Part One

Summer had pretty much breathed its last when 1973's Reading Festival came along. Reading was already a fixture in the music calendar. For years it had been a jazz and blues event, but more recently it had branched out as a long weekend of rock music.

I went with Josey and a pal of hers, Lesley. I knew Josey from the village. She was a cute, pretty, I'm-going-to-work-in-a-bank kind of girl. Precisely the kind of girl I fell for, but arguably totally unsuitable as girlfriend for a long-haired counter-everything-conventional type, who intended to spend the rest of his life on a smallholding growing turnips. All the same.....

Lesley bumped into a guy in the crowd, and very quickly something singularly amorous was going on. Wondering whether the mood might be contagious, I made my move. Josey's lips met mine. It's in the Book of Records: the most tight-lipped kiss of the twentieth century. I sat back down on the grass and returned to the music.

Surprisingly, I was not disappointed at how things had turned out. Maybe a part of me felt relieved. We continued as if nothing had happened (which is always a funny thing to do, since something clearly had happened). Genesis came and went into the evening, with Peter Gabriel prancing around in his silly flower costume - I never got Genesis. And then it was time for sleep.

We spread a groundsheet on the increasingly dewy grass of early night-time, and spent a damp, increasingly chilly few hours beneath stars trying to get some rest. By late August, the nights are long enough to go that way. Come sunrise I was frozen to the bone, and it was a relief to get up early and head wearily homeward.

Reading constituted a stark contrast to Trentishoe, and failed to serve up anything that the north Devon free festival had treated us to so sumptuously. Trentishoe was intimate and communal, while Reading was impersonal and anonymous. Trentishoe was built on participation and mutual co-operation, whereas Reading was organised by a bunch of professional entrepreneurs out to cash in on a bunch of music consumers. Serenity reigned at the hashish-and-acid soaked free festival, while a raucous atmosphere and the litter of used beer cans characterised the other. One was a magical meeting of similar minds, a gathering of tribes; the other was a jazz, rock, and pop festival, nothing more, nothing less. Just one more lesson learnt during that unique summer of 1973.

Part Two

Finally, with the sun of mid-September now wan, the early autumn air tepid, dank, and sometimes delicious, I roused myself one last time. I hitch-hiked up to the Peak District where, amongst the hills and dales, I prepared material for my university thesis (see 'Life Story#7: School's Out').

I was ready to leave university altogether. It was a complete waste of time, especially with my future life direction rapidly taking shape. My parents stepped in. And, since they rarely interfered with my life, however weird it was beginning to seem to them, I took it seriously when they did so. They were right, I reluctantly conceded. Having played the education game for fifteen years, I might as well finish it off. Plus, by now I had learnt how to use the university life to my advantage. If I played it right, it would offer me far more free time to follow up the commune thing than any living option would. I duly signed up for those final few months of occasional cameo appearances at the Oxford School of Geography.

Part Three

What a glorious summer it had turned out to be. With only four months since its inaugural meeting at Liberty Fox's cottage, Project Commune was truly up and running. An impressive array of like, or nearly like, minded individuals and fellow voyagers had assembled, and a general plan had been formed. Communal living big-time would begin the following summer. The intervening months would provide each and every one of us with the opportunity to do whatever we needed in order to decide whether we were on board or not. Focal to this would be meeting together as regularly as we could.

So it was that various combinations of interested parties would get together in all sorts of different places. Between commune activities I managed to fit in the occasional visit to the School of Geography in Oxford, and write the requisite essays. Weekly tutorials became spicier affairs as I discovered that speed (or similar) helped this tedious fixture to pass in a far more lively manner. I would walk brazenly through the biting November fog to college in shirtsleeves, then spend an hour fidgeting up and down on the chair like a demented Cheshire cat while we discussed details of changes in urban settlement patterns in nineteenth-century England. I learnt many things from Jimmy Keys; this was just one.

One frost-framed weekend in late November a group of us descended on the northern England city of Sheffield for a gathering. Vicky was studying at the university there, so why not head up the motorway and we could all say hello to her for a couple of days.

The character-free uniform nature of the buildings of Sheffield University almost led me to appreciate the singularity of Oxford with its old colleges and their individual layout and styles. Jimmy Keys and I were billeted on the floor of a particularly attractive female student's bedsit. She held zero interest in communes, but was a friend of Vicky's, and that's how things go in studentworld. First thing one morning Jimmy and I were amazed to wake up bleary-eyed to the sight of the gorgeous one striding over our sleeping bags in short yellow skirt and matching yellow panties en route to the toilet. Jimmy and I stared open-mouthed at each other in a unique combination of disbelief and carnal joy. 

Jimmy was one of the commune team with whom I clicked. These things just happen with a select number of people you meet during the course of your life. He was witty, smart, and was a kindred spirit as far as sense of humour went. We shared a similar outlook on the universe, but he had a far broader experience of life than me. In his company, I felt like a novice.

The other member of the group with whom I hit it off big-time was Liberty Fox. From what I could see, he was actually walking the talk. He already lived in the countryside, grew and collected food, studied Egyptian history and Celtic runes, and was an encyclopedia of information on the deep historic past. As with Jimmy Keys, I felt an easy rapport with Liberty Fox; it was a rare meeting of kindred minds and spirits.

One lunchtime during our stay in Sheffield this older-looking freak turned up and gave us all this unrequested and bizarre lecture on how to take heroin without getting addicted. Shooting up once every two or three days was the secret, if I remember correctly; in this way the body doesn't become habituated.

Why this guy was telling us all this, I couldn't quite understand. When I got back to Oxford, I checked out at the biggest bookshop in town the 'how heroin made me a better person' section.  It's quite a small one.

Part Four

It was a  bright but deeply cold Monday morning when Liberty and I headed to the edge of town and located the sliproad onto the motorway going south. We spent several hours at that spot trying to hitch a lift home. Just as hypothermia was beginning to set in, a car pulled up. A police car. "Hitch-hiking on the wrong side of the motorway sign. That's an offence." Easy scraps for the cops, I realised. Just drive by every couple of hours and pick off a victim or two from the steady stream of ne-er-do-wells heading Londonwards.

Stern faces. Two police officers. Out comes the notebook. I duly give my details. Now it's Liberty's turn. "John Orchard" he intones deadpan. "3 Berry Road. Reigate." I'd never seen him behave like this before, or realised that there were ways of dealing with authorities without just playing their own silly little games. A few weeks later I receive a 'pay a fine or come to court' notice from the world of officialdom, while Liberty just walks on. Whether a hapless John Orchard of Reigate received a surprise communication or not, or whether he was a spontaneous manifestation of Liberty's mind, I never got to know.

Christmas and New Year arrived, and a whole gang of us descended upon Liberty's place for festive celebrations. Dave, Mottie, Liza, Jimmy Keys, Vicky, me, plus Gareth from Sheffield, who had just come onto the radar. Liberty actually lived in the house with his mum, but she seemed to be away for a good deal of the time, especially when a horde of young hippies was coming down for Christmas. But how we all fitted into Liberty's two-up, two-down cottage I don't know. 

Midwinter walks across clay-heavy fields and into the darkness of early evening; tales of hope and adventure swapped over a midnight log fire. Yes, everything was going just swimmingly. And then I went down to Bristol.....  

Images: 5.30am Sunday Reading 1973 (ukrockfestivals, copy. Vin Miles)

              Peter Gabriel being silly

              Oxford School of Geography

Resources: www.ukrockfestivals.com

Don't forget: the entire life story can be accessed through the 'archives' section of the blog.