Drawing on Festivals, Travellers and tings

ng on i w a r D ls, a v i t s Fe llers e v a r T ngs i t d n a

a sketch

ALAN LODGE 1

Travellers and Free Festivals

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atherings in the open air with music are as old as anything human beings have ever done. Some of the tensions that result on the use of land probably began between the farmers and the hunter-gatherers of the Stone Age! Throughout history, travelling lifestyle has always continued. With the free festival circuit developing through the 1980’s people escaping from Maggie’s decimation of jobs and the inner cities, numbers grew looking for alternatives. People looked at the lives of nomadic people across the world. To try life outside the house in many different ways and to pick and select those means that make life comfortable, easy and meaningful. The ‘bender’, the Indian ‘tipi’, the Moroccan ‘yurt’, the Romany ‘bow top’, the western two-man tent, the truck and the double decker bus. Suddenly, life on the road in an old £300 1960’s bus, truck or trailer seemed like a bloody good option weighed against the prospect of life on the dole - what was a poor boy to do. Five of you £60 each , forget about the Tax and Insurance, let’s just chuck a few mattresses in the back of the Bella Vega and head for the nearest festival where we will be welcomed with open arms and be swallowed up into the new age traveller / festival family; anarchists, venusians, pikies, pixies, conspiracy fugitives, old school, new school, never been to fucking school - wheeler, dealers, medicine spielers - tryers, flyers, out and out liars - saints, sinners, all of them winners - all of them strangers in their own very strange land.

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peration Snapshot was an intelligence gathering exercise on Environmental Protesters and Travellers but now organised on a national basis. Also, the ‘Rave Scene’ was now included. All designed to establish a database of personal details, names, nicknames and vehicle registration numbers. “Now every traveller’s vehicle is logged on computer, along with its whereabouts. An estimate of the number of persons in a convoy is included, together with details of any tar-

geted individuals. Many of the vehicles and their occupants have been photographed”.20 Undercover operations were carried out and yet more photographs taken. This information was used as a backbone for an on-going intelligence operation begun by the Southern Intelligence Unit (SIU), operated from Devizes in Wiltshire

Drawing on Festivals, Travellers and tings YouTube Video :

https://youtu.be/jCp5g0K5IwA

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hotographer covering social, political and environmental issues and actions. Work has been produced for publication, galleries, digital and slide projections at events and presented at large scale in public space. Moving beyond photography, he has experimented with mixed media involving printed text and projected imagery. A post-graduate of Nottingham Trent University with an MA degree in Photography, Lodge specialised in issues surrounding representation, presenting himself in print and audio-visual format. A member of the National Union of Journalists, he is a documentary photographer, a photo-journalist and ‘storyteller’ always on the lookout to cover the different strands of related issues.

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Drawing on Festivals, Travellers and tings

Published on May 18, 2021

Alan Lodge

Gatherings in the open air with music are as old as anything human beings have ever done. Some of the tensions that result on the use of land probably began between the farmers and the hunter-gatherers of the Stone Age! Throughout history, travelling lifestyle has always continued. With the free festival circuit developing through the 1980's people escaping from Maggie’s decimation of jobs and the inner cities, numbers grew looking for alternatives. People looked at the lives of nomadic people across the world. To try life outside the house in many different ways and to pick and select those means that make life comfortable, easy and meaningful. The 'bender', the Indian 'tipi', the Moroccan 'yurt', the Romany 'bow top', the western two-man tent, the truck and the double decker bus. Suddenly, life on the road in an old £300 1960's bus, truck or trailer seemed like a bloody good option weighed against the prospect of life on the dole - what was a poor boy to do.