by James Wyllie
The Lambeth Walk
White Cliffs of Dover
We’ll Meet Again
Pack Up Your Troubles
It’s a Long Way to Tipperary
Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major
ROLL OUT THE BARREL. A WAGON LOAD OF BEER ON ITS WAY THROUGH PICCADILLY CIRCUS (WITH EROS STILL UNDER WRAPS).
VE DAY NIGHT
One of the most exciting elements of the evening for Londoners is that the city will turn on its ILLUMINATIONS for the first time since the outbreak of the war. You may have noticed blackout curtains and papers being ripped from windows all day. This evening street lighting will be in operation, public buildings of all kinds will be specially lit, and shops, theatres and cinemas will turn on their neon signs. One particular moment of illuminated streetlife can be seen mid-evening on Haymarket, where the TIVOLI CINEMA’s red signage bathes the street. You may see an ample woman in a Union Jack apron dancing with a middle-aged gent as an accordionist plays ‘South of the Border’.
Though there is still much speech-making and balcony-appearing by the great and the good to come, the heart of the party is in PICCADILLY CIRCUS and the focus of the action is at RAINBOW CORNER. Previously the TROCADERO, a Lyons Corner House, this was taken over by the US armed forces in 1942 and has served as the centre of GI social life in London for three years. Indeed it has proved a magnet for locals entranced by the Americans’ music, style and demeanour. Today it will be party central as great waves of people move in and out of its bars and ballroom and back onto the street. From mid-afternoon, the club band will relocate to the balcony just above the entrance and provide an all-day soundtrack for dancers and revellers. GIs will be creating impromptu TICKER-TAPE PARADES from the windows in the upper floors, with toilet paper, files, phone books, apple cores and shredded newsprint.
No traffic has been able to get through here since before 3pm and from early evening the pace and the crush will be stepping up. Look out for the NORWEGIAN SAILOR stripped off at the top of a lamppost and a variety of British and American soldiers scaling EROS. Occasionally jeeps and taxis loaded with merrymakers, often piled onto the roof and the bonnets of the vehicles, will inch their way through. We do advise you not to join them. One American soldier, already plastered in lipstick, will be calling out for volunteers to join his collection. Both sexes can expect the offer of a quick kiss and a cuddle to come from a variety of quarters.
If you want a break from the crowds on Piccadilly Circus, take a short walk to LEICESTER SQUARE. Its many trees will be beautifully lit and it is a good place to go for fireworks, flares and a more raucous edge to proceedings. The streets of SOHO next door are even better. The FRENCH HOUSE on Dean Street is the place to get a glass of wine with London’s FREE FRENCH, while Soho’s émigré HUNGARIANS will also be partying. The WINDMILL THEATRE on Great Windmill Street, whose risqué nude revue has been running since the 1930s, is always a place to go and see what’s up and who is around. For those seeking something a bit jazzier and smokier, try the SHIM SHAM CLUB on Wardour Street.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE, too, will continue to be a focus for crowds during the evening, and as they get larger and larger ST JAMES’S PARK next door will become full to overflowing. For those who like a spot of celebrity-watching, keep in mind that NOËL COWARD will be putting in an appearance near the gates around 8.30pm. He will be accompanied by the entire cast of Blithe Spirit – his play running to packed audiences in the West End. The stars of the show include CECIL PARKER, FAY COMPTON and MARGARET RUTHERFORD. The noted popular composer IVOR NOVELLO will also be with them.
At 9pm KING GEORGE VI will be broadcasting his address to the nation live from the Palace and will then make a final BALCONY APPEARANCE WITH CHURCHILL and his family. You will find that by this hour things have got altogether more raucous in front of the Palace gates. Look out for the young trumpeter HUMPHREY LYTTELTON, who will be exuberantly playing on the Victoria Monument in front of the main entrance to the Palace. He will be joined by a man with a large bass drum strapped to his stomach, an American sailor with a trombone and an old lag blowing a single but effective bass note from the horn of a gramophone. After twenty minutes dancing and playing Lyttelton will strike up ‘High Society’ and be lifted onto a handcart. The whole ensemble will then make its way over the next couple of hours down St James’s Street to Piccadilly Circus, then to Trafalgar Square and back again to the Palace. ST JAMES’S PARK is also worth a wander at this hour, The trees and paths will all have all been lit, one of the city’s largest bonfires is roaring, while in the park’s darker corners you will find the atmosphere amongst couples unrestrained to say the least.
‘WERE WE DOWNHEARTED?’ CHURCHILL SOAKS UP THE ADULATION, ALONGSIDE THE DUO – BEVIN (RIGHT) AND ATTLEE (FAR RIGHT) – WHO WILL SOON REPLACE HIM.
The final balcony appearance of the night will be CHURCHILL AT THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH on Whitehall. He will be preceded by members of the cabinet including Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party, CLEMENT ATTLEE, and the president of the Board of Trade, ERNEST BEVIN. Listen out for the drunken Tories and aristocrats who will be giving them some stick and calling out for Churchill. When he does arrive, Churchill will conduct more of a call-and-response dialogue with the crowd rather than give a speech: ‘We were all alone for a whole year. There we stood. Did anyone want to give in?’ The crowd will roar back, ‘No!’ ‘Were we downhearted?’ will be met by the call, ‘No fear!’ The whole thing will wrap up about 10.30pm with the Prime Minister leading the crowd in singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’.
AWAY FROM THE WEST END
Although the West End is the heart of the action, there are many smaller and more intimate celebrations going on in the suburbs, which might be worth your time.
NORWOOD The bonfires and effigies at street parties in this south London suburb are particularly good. Apsley Road boasts a Hitler swinging from a gallows so large that it effectively blocks the road. Nearby Balfour Road has Hitler dressed up with a swastika flag and a sign reading ‘I have no further territorial claims in Europe’. ‘No’ has been crossed out and ‘Hell’ painted over ‘Europe’. They’ll be BURNING THE FÜHRER around 8pm.
London and Croydon Railways train to South Norwood.
RAVENSCOURT PARK There will a huge bonfire in this small park, between Hammersmith and Chiswick. A sizable band will also be playing throughout the evening and you can enjoy the bizarre sight of the massed ranks of uniformed nurses from the nearby Queen Charlotte’s Hospital dancing on the lawns.
Piccadilly line to Hammersmith then District line to Ravenscourt Park.
ST PAUL’S Although it is not the centre of festivities, the great dome of Wren’s cathedral is a focus of the city’s best illuminations. The crossed searchlights over the golden cross on top of the dome are particularly striking. Later in the evening a spectacular ‘V for Victory’ illumination will be created over the dome.
Central line to St Paul’s or Bank.
WILLESDEN The teenagers of Hanover Road in Willesden have been particular active building their bonfire. You will see handwritten bills on the lampposts of the surrounding roads as you walk towards the party. A bombed-out plot, strung with Union Jacks and bunting, has been piled high with salvaged wood, while a remarkably life-like Hitler swings above the pyre on a set of gallows. A stuffed model of Goering with two iron crosses on his uniform sits on a chair at its foot. At 9.15pm a crowd of 100 teens will have gathered and a gramophone will have been brought outside. At 9.30pm the bonfire will be lit, to cries of ‘Don’t let him end too soon, let him linger’; some of the kids will douse Hitler with a hose to prolong his agony. Expect a lot of old fireworks and home-made flares. Then a piano will appear in the street and you will get all the classics. The dancing will be shy to begin with, but by 11pm the place will be roaring.
Bakerloo line to Queens Park.
MIDNIGHT AT BIG BEN
As the evening inches towards midnight and the official end of the War in Europe, you mig
ht like to think about getting to WESTMINSTER, where BIG BEN will be striking the hour and an enormous Union Jack flying above the House of Lords will be dramatically picked out by multiple spotlights.
The best vantage point is probably in the middle of Westminster Bridge, which lies on the south side of Parliament Square. From here you will be able to see not only Big Ben and Parliament, with its river terrace garlanded by lights, but the south bank of the river. Here you will see rotating searching lights, the seat of the London County Council, COUNTY HALL, picked out in red, white and blue lights, while the boats and ships on the Thames will all be strung with coloured bulbs.
As midnight approaches, silence will fall over the considerable crowd, broken only by the final bong of the midnight chimes. Expect cheering, fireworks going off all over the place, searchlights whirling, and every boat on the Thames blasting its horn. If you do find yourself in a quieter spot at midnight, the radio will certainly be on. Listen out for the BBC’s Stuart Hibberd announcing: ‘As these words are being spoken, the official end of the war in Europe is taking place.’
At this point you may wish to just carry on and party through the night, rather than making use of your hotel. You will have no shortage of fellow revellers. For those who need a brief lie-down, GREEN PARK, HYDE PARK and ST JAMES’S PARK will also be available. The evening will stay dry, the temperature will be cool but not cold. There will plenty of fires to keep you warm and it will be safe. Police reports confirm almost zero crime in the city today.
Woodstock
15–18 AUGUST 1969
WOODSTOCK WAS THE EXCLAMATION point at the end of the 1960s, a defining moment when many strands of the American counterculture fused together. ‘The Woodstock Music and Art Fair: An Aquarian Exposition’, as it was billed, was a three-day music festival held on Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York State in the summer of 1969. But, as you will see, the music was merely the setting for a cultural, perhaps even spiritual transformation.
Planned with 100,000 people in mind, half a million showed up and walked across the woefully incomplete fencing that the organisers had failed to erect. At 4pm on Friday, as they surveyed the great mass of humanity that had gathered before the main stage, the management declared it a free festival. Not long after, New York State governor Nelson Rockefeller designated it a disaster zone.
The latter is pretty descriptive. The event is absurdly undercatered and underprovisioned, a state compounded by the roads being blocked for miles around and by squalls and storms turning much of the site into a MUDBATH. The musicians arrive late, the schedules are chaotic and drugs of all kinds are plentiful. But something even more powerful than the blue sunshine acid doing the rounds is at work: a massive outbreak of spontaneous sharing, giving and caring breaks out.
And through it all the most fabulous array of the era’s musicians perform: from the Latino rock of SANTANA to the multicultural funk of SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE, from the protest songs of JOAN BAEZ and JOHN SEBASTIAN to the laments and sweet harmonies of CROSBY, STILLS, NASH AND YOUNG. And, of course, the showstopping finale from JIMI HENDRIX. The organisers had promised three days of music and love, and though things didn’t pan out quite as they had intended, that is what the ‘half a million strong’ Woodstock nation got.
BRIEFING: WHY WOODSTOCK?
Woodstock was the brainchild of four twentysomethings: the enigmatic MICHAEL LANG, an über-cool head-shop owner and small-time music promoter; the maniacal ARTIE KORNFELD, who was vice president of Capitol Records; and two very straight Manhattan flatmates playing venture capitalists, JOEL ROSENMAN and JOHN ROBERTS.
The quartet’s initial encounters turned on the idea of establishing a hip new recording studio in the town of Woodstock in upstate New York, which many of the era’s leading musicians – like Bob Dylan and The Band – had made their base. The never built studio was to be funded and promoted by a big music festival. Building on the success of San Francisco’s huge human BE-INS and the MONTEREY POP FESTIVAL, both held in the 1967 SUMMER OF LOVE, the project soon mutated into something much bigger and acquired a roster of musicians that was truly extraordinary.
PLAN A had been to hold the event on an old industrial park in the town of Wallkill, about thirty five miles from Woodstock. Just weeks before the opening day, however, with many tickets already sold, local protests forced the land owner to withdraw his offer. A series of chance encounters led the organisers to the hamlet of WHITE LAKE near Bethel, New York, and an unlikely saviour in the form of dairy farmer MAX YASGUR, renowned for his sour cream, yoghurt and chocolate milk. A deal was struck and in a mad flurry of activity in late July and early August 1969 Yasgur’s farm was converted into a huge festival site.
It was staffed by the HOG FARM, a hippie commune from New Mexico who would run the kitchens and freak-out tents and, together with a bunch of off-duty New York police officers, provide the PLEASE FORCE, Woodstock’s very own security force trained to say ‘Please don’t do this, do something else’.
By opening day Friday 15 August 1969, the stage was built, the sound system was just about working, and 50,000 people had already turned up, most of them without tickets. They just pitched their tents and sat waiting for the music to begin. Meanwhile, the festival audience continued to grow.
THE DUDES WHO MAKE WOODSTOCK: MICHAEL LANG AND ARTIE KORNFELD. THEY LOSE THEIR SHIRTS BUT IT ALL TURNS OUT COOL.
THE TRIP
Your point of arrival and departure is the inside of a green and white 1963 VOLKSWAGEN CAMPER VAN, parked on the north verge of Route 17 about half a mile from BETHEL. As you will see as you get out of the van, it is just one of thousands of vehicles parked up on this narrow stretch of road that curves through the low hills and woods of the Catskills. The centre of the road will be filled by a steady stream of festival-goers abandoning their cars and walking west. Take a breath and enjoy the sweet smells of fresh cow manure and Colombian Gold that fill the air. The first major turning on your right takes you up into Bethel proper and to the hamlets that cluster around WHITE LAKE. You will see that cars have begun to pile up here too, and the traffic is blocked to the north. The locals’ attitudes towards ‘the kids’ are very variable. Some have created impromptu stores in their front gardens; others will offer you a cup of coffee and something to eat, particularly once the event has been declared a disaster zone and is all over national TV.
For those who like to plan ahead, take the short walk up Route 14 to Kauneonga Lake, then left onto Broadway, where you will find a considerable crowd around VASSMER’S GENERAL STORE. Featured in the movie Woodstock, this shop is run by the genial Arthur and Marian Vassmer. While many local stores have closed, Vassmer’s will serve thousands over the long weekend. This is your best chance to stock up on chocolate, cookies, wine, cigarettes, Rizlas and toilet paper – the standard fare of today’s festivals, but lamentably absent from Woodstock.
THE FESTIVAL SITE
‘By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong’, Joni Mitchell will sing in her famous paean to the festival. Now it’s time to join them. Keep heading west on Route 17 and go round the south end of White Lake. There won’t be any doubt as to where everyone’s going. Your only decision is when to cut off to your right towards the festival. We recommend that you head down to the valley about two miles out of town, just before the road crosses a stream. Then, keeping the wooded area to your left, it’s a ten-minute stroll across the hayfields. Try to remember where you’ve turned off. Fix it in your mind. Really. You have to get back to this road and then to the VW camper on Monday morning and you may not be in peak condition when the time comes.
THE CAMPSITE
You should now be looking down on the main designated CAMPSITE. This lies outside the main festival arena and what remains of the fence surrounding it, but with 50,000 people estimated to have arrived by Thursday night, the campsite will already be spilling over into the woods. Grab what space you can and look to see if there are still any piles of cut logs around.
The Hog Farm left them out for campers to take and the organisers encouraged people to make fires and get cosy. Feel free to do so.
TOILETS AND WASHING FACILITIES are thin on the ground and not for the faint of heart. If you are wise, you will have picked up a stash of tissues at Vassmer’s. In addition to the Port-O-San at the bottom of the hill, there are also toilet blocks behind the Indian Pavilion in the festival arena and at the top of the hill in front of the main stage, next to the food concessions. For the hygienically minded the best bet is the large and relatively clean FILIPPINI POND, a fifteen minute amble due north of the Free Stage. Skinny-dipping, diving and frolicking are highly recommended, though not compulsory.
Depending on how long it has taken you to get this far, you may find that an area in front of the main gate has started to become the INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION ZONE – an improvised necessity in a world without the mobile phone. It is a cluster of notice boards, messages on totem poles and tents with helpful people in them. You many not find who you are looking for but you are bound to run into someone or something interesting here all weekend.
ABBIE HOFFMAN, the notorious and theatrical political activist, has persuaded the organisers to let him have his own tent in the communication zone. From here, he and other Yippie (Youth International Party) activists will be issuing hastily typed INFORMATION SHEETS to the bamboozled crowd. The Saturday-morning edition, for example, will read as follows: ‘Everything might seem groovy now. But think about tomorrow. Life could get hard. If you’re hip to the facts below, pull together in the spirit of the Catskill mountain guerilla and share everything. Dig It!’ There really isn’t enough food at Woodstock, so take your cue from the man: share what you have and receive gifts graciously. Water is not in short supply, with standpipes widely available, though the functioning of the system is at best erratic. Contrary to the rumours you will be hearing, neither the tap water nor the bottled stuff flown in by the National Guard is laced with LSD.
