Solstice at Stonehenge, 2004

thanks to the professionally carried out "managed access scheme" and the courageous work of the fire wardens, all disasters were averted and the notoriously flammable stones were preserved for posterity, writes Dave Blond.

I can't say I'm a veteran of the thing - I never went when it was a festival, and I missed the troubles of the late 80s early 90s. But I've been going since English Heritage, Wiltshire Council and the police came up with the "Managed Access scheme".  I'm only going to give you my thoughts and observations on this - if you want some proper Stonehenge history I recommend Alan Lodge's site here

For those who haven't been, its quite a military operation these days. You arrive in the dark (as they don't let you in till 10pm) and the first thing you see from the A303 is a vast field of tungsten floodlight and the first of many 100s of flourescent jackets waving you into the carpark. Except we didn't quite get that far. Our borrowed Dodge truck happened to have a couple of small speakers and a box of leads in the back. Not exactly an oversight on my part but I thought I may get away with it. No chance. Luckily my charming friend Sally talked the cops and stewards into letting us leave the speakers in their tent and we proceeded to the carpark, whereupon we realized the two vehicles in the queue behind us were friends of ours and by coincidence we had already grouped ourselves together! Nice.

I'd like to show you a picture of the events at night but I managed to shoot a roll of film without there being a film in my camera. Duh. So anyway we trooped through the numerous check points (no dogs, bottles, sleeping bags, excessive booze (who defines?), bbq's, pushchairs not containing children, etc.) and up to the stones. I thought this year I'd like to get really close to the druid ceremony to hear what it was all about. So I headed down to the six burning torches being held aloft and jostled myself politely to the middle of the throng. But I couldn't hear the words of the druid master. All I could hear was a loud crackling walkie-talkie.

"Yes I'm on channel 3, over."
"Good, we're on channel 3. Are you in position, over?"
"Yes this is the fire marshall at the front of the druid procession. I'm in position - do you have your fire extinguishers, over?"
"We're in position at the rear of the procession. We have our extinguishers and ready to move off, over."

Sure enough, no less than four orange vested geezers with extinguishers were policing the druid rituals, lest any of their six burning sticks come into contact with the notoriously flammable stones. It hasn't happened in 5,000 years but I'm sure its an accident waiting to happen. So I'm still in the dark as to what the druids were actually on about. I'll try again next year.

Getting on for sun up, so after a significant snack of mushies I moved into the middle of the stones. Thanks to all the kind people helping to hold me steady on wobbly rocks to get the best shot of the sun. No film. But this is the best part and you do really have to be there to embrace the truly diverse madness and energy of the people on this special dawn. And at this point I have to say I agree with the "no amped music" rule, because the entertainment is all there, and we are all the entertainment. Some people whoop and scream, some stand silently staring through the rock at the sky, some play drums or violins or flutes. And the druid folks puff their cheeks and blow their horns, the same faces every year. And I still don't really know what brings us all here in this mass sharing of spirtuality, but I'm always moved  immensely (even though moving during sun-up is near impossible, all squashed together with these strangest of strangers).


So, the sun is blazing and I go off to find the rest of my friends and come out of the stone circle to see what I can only describe as a sea of fluoro vests. I thought I'd lie down and ignore them, just look at the sky. I've been lying there no more than five minutes when I took my eves off a cloud and saw 3 cops staring down at me.

"Alright mate?"
"Well I was, yeah. I'm trying to have a spiritual experience here!"
"Right you are then..."

And they waddle off. Now I do try very hard not to hate the police, but at times like this you need to try REALLY hard. I mean what the fuck is gonna happen now? They've got the most peaceful event anyone could wish for, no sound systems, no camping, no excessive booze, a clearcut finish time which everyone's got used to. So why are there 100 police standing just yards from the stones when there's still 5 hours before kick out time? 

I spotted an important (although very petite) policeman being interviewed by a modest queue of journos with TV cameras. I put a fancy looking lens on my Pentax and queued behind the Sky news bloke. (The pics link is at the end of this blog.) The police press liason officer asked who I was - I mumbled something about Socialist wanker dot com. He looked confused but Chief Inspector Hobbs was more than willing to have a chat.

[[[[ Bones- where were you????!!!!]]]]

I think he was relieved to be talking to someone who wasn't such a total KNOBHEAD as the Sky bloke (whose main question was  "Chief Inspector - there appears to be a distinct smell of cannabis around Stonehenge. What are you doing about it?").

I only wanted to know why there appeared to be even more cops than last year and why they were standing in such large groups so close to the stones. He said they didn't have more officers (liar), but did admit they were closer than normal.

I pointed at one particularly bored and offensive looking group behind him. He conceded that was a bit much and said he'd pull them back. PANTS ON FIRE!!! In fact even more came trotting out of their pen to circle our harmless, sun worshipping gathering. It was then that I noticed ALL the cops were Heddlu. This is Welsh for police. Not only were they heddlu but they were all talking Welsh in their little groups. Bit strange I thought, seeing as we're in Wiltshire. I asked one of them (a particularly intense looking porkpie) why the event was being policed almost entirely by heddlu. He told me, without a trace of humour or irony that it's because

"They're our stones you see? The english nicked 'em an we gotta look after them see?"

It's a fair point but surely that was some time ago. I never realised police tactical support was based on such history!

Well, enough flourescent authority. What with the bright yellow cops, the orange fire marshalls, the pink event stewards and the black "special event security" (rent-a-scouse-bouncer), we decided to head back to the car park for some peaceful indulgence. But wait! There was one more! Just after we passed the GMTV weather girl doing a live weather forecast (God that's how safe solstice is now - and yes I was sooo tempted to go Hi Mum!), we were accosted by a green flourescent wearer. So what the hell have you come as?

"Hello! I'm from MORI. Could I ask you a few questions about the "Managed open access" Solstice festival on behalf of English Heritage?"

I said no, but John was well up for it. So I stood behind the poor girl while John (a little worse for wear) gave answers to absurd multi-choice questions.

"How did you hear about the 'managed open access' solstice event?"
"I've been coming here for 30 years."
She ticks 'other'.

"How would you rate your experience on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the best?"
"I always have a wonderful time, but it's ridiculously over-policed"
She ticks 5.

So it went on for 10 minutes. English heritage get the 5 stars they want, the police get no critisicm. The authorities all pat themselves on the back, and everyone's happy. But I'm not. And who pays for all this anyway?

After some frolics and a snooze in the carpark field it was time to head off, especially as it started pissing down with rain. We drove past an awesome array of police vehicles waiting to sweep the filed and stopped to pick up the speakers. Uh-oh. The tent had gone!! I walked around tring to work out if we were in the right place then saw the speakers just sitting in the field getting seriously rained on where the stewards camp had been. They still work luckily. Next year I shall be more cunning.....

Photos here:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/cuttingitfine/

DAVE BLOND 2004