The celebration of the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge was started by a group of new-age travellers known as ‘The Peace Convoy’. Moving in 1973 to a nearby field, once a year they gathered in their numbers to hold a free festival at the stones, practicing pagan rituals as the sun rose on the longest day of the year. Today, these same travellers still come together at the stones around the 1st of June, but with some very obvious differences.
The Summer Solstice at Stonehenge was originally intended as a special and exclusive event for those who had out-grown the mainstream festivals and were looking for something deeper. After 11 years of holding the event reasonably successfully with little to no organisation from anyone apart from the travellers residing nearby, the government finally intervened with force. Before 1985, there had been various attempts to rid Stonehenge of its ‘Peace Convoy’ by the local community, none of which proved to be successful. However, on June 1st of that year an event transpired that would change the summer solstice at Stonehenge significantly; the Battle of the Beanfield. Wiltshire police came in full riot gear to aggressively remove the travellers, with several major casualties. This statement given to the press by one traveller best describes the incident; ‘the police came in and they were battering people where they stood, smashing homes up where they were, just going wild.’[1] That marked the end of the summer solstice at Stonehenge as it was in those days, until eventually enough support was gathered for its rebirth in 2001. After reading an article about the event in 2001 by Zoe James [2] it is clear that there were some very obvious changes to the festival since 1985. For a start, there was of course a police presence from the beginning of the event to its end. However, 1985 provided a certain rule for all future police intervention that they had to keep their distance, meaning that in the festival grounds the police occasionally would turn a blind eye to any minor unlawful behaviour. Since 2001, police intervention has been ever increasing, as was apparent when I went in 2008. This of course meant some discontent from the hippies as they look at any police presence as being the start of another Battle of the Beanfield. Will it ever get to that point? In my opinion no, almost certainly not, however the festival does seem to be heading in a very different direction; the base of a mainstream festival. How long will it be before a large ticket price is introduced with strict search policies on the entrance? A spokesman from a pagan group that attends the festival said ‘There's a shroud coming down on our freedom. There is more and more control over our lives. It's a monster coming into our society.’[3]
Another noticeable change written in Zoe James’ article that gives further indications towards that path is the increasing amount of young people attending. When I went in 2008 I enjoyed myself and there was definitely a sense of harmony between all attendees, but again what happens when the young take over? The amount of new-age travellers and hippies that now attend the summer solstice today are definitely in a significant minority, and I believe this definitely could be a possibility. Despite the common view of pagans and travellers being odd and out of the ordinary, people should still in my opinion have the right to practice what they believe, so who are we to take that away from them? In a sense it is the destruction of culture, albeit slightly dated and controversial but still definitely a culture.
A quote by the recent philosopher Albert Camus that I found whilst reading Cultural Theory and Popular Culture by John Storey in my opinion best describes this point; ‘Without a culture, and the relative freedom it implies, a society, even when perfect, is but a jungle.’[5] This quote, like any, is up for interpretation, my personal understanding of it in this context being that without having the freedom to practice their culture these travelers and hippies would be lost in the modern world. Whilst Stonehenge can be and is listed on UNESCO’s world heritage sites, the recent cultural heritage surrounding the stones cant, meaning that the history of the festival and the people upholding it would become extinct. It is almost ironic that the original purpose of the event was to get away from the mainstream festivals, however now it definitely could be doing just that.
On the other hand change could be considered a good thing. I certainly enjoyed myself and would definitely go again, however I cannot shake my suspicions that the invasion of my generation is slightly wrong. There are many directions that the festival could go, perhaps even towards being similar to Glastonbury, however personally I do not believe that that change would be for the better.
References
5. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture Fifth Edition by John Storey, published by Pearson Education Limited in 2009 in Edinburgh.
Images
1. http://libcom.org/history/1985-battle-beanfield accessed on 28/01/12
2. http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/stonehenge/2001/historyopinion.shtml accessed on 28/01/12
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