machine, describes the bust at the end:
9.12.91– ASCOT FREE FESTIVAL, BERKS.
Police raid site during departure of sound systems. 3 arrests for ‘possession of controlled drugs’ – vitamin pills and tobacco.
NO CHARGE
Here is a transcription of News Of The World* article on this event:
TICKET TO RAVE
5,000 DELUGE SITE FOR ILLEGAL BASH
Chris Pharo reports
THE organisers of a wild rave party which attracted 5,000 youngsters, many dabbling with drugs, could have coined in £100,000 in advance ticket sales – the News can reveal.
More than 600 people, among them Prince Andrew, protested to police, jamming the 999 emergency line as the party raved on for 24 hours.
It began at midnight on Saturday, when new age travellers with a group of mystery organisers set up a massive sound and lights system on the Staravala [sic] site off Kings Ride in Ascot.
Within minutes, the huge eight-foot tall speakers were pounding out music while hypnotic lights swirled across the site.
By 3 am in the morning, some 5,000 partygoers, with some 2000 cars, had deluged the site reducing the handful of police officers sent to keep an eye on the illegal bash to mere car park attendants trying to keep the traffic off the roads.
Drink and drugs flowed,… but officers were powerless to act for fear of being lynched by the massive crowds.
Meanwhile, residents from all over the local area, including some living as far away as Martins, Heron and North Ascot, were swamping police stations with protest calls.
It seems the music was so loud that it blanketed nearby homes and Heatherwood Hospital just 500 yards away and instead shook windows and turned the stomachs of helpless locals up to a mile-and- a-half away.
Environmental health officers from Brucknell Forest Borough Council were also called to the scene, but were forced to remain incognito and powerless to act because police were so vastly outnumbered by the crowds.
Repeated requests for the sound to be turned down were ignored as the party raved on into Sunday morning.
The calls of protest continued and even Prince Andrew, driving past the site towards his home at Sunninghill Park, stopped and asked what was going on and what action police officers proposed to take to stop the bash.
A police 999 operator was telling callers that if nothing could be done to help Prince Andrew, nothing could be done to help them.
The party raged until midnight on Sunday, when crowds began to dissipate.
Police then took the opportunity of storming what was left of the party, making seven arrests and demanding the music be turned off.
All the arrests were for drugs related offences. In the moments after the police task force of around 25 officers stormed the site, the mobile disco had been spirited away by the shadowy figures of the rave.
Local residents told the News of the torture that the rave caused.
Mr Alfred Bye said: “It went on all night and day. They were even dancing in the road. The police must stop this in the future and I’m sure it will happen again. I had some of them knocking on my door and asking to use the phone. I told them they’d get a boot up the backside from me.
Mr Gerry Archer, who lives in Martins Heron, said: “The music made my stomach churn. I had no sleep and have now written to Andrew MacKay, MP, demanding he takes urgent action to get Government legislation that gives the police the power and resources to stop these things.
A spokesman for Bracknell Forest Borough Council said officers would demand that the landowners, the Crown Estate Commissioners, cured [sic] the site by the weekend and ousted the new age hippies illegally camped there.
Land agents were thought to have begun high court action on Monday to do just that.
Inspector Andy Steel, of Windsor Police, who mounted the police operation and raid on Sunday, said: “We fear they are already planning another event at the weekend. We will support the council’s demands to get the site properly secured and we have developed a contingency plan should that fail.”
A police source told the News that young people from London and Bristol had made up the majority of the party-goers and that some of the tickets for the rave had been sold at £20 each prior to Saturday night.
* If you are too young to remember News of the World, it was one of the crapper tabloid rags of the era. See if you can spot the parts of the story that are inaccurate bullshit 😉
And here is a second newspaper article, not sure which paper:
POLICE HELPLESS AS 5,000 ROCK THE NIGHT AWAY
By Jim Stevens
HUNDREDS of residents besieged the police with complaints as 5,000 people danced the night away at an illegal party just outside Bracknell.
But police and environmental health officers could only stand and watch as thousands of revellers turned up at the old Staravia site, off Kings Ride, Ascot, on Saturday night.
Prince Andrew even got caught up in the chaos. Buckingham Palace said he drove past the site while the party was raging, but could not confirm national newspaper reports that he stopped to ask police what was being done to stop it.
Police were massively outnumbered as more than 5,000 people who arrived in their droves for the party organised by New Age Travellers, who have been camped on the site for the last week and a half.
Deafening music from two sound systems in the back of vans pounded out from 10.30pm until just after midnight on Monday morning, when the number of revellers had dwindled to several hundred.
Drugs were freely available inside three dilapidated marquees, including ecstasy, cannabis, amphetamines and cocaine.
Police switchboards were jammed with more than 150 complaints from people living as far afield as Martins Heron.
After police and environmental health officers moved in on Monday morning there were seven arrests for drug and theft related offences on the Crown Estate land.
This is the fourth successive weekend rave in the Bracknell and Crowthorne area.
There was a smaller party on the Staravia site the week before and two previous parties at different points on the Devils Highway, in Crowthorne.
At the Staravia party’s peak, during the early hours of Sunday morning, there were up to 2,000 cars on the 40 acre site and a constant stream of between 10 and 15 cars queuing to get in.
Entry was free, although some people clearly came with tickets, police said. The lack of police manpower meant they were unable to safely accompany environmental health officers onto the site and ask the travellers to turn the music off.
“Bracknell borough’s assistant environmental services officer Steve Loudoun said: “When we went in at about lam on Sunday morning we realised it was a rather large event. Our powers to do anything are non existent without the back up of the police.”
On Sunday afternoon the police and council officers made another effort to negotiate with the New Age Travellers, but to no avail. Their main problem was being able to reach the sound system which was surrounded by a mass of people.
The music was finally switched off just after midnight on Monday morning when 20 police officers entered the site with council officers.
Inspector Andy Steel, who was in charge of the police operation, said: “If we had had 200 officers we still would have had problems.
“‘We had sufficient manpower to cover the police area but with an event like that you cannot dip into an endless pool.” He added: “We are aware of the complaints and we did everything we humanly could to control the party.’ “If we did anything pre-emptive, injuries may well have occured, not only to people there but to officers. “We may well have had serious problems if we had gone in at any time on Saturday evening or Sunday morning.”
Despite the recent wave of popular rave parties police are anxious to remain vigilant and do all that is possible to stop them.
Sergeant Steve Huckin, assistant chief press officer for the Thames Valley Police, said: “We do not really want to stop people having fun and enjoying themselves. We are not killjoys. But we are concerned because of the nature of the parties. They are unlicensed and do not have a public entertainments licence, which means they do not have all the protection of fire and safety regulations that a licence holder has. And there is a risk of people getting injured.”
With people also trying to peddle drugs at these parties the police were also concerned, he said. “The chief constables intention is to carry on taking action, even with the resource implications, to stop parties, prevent people being put at risk and minimise disruption to the community.”
Bracknell borough council will now be pressing for a change to existing legislation., giving them stronger powers to clamp down on parties. The landowners of the site were hoping to evict the travellers this week.
Here’s a third article, this one from the Sun was published on Tuesday, December 10, 1991.
Andrew In Rave Snarl-Up
By JANE McCORMICK
PRINCE Andrew was caught up in the chaos as police tried to break up a 5,000-strong acid house party, it was revealed last night.
Andrew, stuck in a huge traffic jam, pulled up and asked an officer: “What on earth is going on?”
The prince was driving past the illegal rave at Ascot, Berks, on the way to his Sunninghill Park home two miles away.
Blast
Police failed to stop the party in a 40-acre field, which blasted music for 24 hours at the weekend.
Inspector Andy Steel said: “The Duke of York was driving past the site.
“He stopped to find out what was being done about it.”
Police eventually broke up the party and arrested seven people for drug offences.
That Ascot party was awesome. Last day of November 1991 and it was cold, minus ten at least I’d say. We had been living there ten days or so, on the site of a demolished jet engine factory called Staravia. The site had been used for storing pea gravel so there were mounds of the stuff everywhere and huge ruts frozen solid.
… Easygroove turned up with the whole Circus Warp crew and added their tent onto our shambles. Spirals turned up later and they had to stay out in the cold. I remember walking away from the party at one point, tripping my tits off I turned back to look. There were 5000 people raving in a bodged together tent and the heat of their bodies formed a fog around the tend, which pulsed and throbbed with the lights. As I watched, the fog sat up on its haunches, like something ethereal out of ghostbusters, smiled a snaggletooth smile at me, winked and then settled back down again, curling itself around the party contentedly. No, really!
I can’t remember how long we partied for, maybe til tuesday, it got pretty twisted by the end. I had the burner going in my trailer all the way through and the site was big enough that it was possible to sleep now and then, but I don’t remember too much sleeping..
When I first started writing this blog seventeen years ago, one of the main reasons for doing so was to document a scene which had hitherto been undocumented, at least in detail. No-one had published any books solely on the free party, let alone whole tomes devoted to particular sound systems written by their founding members. Thanks to independent publisher Velocity Press, not just one but two such books have recently emerged. The first, Dreaming in Yellow, is reviewed here. The second, A Darker Electricity, arrived in my postbox at the start of October. Although it’s just shy of 500 pages, I devoured it in little more than two days and enjoyed it immensely. However, as I’m sure is the case with other bloggers and hobbyists who do what they do for free, that is, for love, real life got in the way, meaning it took me this long to sit down and write a review, so apologies to patient and helpful Colin at Velocity Press!
As a free party goer with a penchant for the flavour of techno that Spiral Tribe dished out in 1992, my friends and I often came into contact with their members, sometimes at a party, sometimes not. Back then it was tricky to figure out who was in the Tribe and who wasn’t, but I think that was kind of the point. I for one was a bit intimidated by the shaved headed, bomber-jacketed militant image they had adopted by the time I started going to their parties. It turns out, at least according to Harrison, that the style was supposed to be intimidating, but not for the ravers. Having said that, before too long we were all dressed the same!
The prologue begins in 1993, in a cold and grey No Man’s Land. Harrison is pondering whether to accept a generous offer from The Man, or persist in living a desperate, hungry, outlaw life in the hinterlands of wintry Berlin. Will he return to the UK for the court battle, or stay where he is?
The story continues with Part 1: From Fluffy (Part 2 is subtitled To Tough). It is 1989 and Harrison, helped by his spirited brother Zander, is moving house from Manchester to North West London. A day job at a printers is combined with Harrison’s love of parties and LSD. An awful lot happens in the ensuing four years.
From the start it is clear that Harrison’s original ideas, along with those of fellow creative Spirals, especially Debbie Griffiths, are what made the Spirals so visually distinctive. As well as having more ideas than he knows what to do with, and a whole heap of energy, Harrison seems to develop a knack for finding others to help him make his elaborate and out-there schemes into reality. After a tiring stint as a float driver at Notting Hill Carnival in 1990, Zander, hearing Harrison’s plan for a party, wonders if the idea involves him ‘driving dodgy old trucks’, and states that if it does, he won’t be having any part of it. Poor Zander.
Sometimes Harrison’s far out ideas crash and burn, for instance, his ambitious plan to launch a psychedelic fanzine at Glastonbury Festival in 1990 fails due to missing pages, but lessons are learnt on the way. As Harrison maintains, ‘the creative struggle to define those thoughts was, in itself, a rite of passage.’ Harrison’s enthusiasm doesn’t seem to wane, not for long, at least!
At Glastonbury Harrison finds the main drag ‘as flimsy and contrived as a Hollywood film set’, but soon after, with his friends in tow, he discovers the other, better side, the legendary Travellers’ Field, where the joyful Tonka Sound System is in full flow. Harrison, like DiY’s Harry, attended free festivals before the era covered in the book, and while it may have been interesting to read more of his thoughts on those, I am not too bothered by their omission as the book is already weighty enough.
At a disused factory in Hammersmith, a chance meeting with a punk culminates in a warning about police brutality. Harrison is told of cops covering their numbers. The punk however suggests the Spirals’ music will be welcomed at the free festivals. Stories of Stoney Cross and warnings from other long-term travellers later on give the Spirals further hints about what is lurking in the darkness for them in the near future.
Although some may see it differently, I believe it was a wise move when the Spirals lent their name to parties where other soundsystems were in use. This happened rather a lot, especially after the bashing their rig and crew received at Acton Lane. It was also necessary in terms of keeping the parties going and confusing the authorities as to who was behind them.
There are plenty of comic interludes. A well-known DJ on the free party scene turns out to have a very particular way of eating his breakfast cereal. During one outdoor party, an acid dealer sets up shop in a bassbin. On the subject of dealers, many wondered back then whether free party organisers were dealing drugs on the side. In this case they weren’t. Lugging speakers, amps, gennies, mixers, decks, lights and tents around the country, not to mention keeping the party going for hours or days is quite enough to have on your plate, especially if you regularly end up face to face with cops.
Money worries plague the early parties. Will they get paid after dragging everyone to Amsterdam for the Absolute Zero party? Will local ne’er-do-wells manage to get into their squat party without paying? Will gangsters get to keep the entrance fees after taking over the door? With more experience, the Spirals become more skilled at keeping the vibe alive, for the most part…
Once more, I have to issue a disclaimer: my love of this book, like my love of Dreaming in Yellow, is coloured by the fact that it is a goldmine in terms of party accounts and will be very useful as a resource for my site. Cable Street, for instance, and Stoney Cross, are parties I hadn’t previously been able to access much information about. Luckily, they are both covered here. Having said that, dear readers, here is a secret: I had an embargo on new posts about Spiral parties for about a year. Nothing personal, just the fact that there were so many posts already that there was a need to make some space for the telling of other tales about other sound systems!
It’s not all party party party, as many of the more interesting sequences take place between the events, and it is clear the core members of the Tribe have their own close-knit community. At the festivals, the new blood (ravers) and the old guard (travellers) are often said to have a fractious relationship. While it is true that I heard some pisstaking directed at the ravers (‘ooh, dress to impress!’) and saw some cheekiness (ravers’ freshly lit doobie kidnapped by big crusty in big boots), I wouldn’t say that there was a schism as such. Certain travellers were doubtless suspicious of the ravers with their expensive clothes, just as some ravers were wary of the bus-dwellers. I don’t believe that the majority of travellers resented the loud music. There were certainly clashes, but for the most part the subcultures had enough common ground to coexist for a weekend here, a weekend there. As Harrison highlights ‘Openness. Sharing and the sense of community’ were properties both of pre-existing free festivals and the new iterations the Spirals and other crews enhanced by their presence. He adds that there were of course ‘occasional moments of arseholes being arseholes’, but emphasises that it is unnecessary to stigmatise entire groups. Some of the aforementioned arseholery includes a stabbing and a car set alight at the Arundel party. The Spirals seem to deal with the incident in a level-headed way, with Reggie, their MC, calming the scared crowd with wisely chosen words. A police chief turns up in the morning, finds Reggie, and thanks him.
All in all, A Darker Electricity is a surprisingly well-remembered, lucid, and vivid account of a wild and wicked three-year period that changed the face of free parties in the UK and beyond. Highly recommended both to old free party farts like myself as well as the newer contingent.
23 January 1993
Spiral Tribe
Disused Depository, Brent Cross, London
Diary entry: Fucking too fucking good the most violent aggressive unmusical music I ever heard, fast noteless, tuneless grinding noise. Gave Mark lift in Tom’s car. Mental building.
Not sure how we got to this party but when we arrived Tom asked me if I could go and pick up Mark from Spiral Tribe, who was still back at their squat on Uxbridge Road. Tom couldn’t because he was too out of it on ketamine already. I’d just taken some drugs, so it became a race against time driving across London before I came up. I picked up Mark, Sebastian and Emily, all clothed in black bomber jackets and combats with shaved heads. I felt a bit old skool Day-Glo in my orange jeans and tie-dye T-shirt.
The music that night was relentless pounding techno. And outside was the best collection of matt black traveller vehicles I’d ever seen.
Many thanks to Simon M for the write up. He promised more of the same. Looking forward to it 🙂 His music can be found at https://nultielrecords.blogspot.com/
UPDATE 30/09/09: Thanks to an old friend’s generosity we now have this flyer:
Rumours from a source very close to Spiral Tribe at the time indicated that this never happened due to one of them doing a runner with the money and spending it on crack. The flyer below is for the free event that happened in its place:
In Harry Harrison’s account of Castlemorton he reveals that someone phoned DiY on the Thursday with news of the venue. By 7pm on the Friday they had driven on to the common, ‘unchallenged’. There’s a whole two chapters on this festival in Dreaming in Yellow (follow the link to buy a copy), but we’ll only reveal a couple of extracts here.
Over Friday night, more and more systems rolled in, set up, kicked off. Some of them we knew (Bedlam, Circus Normal), while others, such as Adrenalin and LSDiesel, we did not. Uniformly that weekend, they all played their characteristic fast techno, or ‘nosebleed’ as we called it (they called our music ‘fluffy’). In our marquee, right on the edge of the already huge gathering, we played house, club music, deep house and garage. On the Saturday and Sunday afternoons, we slowed it down and played an eclectic mix of downtempo beats, soul, funk, hip-hop and even jazz, and we were undoubtedly the only people to play John Coltrane on Castlemorton Common. Many, many people have told us since that, musically, we saved their lives. They came to our tent and never left. Hopefully, however, they missed Simon [DK]’s set on Sunday afternoon. By that time, he had been up for so long and had so over-indulged that two of us had to prop him up from behind. As he attempted to DJ, he kept placing the turntable needle onto a slip-mat instead of a record.
On Saturday night there were by now so many people that the crowds around different sound systems merged into one enormous dancefloor. Our music at Castlemorton was probably the most effective PR we ever did. Tens of thousands of people passed through our tent and liked what they heard. As dawn broke on Saturday morning, with hundreds of people dancing outside the marquee, we were surprised to see dozens of outside broadcast vans at the bottom of the slope, cameras and microphones pointed our way. Japan, New Zealand, America and Italy were all represented as they beamed the sights and sounds of DiY in full effect back to their respective nations. What we hadn’t really considered was that the police were probably studying the same images, including our incredibly prominent ninety-six square foot banner with the letters’ DiY’ in six-foot monochrome splendour. That backdrop would feature on many news bulletins and shocking documentaries on the moral outrage of drug availability at raves. For me, as we walked around the still-expanding site on Saturday afternoon, the atmosphere was less of a drug-crazed dystopia and more of a village fete. For once, the sun shone benignly throughout the bank holiday weekend and beyond. It was balmy and warm at night, and raving is so much more pleasant in those conditions. Laughter rang out, old acquaintances were renewed and fresh ones forged. Kids ran around and their parents lazed in the sun. Late to the game, we heard amazing stories of the quarry pool only five minutes walk up the main drag. Hurrying there, we witnessed the wonderful spectacle of hundreds of festival-goers, half of them naked, swimming in a beautiful, deep natural pool surrounded by ancient quarry walls. This was turning into some kind of English Shangri-La. The sheer diversity of the crowd was striking. Porsches, family saloons and Land Rovers rubbed bumpers with ambulances and ancient double-deckers. The old school festival crew were still there. This was, after all, supposed to be the Avon Free Festival, but they were just swamped. It was no longer a festival; it was a great big fucking massive party. There were mutterings among the old crowd about ‘cheesy quavers’ and people not burying their shit (a legitimate concern). Effectively, the free festival movement was laid to rest that weekend; the frantic and ravenous synthetic hydra of acid house had buried it.
Again, I was able to surreally watch images on the news on a battered old telly on a mate’s bus, as video footage of us below was beamed to the wider world. A day later, someone turned up with the Sunday papers and we realised, with a deep gulp, that we were the nation’s news. Being the mouthpiece of the landed classes who really own and run the country, The Sunday Telegraph had dedicated almost the whole front page to the events in which we were immersed, below the immortal headline ‘Hippies Fire Flares at Helicopter’. God’s honest truth, when someone announced the headline, thought for a second that someone had propelled some wide, seventies-style trousers at the police until I saw the picture; someone had genuinely tried to bring down the police helicopter with a powerful distress flare.
And so the festival continued, on into the week, becoming infamous as the biggest rave anywhere, ever. Our system ran from Friday evening until Tuesday morning, by which time our thoughts turned to getting it out intact. Not only had we been one of the most prominent rigs, but we also had a distinctive large yellow truck that had displayed our name on its side in huge letters. But, as is so often the case, the sheer bravery and daring of the travellers saved the day and a friend, Alix, sneaked our rig out in her horsebox in the middle of the night. The police waved down our Dodge truck with a confident look, only to find it empty apart from a few tank nettings and a lot of empty beer cans. Thank you, Alix, again and forever. Spiral Tribe went through until the next weekend, refusing to stop. They were perhaps less crafty, as confrontation was in their DNA. Thirteen of their number were arrested and their system impounded. They were collectively charged with organising the festival, which they hadn’t, and were finally acquitted in Crown Court following what was one of the most expensive prosecutions in English legal history.
Here’s Tim’s account of the event, previously only available on the excellent but now-defunct Loft Sites:
And of course there was Castlemorton. Breathtaking in it’s sheer size and bravado, looking back on it, it is clear to see that this monster, week long rave attended by 25,000 people marked not only the peak but also the death of free rave culture. While watching us helplessly and largely furiously, England would now take serious steps to ensure that that these ultimately harmless parties could never happen again, at least on any reasonable scale. The eventual introduction of the Criminal Justice Bill gave police new powers to prevent and break up any form of outside beat-based gathering.
From this point on, rave would go overground. There was no where else to go. Sure, pockets still thrive here and there, but a once gloriously anticorporate culture became swallowed up in clubland. Muddy fields and hastily erected marquees were replaced by steel and chrome, and thirty pound entrance fees. Trainers and baggy jeans did not make it past the bouncers. Terra techno turned into slinky house. Shiny clubs, shiny drugs, shiny people, and shiny music. It did not feel bad anymore. It had become respectable.
Getting to Castlemorton was easy. It was advertised on the TV. Arriving home from work on Saturday, I turned on the news to see an excited local broadcaster relaying information about a huge gathering of ‘ravers’ and ‘hippies’ on Castlemorton Common, an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at the foot of the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire. They had mysteriously arrived overnight, many different groups co-ordinating beautifully and thwarting any attempts by the police to break up the large convoy of trucks, vans and old buses they were understandably becoming increasingly suspicious of.
I hopped it to 227 and picked up the few who had not already gone. For the first time I set off for a rave before the sun had even set. With such exact directions it was an easy drive through the Cotswolds, and we gradually became part of a convoy of cars full of ravers with the same destination. As night fell we began to leave the lights of the towns and villages behind us as we followed the road high up on to the vast common. Darkness now shrouded the rolling hills and only suggested at the space and beauty around us.
Then suddenly we were there. Cars were everywhere, parked randomly and haphazardly on either side of the road, which led directly through the middle of the gathering. We ditched my car and followed the general movement of people away from their vehicles and towards the distant throb of beats and bass.
It was soon clear that most of the traveling sound systems were there, each with their own individual party set up. At the center of it all, and the ringleaders behind the entire event, was, of course, Spiral Tribe. And that was where we were heading.
We continued walking down the road along which stalls and vendors had sprung up, selling all kinds of rave paraphernalia; bottled water, Vicks sticks, bongs, rizlas, whistles, glo sticks, mix tapes etc. Drugs of all kinds were openly available. People were hanging out, shopping, chatting, coming up on a pill, sharing a spliff. It kind of felt like being in some kind of bizarre town center, in a world where ravers had taken over. And always, in the background, the boom boom of the sound systems, reminding us why we were there.
After passing several large marquees each with their own rave in full swing, we arrived at Spiral Tribe’s own party. Their motley collection of vehicles were arranged in a large circle. This provided an amphitheatre into which their DJ’s pumped hard tribal techno. As always the focal point was a huge black and white spiral hanging from the side of one of their lorries, right next to the one sided van which housed the decks. Maggie and I put up the tent we had been carrying – she was intending to stay a few days – just to one side of the main circle. We scored some mushrooms and swallowed them down with a few sips of water.
While we were hanging out, waiting for the mushies to kick in, Mitch turned up with recommendations for good E’s. There were some shit hot Tangerine Dreams about he confided, if you could find them. Before long I had sniffed them out and had two in my belly. My own private party was beginning.
Fortuitously, the E’s turned out to be two of the sweetest ever. My memories of the night are little more than drifting around in a blissful haze, I’m not even sure if I danced. But that’s not the point, I was off my head at Castlemorton and that’s what counts.
As dawn began to break I lapped up a wrap of speed, I was so used to doing this now I barely even needed water to help it down. The sky became a little clearer and I started to recognize people everywhere – no one was missing this one. All of the heads from Witney were there. Being my home town this caused much handshaking and mutual jibbering affection. The whole of the Oxford Massive had made it, along with all my new friends from all over the place, who I had met through these weekly parties. There were several people I hadn’t seen for years, including of course a few spanners who had just come to check out the show after seeing it on the news. None the less, I was immensely pleased to see everyone, and greeted them all with much enthusiasm.
Night slipped back into day and in the sunshine the enormity of the carnival we were part of became clear. Tents, cars and people stretched out in all directions, creating a multi coloured splash in the languid countryside. There were several mini travelers villages, complete with dogs, fires and scruffy kids who appeared quite at home amidst all the madness. And spaced throughout this were the raves themselves, each with their own sound and their own vibe.
Framing this were the Malvern Hills rising majestically through the morning mist.
Many ravers began to sit in loose groups, spark up a few spliffs and just take it all in. We knew right then that this was something special. This would never happen again.
At some point I met up with Georgia, who dragged me away from the Sprirals to the DiY tent where she had spent most of the night with her mates. The large dance area was now quite empty, the floor littered with empty Evian bottles, roaches and butt ends. A bit later on I spotted Easygroove sitting in the back of an open van with some mates. By now we clearly recognized each other, and we nodded hello, like we always did. I even bumped into my sister. Half of England seemed to be there that weekend.
The party continued on for several days, but I had to be back for work on Monday. So late on Sunday afternoon I left many happy people behind and headed home.
Some more newspaper clippings have just turned up, big up to Simon K for these, which have been transcribed for the benefit of anyone following this site who can’t access the text in the images. It is worth mentioning that our long term goal is to have all of our newspaper articles and book excerpts transcribed 🙂
12,000 revellers descend on village for 4-day rave
Hippy days are here again!
Unless you’ve got this lot in your back garden
By BILL DANIELS
THE hippy days of the Sixties were back with a vengeance yesterday as Britain’s biggest-ever illegal party swung into its fourth night.
But for the tiny village reluctantly playing host to 25,000 revellers, it seemed that the self-styled peace people were making WAR, not love. A police helicopter flying over the crowd narrowly escaped disaster when it was fired on with five marine distress flares.
And the ear-splitting throb of acid music could be heard 10 miles from the sprawling city of tents and camper vans infesting Castlemorton Common, near Malvern, Worcs.
Meanwhile police could only stand and watch for fear of sparking a full-scale riot. Drug-dealers openly set up shop to push Ecstacy and LSD. One even did the rounds bearing a tray of freshly-baked “hash cookies’.
Trapped
Used syringes were among rubbish littering the 700-acre common. Furious locals report their garden fences have been ripped up for fire wood. Chickens and sheep have been poached.
Some families have sent terrified children to stay with relatives.
But others have become prisoners in their own homes – surrounded by the vehicles choking the narrow lanes.
Villager Jill Gilbert, 29, said: “Before long, the residents are going to get their shotguns and blast that music machine.”
West Mercia police had 400 officers, some in riot gear, on standby. They claim the helicopter attack vindicates their decision to keep a low profile.
Assistant Chief Constable Phillip Davies said: “This shows the lengths they will go to prevent police gaining access. The safety of my officers must be one of my priorities.”
Western Daily Press Monday 25th May:
Police powerless as 20,000 attend rave
By Giles Rees
THE biggest, noisiest and most lawless party of the year roared on last night as police stood and watched.
At Castlemorton Common, beneath the Malvern Hills of Hereford and Worcester, an estimated 20,000 hippies and ravers were having a ball.
They took drugs, they drank they danced and they made love.
They also turned a beautiful corner of England into a filthy, litter-strewn tip.
The invasion of Castlemorton began late on Friday as illegal hippy camps in Gloucestershire and Avon were cleared by police.
A convoy of buses and cars snaked bumper-to-bumper into the picturesque village, normal population 600.
Within hours a sprawling shanty town of tents, coaches and caravans was set up on the rolling common on the edge of the village.
Its sheer size forced West Mercia into an effective surrender with officers able to do little more than observe from a distance.
By yesterday the encampment, with no toilets, sanitary facilities or first-aid, had become a ghetto.
Drugs were openly on sale and alcohol was available from illegal bars.
Dirty-faced toddlers played by camp fires fuelled with hacked-down trees.
Amid all the squalor however, there was money.
Dotted among the ramshackle coaches and caravans were spotless Range Rovers and BMWs.
At eight different “dance centres” Acid House music pounded remorselessly and glossy leaflets advertising other Acid parties were given out.
Last night the festival of Castlemorton was still swinging.
Traveller Carol, aged 25, from Wiltshire, said: “We are having a good time. The
convoy will probably break up some time. I don’t know when.”
Farmers and villagers on the edge of the common were close to despair. There were
unconfirmed reports of one gunpoint confrontation.
Farmer’s wife Mrs Margaret Jones, aged 41, said gates had been broken, fields
driven through and livestock chased.
“I do not see what gives people the right to behave like this,” she said.
Villager Julie Williams, aged 24, who lives on the edge of the common, said: “We
have never had anything like this before. We can’t believe it. It’s frightening up there.”
West Mercia police said there had been six arrests and the situation was being monitored and contained.
A spokesman said: “We shall be considering our policy regarding the camp in conjunction with Malvern Hills district council and the Malvern Hills Conservators.
West Mercia police set up a 24-hour helpline for local people who wanted to discuss problems arising from the event and the police’s approach to it. The number is 0684 893630.
A VILLAGE OF NIGHTMARES
By RICHARD CREASY
25,000 invaders turn rural peace into anarchy
THE tiny community of Castlemorton Common is normally a safe and peaceful haven – the English countryside at its tranquil best.
But the past three days has left its 800 inhabitants stunned and terrified. They are prisoners in their own homes from 25,000 invaders who mock a pitifully small police operation.
Britain’s biggest illegal party was still in full swing last night with drugs like Ecstasy, LSD and acid being openly sold by dealers. Worried families in the village have sent their children to stay with relatives and others are sleeping with shotguns under their beds.
“Basically there is total anarchy on the common. We feel sick with fear and just so helpless,’ said Jill Gilbert, 29.
“It’s a complete no-go area for the police because they are so outnumbered and don’t want to spark off anything worse.”
The police admitted yesterday they had been hopelessly under-manned for the mass invasion and set up a special hotline to advise worried about the situation. During yesterday afternoon a helicopter with three policemen on board narrowly missed five ship distress flares fired from the festival site.
“This highly disturbing incident clearly illustrates the lengths to which these people will go to try to prevent police access to the site,” said West Mercia’s assistant chief constable Phillip Davies.
“Under current circumstances, we are clearly obliged to adopt a low-key approach on the site in order to avoid unnecessary conflict with members of this huge gathering.
“Many of them have already displayed an extremely aggressive attitude towards the police, and the safety of officers must be one of my priorities.
“This is already a difficult situation, but I do not wish to provoke things further by sparking off large-scale disorder.”
“The result of the low police presence has been thousands of hippies spending three days dancing, drinking, taking drugs and making love on Castlemorton Common, near Malvern, Worcestershire.”
Acid music can be heard 10 miles away blasting out round the clock from the huge tented shanty-town.
One drug dealer carried a tray loaded with hash cookies selling for £1 each.
Since the invasion hippies have ripped down trees and fences to burn on their camp fires and a mountain of rubbish is piling up on the 700-acre common. The site has no toilets.
Raiding parties in search of wood for fires, food and animal feed pilfered from neighbouring sheds, barns and gardens.
Packs of maurauding dogs owned by the travelling hippies scavenge in the mounds of rubbish and sheep have been savaged.
The pub, post office and shops have shut down for fear of trouble.
Some people are trapped in their homes because scores of cars and lorries block their entrances.
So far 30 people have been arrested in the area for drugs related offences.
The nightmare began on Friday when convoys of ramshackle vehicles converged on to the common land after an advance party broke through a thin police line.
Outnumbered police conceded defeat and were powerless to stop the illegal Bank Holiday music and drugs festival.
“The music is booming every night and it seems to get louder every half-an-hour,’ said villager Peter Cooksey, “The place has become totally lawless. The peace of the village has been shattered.”
Scared Julie Biggs, 21, has had to run the tiny store in neighbouring Welland under constant police guard. “Everyone here is absolutely petrified. I have had terrible problems with hippies coming into the store and shop-lifting. I couldn’t work here if it were not for police protection, I would be too frightened.”
Angry publican Barry Smith, landlord of the Robin Hood, said: “Most people are too afraid to come out of their homes. If had lived up on the common I would have shot someone by now.”
One hippy, dressed in ragged denims openly touted ecstasy and LSD as he pushed a young baby in a pram across the Common, once an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Some offered “magic mushroom” cider, mindbending cocktail of drugs and alcohol, from makeshift stalls.
A traveller who gave his name as Richard said he had driven his battered bus from North Lincolnshire. He and his companions were a “peace loving group out to have a good time”.
“There is nothing wrong with what we are doing. We are here to have fun in the sun,” he said.
“We chose to live this way and rejected the hassles associated with a conventional way of life.
“Some say we are dirty but we are environmentally conscious, we make efforts not to dump rubbish.
“It makes more sense to bury your waste instead of flushing it away with harmful chemicals.
“People generally have it in for us because of our lifestyle.I think many envy us becauseof our freedom.”
You can find more newspaper articles if you scroll down 🙂
Here are some photos James sent us, thanks a million James, we love them!
Some quotes on Castlemorton from books:
From Matthew Collin, Altered State: The Story Of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House. London: Serpent’s Tail, 2009, p.228-232.
From Simon Reynolds, Energy Flash : A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture. London: Picador, 1998, p.135-140.
UPDATE 24/10/21:
Here is a slideshow by top subculture chronicler Alan ‘Tash’ Lodge, enjoy!
We added the following sound systems, give us a shout in the comments if something is here that shouldn’t be, or if you know about any cases of rigs working together:
Armageddon
Conspiracy
Also interested to hear whether the list in the title is correct 🙂
There were rumours going round about a free festival being held somewhere in the west country on the 23rd. At first we thought it might be at Chipping Sodbury, but late on Saturday night we found out it was going to be near Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire. We switched off the episode of Casualty we’d been watching (which was about a drugs overdose) and the four of us set off from Bridport towards Gloucestershire in my gold Mini Metro.
Once we got past Bristol we saw loads of other ravers and travellers headed in the same direction. Near Tewkesbury we joined a convoy of disparate vehicles that stretched for miles towards Castlemorton Common and realised this was going to be a big free festival.
Having got appropriately stoned whilst dawdling along in the line of traffic we finally arrived on site at about 2am and parked the overheated Metro on the side of the road going through the common. Jumping out of the car we hurried towards the lights flashing into the sky from what looked like a huge sprawling township that had grown out of nowhere. Music blasted out in all directions, a mash-up of house, hardcore, breakbeat and techno. There were people every where and parties already in full swing.
Surrounding the marquees were traveller buses, ravers cars, tents, fibreglass sculptures and human gyroscopes. People were selling stuff all over the site. Beer, dope, E’s, acid, speed, rizlas, fags, coffee. We scored and dropped some ecstacy and stayed around the DiY and Circus Warp tents for the night.
After coming up, my fellow raver, dressed in a boiler suit and gas mask hat turned yellow and went outside to puke. I only found him much later, dancing, luvved up, ice lolly in hand. Once the sun came up we had a better idea of the layout of the site and in amongst the 40,000 party goers we found some friends from Dorset and joined them at Spiral Tribe. We sniffed some K and did some wobbly dancing, creating solid shapes out of thin air.
I was never a big fan of Spiral’s hardcore music and would have preferred to be back at DiY, but the Ketamine had me stuck to the spot like glue. Some travellers with families were quite rightly annoyed at Spiral Tribe’s strict policy of 24 hour hardcore and techno. Other systems mellowed out with some dub for a few hours on the Sunday to give people a breather and for kids to get some sleep, but not Spiral.
Commenter Jam Smoot told us about this Sparks and Martian at Castlemorton mix:
I missed Castlemorton but I believe everyone who says it was wicked. Interesting that dr_box (see below) mentioned the police herding him onto the common, people often forget that the travellers and soundystems were pushed/chased there by the cops. By the way, if anyone has exact dates for this please let us know, we know it’s quoted as going on for 6 days, but we need some sort-of-facts!
Interesting query from Hardcore Bob in the comments: the Techno Travellers (who we’ve now added to the headline) had their rig in the blue and red marquee, so which other rigs were there, and which tents were they in? Let us know in the comments 🙂
Thanks!
More book excerpts:
From Ian Young, It’s Not About Me! Confessions Of A Recovered Outlaw Addict- From Living Hell To Living Big. Norwich: Anoma Press, 2013, p.59-60.
We came across three longish (slightly chewed) VHS videos of Castlemorton free festival recently. Thanks a million to youtuber discodelinquent (great name by the way!) for uploading them. Discodelinquent has also uploaded some footage from Sugarlump parties. We’ll probably do a post on Sugarlump sound system sooner or later… Meanwhile, enjoy these videos:
Here’s a quote about Castlemorton from ‘Adventures In Wonderland’ by Sheryl Garratt:
Mr Arm (you know who you are!) let us scan a load of newspaper cuttings from his scrapbook. Big up! :
The following photo was captioned “Festivalgoers on Castlemorton Common yesterday, enjoying the sound of music in the Malvern Hills”.
The following photo was captioned “Common nuisance: The 20,000 hippies encamped at Castlemorton common yesterday”.
A classic headline:
Click on images for larger versions:
The following picture and article appeared with the headline: “Villagers threaten to burn out hippies -An illegal festival in the Malverns has driven people living near the site to breaking point”
Continuation of article above, click on image below for larger version:
The following article and photo appeared together:
Here are a couple of videos, the first one’s been online for ages, the second one’s newer and includes some footage taken near the spiral rig-
Thanks youtuber Yangow for the first vid, and thanks youtuber hemustbemad for uploading the second (he credits his friend Matt with filming).
Old friend Simon M was there, and he sent us this page from his diary:
The photos below are from George McKay‘s book ‘Senseless Acts of Beauty’ and I believe they were taken by Alan ‘Tash’ Lodge (whose excellent website you can find in the links on the right hand side of our main page.
The Riddler (who has a great site, well worth a browse), has some pics of castlemorton here:
Tim Aldiss’s site, now defunct but accessible via Wayback Machine, has his account of his trip to Castlemorton (his rave diaries are a good read, look at the other entries while you’re there)-
Castle Morton was an experience.. I’d been visiting a mates place in East London and he was coming over to mine in the depths of West Wales afterwards. we’d heard that there was a festi down near Bristol that weekend, so set off on the hunt along the M4. At one of the service stations along the M4 we got a lift from a Green godess fire engine that was loaded down with kit and Hippies, it was one of the vehicles spiral tribe was using to get to the festival. As we got close we found out that the festival might not be on, so set off on a hunt. the police herded us up to Castle Morton, by the time we got close there were several miles of trucks and busses full of people. At one point the line stopped and a guy with us got out and started counting vehicles as he walked towards the front. when the line started moving again, he waited for us to catch up. he’d counted over seven hundred vehicles, and he hadn’t reached the front of the line.
When we got there, the sun was setting and from the hills overlooking the site you could see the site starting to pulse with light and hear blasts of sound as things were set up. Travelling off all the way to the horizon there was a ribbon of headlights delivering more people to the festival.
Blinding weekend, my mate had his first E experience, Watched the police try and drive through the centre of the crowd. they got stopped in the middle, and a nameless longhair got passed over the crowd, and started selling Acid off the bonnet of the police car. after futilely attempting to get out of the car the plod ended up just laughing at the sheer balls of him.
Nighttime had more than its fair quota of low flying helicopters with spotlights. (although someone did take a potshot at them with a firework)
The Spirals’ calendar of police harassment includes this-
XMAS/NEW YEAR ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON NWI4 free parties provide 1000 meals for homeless. Police attempt illegal confiscation of equipment without noise abatement order.NO CONFISCATION – NO ARRESTSNO CHARGE
Here’s a quote from Steve Spiral:
The round house we never had a generator… Had to hotwire, FACT, I was there when it was done… not saying I did It.
Thanks to Snufkin for this comment:
I was at the Roundhouse gig on New Years Eve too. At the time it was derelict and owned by the Metropolitan police. the entrance was blocked with several hundred tonnes of rubble, totally filling the access road. Didn’t stop the Normals drving the rig and genny in on a six six-wheel-drive Militant that used to belong to Moscow State Circus, strainght over the top. Another crazy night. Next night wasn’t so great, after the security had done too much coke and gone to sleep and every mugger in London moved in.
The power was stolen from a light socket owned by British Rail at the back of the building and the system went off at 6:30 in the morning when they turned the lights off. Someone then found an alternative power source.
There are also some lovely pics and a flyer from this party over at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20081206111111/http://www.spiral-tribe.org:80/understand/page10.html
Again, we heard about it at the time but didn’t attend. Remember hearing rumours about muggers, but also about what an amazing venue it was. Were you there? What was it like? Got any photos or flyers? Also, there seems to have been a Christmas Eve party (also Spiral). Anyone know about this? We’ll create another post for it.
UK Free Parties and Free Festivals 1988-1994 
