Part One

It was 'Communes' magazine which had facilitated our first meeting together. Now it came to our assistance big-time once again.

As well as its 'people looking for communes' listings, it also ran a 'come and visit' section. Here, extant communal projects announced their willingness to take in guests, in return for help with whatever might need doing. We figured that seeing the way other people did the commune thing would be valuable in helping form our own future reality. In addition, it would give us an opportunity to do something practical together, rather than just talk endlessly about theoretical possibilities.

'Commune and friends' comprised a floating group of ten, maybe a dozen, members. However, when it came to actually doing something together - proper work - a hard core of four of us immediately emerged for the time being. There was Dave Pound, the project's instigator. By now I was beginning to form an impression of the people in the group. Dave was tall, slender, languid, with a dry sense of humour. He played Dylan on acoustic guitar, and seemed to have a leaning towards social action. Mottie was the young Brummie Irish guy. His appearance resembled that of an occasionally-acned owl, with permanently startled eyes behind John Lennon spectacles. He seemed far ahead of his seventeen years of age. Then there was Liberty Fox. It was with him that I felt most resonance. He had more of an obviously spiritual inclination, and studied ancient Egyptian language, runes, old Celtic lore, that sort of thing. He had a sense of humour that I liked, and we hit it off.

So July and August 1973 became: commune visiting time.

Part Two

First up was Burwell commune in Cambridgeshire. We turned up to find a large, rambling old farmhouse set among immaculately-tended gardens and vegetable patches. The small group of people living there knew what they were doing. Rotas, plans, and programmes ran the show, all helping to manifest an air of businesslike efficiency. We gamely pitched in, carrying out chores in the garden, helping with cooking, cleaning, whatever else was required. All in all, it was a delight and a relief to actually be participating in a co-operative endeavour together. We earned our keep. 

One of the residents at Burwell was Sarah Eno, ex-wife of Roxy Musician Brian Eno. Sarah put to thankful rest the idea that communes were only for dowdy-looking space chicks, who floated and shuffled around in sandals and oh-too-long skirts. She was bright, cheerful, full of energy, and extremely pretty. As well as working at the commune, she also part-ran a health food business in nearby Cambridge, and would send us a cheery wave as she went about her business. How and why her relationship with Brian Eno broke up I had no idea; but Mr Synthesizer must have been nuts to let a girl like Sarah go, I thought to myself. 

Burwell commune was 'officially' non-hierarchical in organisation. All the same, the undoubted queen pin and matriarch was Joan. To be in the presence of Joan Harvey was to experience a firm yet kindly sense of natural authority; the authority granted not through status or position, but conferred by life experience and sheer personal presence. Joan had inhabited the alternative world for, well, a long time. As we chopped carrots together or washed the dishes, she would regale me with theories and stories about the benefits of free love and open relationships. As if to prove the point of her own disdain for convention, she was currently in a relationship with a much younger guy on the commune. 

'Free love and open relationships'. I found the stance a little, um, outdated. The darker cast of 1970s counterculture could look back on the events of the late 1960s and catalogue the heartbreaks and betrayals which proliferated on the back of this particular ideology. Feelings around sex were sometimes uncontrollable, and people easily got hurt. For many of us, a regular boyfriend or girlfriend would do just fine, thank you very much.

One week at Burwell was enjoyable and rewarding; we learnt a lot. Nevertheless, we couldn't help feeling that, after Trentishoe Festival, Burwell seemed just a little too straight....

Part Three

Next stop was Larling. Or, should we say, Shrubb Farm, Larling. It was the tail-end of summer by the time we got to this ramshackle house and grounds set in the heart of the flatlands of rural Norfolk. Things here were far more informal - at best creative and spontaneous, at worst disorganised and chaotic. Long hair for the males, long skirts for the females, organic vegetables in the pot, and dope in the eveningtime. There were also kids aplenty, running and screaming around, just to make sure we boring adults didn't get too staid and fixed in our ways.     

Though only a long stone's throw, and clearly visible, from the main road through Norfolk, the A9, Larling boasted a sense of retreat, of genuine seclusion from the mainstream world. It was also much more the hippie commune of popular imagination. During the day, most of the residents would disappear to some horse fair or another, leaving us to our own devices. And to the company of Richard. Actually, if you stayed indoors, you didn't see much of Richard. He would be out in the gardens and fields, digging, weeding, planting, harvesting. You name it, his darkly tanned frame would be out there, bent over, doing it. 

We all gave Richard a hand in tending the crop. It seemed to me unjust that he was out there working flat-out while everybody else was off on some kind of extended equine holiday, getting stoned, and generally having fun. I watched him closely, scanning for any sign of frustration, bitterness, resentment. My inner detection sensor came back with a low-to-medium reading, but I was not overly convinced. It was a theme that was to come back to haunt me a few years down the line. 

Among the steady stream of guests and visitors passing through Larling was Lisa, soon to become one of our entourage. Like Mottie, Lisa seemed, at seventeen years of age, ludicrously young for such adventure and experiment. But, again like Mottie, she possessed a wisdom and maturity way beyond her years. Hailing from South Wales, she was spending the summer  travelling around from place to countercultural place. If Mottie seemed like an owl, then Lisa  most resembled a mouse, a dormouse. Quiet, soft-spoken, immersed in private thoughts behind thin wire-rimmed glasses. At Larling she first met William, who was to become her long-term partner. 

A whole group of us would sit deep into the night swapping ideas, recounting events, exploring approaches, dreams and possibilities. All the time some kind of unified vision for the future was beginning to vaguely emerge. Then, shortly before the sun came up, we would roll out sleeping bags onto the spacious living room floor; or simply curl up on the sofa exhausted, for a few short hours of sleep.

Our sojourn at Larling was most instructive. We met fascinating and inspirational people, and we discussed no end. All the same, following our time at Burwell, we couldn't avoid the feeling that maybe, just maybe, Larling was all a bit too hippie.

Boy, were we proving hard to please..... 

A note on resources. There is somewhere a video of a film that the BBC curiously made about Shrubb Farm in Larling a long time ago. You can probably find it on YouTube under 'Shrubb Family Commune' or similar.

And remember that the whole 'life story' thing from the very beginning can be accessed in the 'archive' section of the blog.