Part One

Take a map of Scotland and locate the city of Aberdeen, the nation's third largest, on the North Sea coast. Allow your gaze to drift northwards for fifteen map miles or so. There, if your chart has sufficient detail, you will spy the little township of Ellon. Situated slap bang in the heart of north-east Scotland, it inhabits a region of sometimes breathtaking beauty, but also frequently bleak and windswept landscapes. The area in general would appear to be one of the dwindling remaining corners of north-west Europe that seem forgotten, left behind by what erroneously passes as 'progress'. People go there only if they have to: to visit friends and family, maybe, who you happen to love quite a lot; or if you're a bunch of aspiring rural self-sufficiency counterculturalists, who have just been made an offer they might not be able to refuse.

It was Eastertime 1976 when we embarked on the great trek northwards. The weather was cold and unforgiving for hitch-hiking, and we effected a rendezvous at an M1 service station. It was there that I decided to get smart. Dismayed by the price of hot drinks in that dingy, depressing outpost of western civilisation, I determined to get my money's worth. I squeezed a couple of sachets of tomato ketchup into my cup of tea. This gives a clue as to my general state of mind at the the time....

We decided to split into two for the long hitch-hike north. Dave and I formed one pair, Mottie and Liberty the other. The plan was to reconvene at our final destination, the following day if luck was with us.

Dave and I made good progress on that first day, making camp high in the Uplands of southern Scotland as the evening light faded. It was cold up in the hills, and the noise and fumes from the lorries passing a few yards away on the A74 made for a tough night. Still, I didn't really mind. It felt good to be in the hills, and we were on our way.

The following morning we got a lift from a madman. He was headed for Kilmarnock, near the west coast, but missed the turning, so decided to take us all the way to Glasgow instead. We were nice guys in the commune, and tended to have this effect on people....

Come evening time, the four of us had accomplished a successful rendezvous at the farmstead. When first light arrived on the morrow, we would be out and about, enthusiastically surveying the acres.

Although our rate of saving had slowed down somewhat, we had nonetheless managed to amass a considerable stash of money over the previous two years. Smallholdings could still be purchased cheaply in off-the-beaten-track places like mid-Wales and parts of the Scottish outback - like Ellon. We had enough cash to realistically consider putting our dreams of rural communal living into practice.

Part Two

How we actually heard about the Ellon farm in the first place I do not recall. Most probably it was through the hallowed pages of 'Communes' magazine. Whatever.

The smallholding was a little way outside Ellon, comprising several acres on a small rise in the flattish, just slightly rolling, countryside. Some of the land was put down to vegetable cultivation, while the rest was rough grassland, pretty stony, given over to a few sheep or left fallow. The house itself was built of stone, spacious and sturdy, but rudimentary.

The current owners were a couple who, from my vantage point of countercultural superhero, I classified as demi-freaks. While they had undoubtedly opted for the rural way quite courageously, they seemed to lack any serious metaphysical or social critique as context for their endeavours. What's more, the only substances around were alcohol and tobacco (in the form of 'wee ticklers'), both of which possessed zero appeal.

We learnt a lot from our welcoming hosts. How, in Scotland, a potato was a tattie, and a turnip became a neep. And how a neep could, in fact, be what we southerners commonly referred to as a swede. Which was all a bit confusing.

The four of us prospective rural communards spent time talking, exchanging thoughts and opinions. The mood was quiet, however, both somber and sober. We were all inhabiting our own personal world, our own inner silence, weighing things up. 

One day we made a trip into Aberdeen, the local big city. The great oil rush had yet to get properly underway, but the size of the place still impressed itself upon us all. A wan sun broke through the early spring cloud cover but, in keeping with the overall tone of things, the city struck me as grey, grey, grey.  

I was plunged deep in feeling and thought. There was once a time when I was so certain that the rural commune was the ideal place for me. The plan - to leave behind the mess and viciousness that characterised life as we knew it - seemed the way to bring transformation into a broken world. Events over the past two years had pointed to a malaise even deeper than the one of social structures and living, however. Like a revelation it had manifested thus: our very perception was limited, out of kilter, quite possibly downright faulty. Without addressing this, we would be simply skating over the surface of things, continually applying sticking plaster to a disease that required healing at source. Consciousness was primary; consciousness was the thing.

One afternoon I took a walk over the grass, stones, and rocks of the land alone. I ascended a small rise and looked all around. There was not much to be seen: grey cloud was down, with a fine mist obscuring everything. A biting easterly wind blew up, bringing with it blasts of snow and pellet ice straight from the North Sea, cutting the skin on my face and chilling me to the core.

I walked a minute more. Another shower of near-horizontal sleet came in on the wind, stinging my cheeks raw. Was I ready? Was I truly ready? Ready for this? Was it what my heart and soul in their depths desired? Could I dedicate myself to a life growing turnips and potatoes in the middle-of-nowhere, when the matter of exploring consciousness, the foundation of all, became more urgent by the day? Was I ready? Could I do it?

And that, it would seem, was it.....       

Footnotes

At this critical and dramatic point in the story, two addenda come to mind:

The original draft of this chapter was written three or four years ago. More recently, I revisited Ellon, in March 2020. This time round it struck me as an altogether more pleasant and welcoming place. It features in the very first post on 'The Open Door', 'Blog#1: A story so far'. However, I decided to stick with the original version for the life story, as it portrays accurately my feelings at the time.

Secondly, I was saddened to discover a short time ago that Dave Cunliffe had died, age 80, in April 2021. He was a considerable inspiration in my mid-teens, and appeared in 'Life Story#6: White Rabbits' (old blog and life story posts can be accessed via the archive section). More recently, I found him mentioned a number of times by Andy Roberts in his seminal book about psychedelia in Britain, 'Albion Dreaming'.

As a countercultural hero, Dave hailed from the unlikely town of Blackburn. This is one of the places in northern England that largely owes its existence to the Industrial Revolution, and which rarely features on peoples' 'must visit' lists. Even more unlikely is the fact that Dave did not move away at the earliest opportunity, but spent his life in Blackburn, Lancashire (otherwise known for its football team, and for featuring in 'A day in the life' from the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album). 

Dave also wrote one of the finest acid poems around. Called 'The two hour assassination of God', it features in his limited edition production, 500 copies only (I have a copy, one of my more valued items) 'Blackburn Brainswamp'. This is the first verse:

'At 4am she entered the brain of God

and stumbled blindly through its convoluted swamps

until reaching a clearing

in which was reflected the image

of everything that had ever happened

to anyone anywhere in time and space.'

Fantastic, thank you Dave.    

Images: Ellon today, 'Death' from the Dark Fairytale Tarot, Blackburn in the past