Leaving London in search of a dream 1971/74, Part 7: Expanding horizons and a big tribal Gathering

 We had a lot of new friends now, John and Ase eventually bought a huge derelict shell of a place with some outbuildings and moved onto the site nearby to make it habitable, nice picture of them showing the scale of the venture. We visited a lot once they had one end of the house habitable. Janet and Gosh David moved into a little place they rented in the middle of a forest, with no real access apart from a long walk through the woods and my new soul brother, Andrew, would stay with us and help me with building and plumbing, depping on the market stall and taking over where Janet had left off as regular guest. People I can only vaguely remember, like Christoph, who taught me to weld copper pipe fittings and a lovely couple of guys who didn’t fit the Hippie mould but had a retreat where they rested and made props for film sets. Russ and Jan, who I’ve mentioned, used to invite us over and we’d eat, listen to music and talk. Russ gave me some addresses of people who imported essential oils and gave me a display stand for the market, 'Aardvark essential oils' was born. Occasionally they would give us a lift up to London and back, as they had friends they visited in London and Reading regularly, they had great clothes I remember, I always liked that US ‘west coast’ look, tall blondes with cowboy boots and tasselled leather jackets, Jan fitted the bill, they were fun people, more "worldly" than most of the people around and a great respite for me. I grew very fond of them.

John on the right, Ase, second from Left

A bit of work to do here

And then there was Hillary’s new horse. I knew nothing about horses, we had no land to put one on and I never really found out whether she had bid for it by accident or formed some obscure emotional relationship with it while passing its stall. Jan’s younger sister had bought a place nearby with a few paddocks, had a couple of horses and with her boyfriend were “children of god”, a bit more reclusive than many of our friends, we weren’t close, but Hill’ convinced them to house the horse for her. It didn’t go well really at any point. It was cheap at auction because it was only just a yearling and was already in foal, not recommended (they didn’t mention that on the auction papers). It was a palomino mare and very beautiful, I took it out and rode it once (not my thing…), Hillary twice, and then it was advised not to ride it until after it had foaled. It died in child birth, although the foal lived and I convinced her to give the foal to the neighbouring trekking centre, where they could look after it. It definitely freaked me out, going to the paddock and finding the dead Mare laying in the field, with the little foal walking around it all wobbly legged and lost.

Rik and Tina, who we met at the market, asked if they could have some space on our market stall to sell a few things and we could share some of the time manning the stall on market days. Some days when there was a big market in other towns, I would pack up the stock and a couple of trestle tables and drive off at 3 am to set up and sell things. The big, once a year, fair days were exciting places with streets closed off and traders from around the country, livestock, food, clothing and those professional sellers of household items that would auction everything at seemingly tiny prices. The markets were historic events covered by a king’s charter, whoever turned up early enough would get a pitch and we had some fun days, standing out like sore thumbs among the big professional sellers.

We met Declan at a kind of “Arts Lab” event, poetry and song, some agitprop and he asked Hillary if we would put up a market stall at a new free festival he was helping to organise, asked us to bring some basic foodstuffs, tobacco etc as well as our regular clothes, jewellery and paraphernalia. It sounded like fun, almost everybody we met from then on was talking about ‘Meigan Fayre’.

Without doubt this was the single biggest social event ever planned for the Welsh Community of hippies and free thinkers, previous events were just the size of someone’s garden or a small village hall. Some other events that featured Nik and some of his better known alt jazz, space cowboy , gatherings would be a bit bigger but still just personal invite , I’m sure Shelley and Thomas could correct me if I’m wrong, they moved in those circles more than I did. Everybody I knew from the Market stall, the artists, poets, painters’ puppeteers, musicians, technicians, probably 800-1000 people would be going. It was a gathering of the tribes, a celebration of all things alternative bold and barefaced.

The event itself was a huge success, though for me tinged with a bit of heartache as it was the summer that Hill’ and I first drifted apart, but more of that annon.  I was determined to enjoy it Ase and John shared the space selling belts and leather goods and while someone had to sleep in the shop tent to ward off some of the light-fingered local boys who would try and get into the tents at night, it was a complete gas, to use the vernacular of the day. The stall we set up was magnificent, with a huge Sun Mandala over the top of the marquee. Girls trying on Cheesecloth wrap around skirts and Indian jewellery, guys buying incense and patchouli oil, I think we sold out of Rizlas on the second day. At night wandering through crowds of dancers and being invited into a home-made, make shift Sauna. I spent the second night in one of those brightly painted converted coaches that travelled the country from free festival to free festival selling brown rice and vegetables during the days and serving as a cultural hub at night. Watching the live bands made me determined to start playing music again.

From the right Me, Hillary, Ase, Andrew, possibly Janet on the left ? and someone's child at the front ?

all photos courtesy Ase Forder