Hippies Reunited!
posted by Alp at Thursday, June 01, 2006
01 June 2006
About this
Something unusual was happening in SW Wales when I was a child – subcultures, social experiments, naked hippies dancing around maypoles. I'm researching a PhD project into remembrances of things past - how our sense of the past informs our sense of self. This enquiry presumes that the past is not fixed, rather it is partly constructed through a shared or collective consciousness, which is why I’m inviting you now to share your memories of certain events, moments, and ideas. A childhood in Wales gave a lot of us a unique experience and a lot of the ‘hippy’ kids, I think, have a wonderfully insightful way of perceiving and interacting with the world. But we also have a very different past from many of our peers, and some ‘site specific’ hang-ups! There were some amazingly off-the-wall characters around and some pretty weird shit happened. I’d like to know which bits you remember, in words and photos. Some of this stuff might be sensitive, so if you are posting photos or texts or relevant transcripts or notes or poems or songs (you could scan them or send them to me ‘snail-mail’ – I will be very careful) onto this weblog please be aware of that, and do so with an open mind.Previous Posts
- Questions and comments and odds and sods
- Subculture
- Steiner education
- Socialism
- Simple Simon
- Sex and drugs and rock and roll
- Self sufficient
- Psylocybin
- Operation Julie
- Nostalgia
9 Comments:
From : Saskia
Sent : 23 May 2006 10:08:35
Subject : piccie
Inbox
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Attachment : Image001.jpg (0.06 MB)
Thought this one could go under the simple simon bit, with a rather handsome looking giles!
I'll dig out some more.
Tinnu replied to me, she's going to have a look to. She's got a kid too, maybe there should be a 'where are they now' section, with info about what's happened to everyone? (bit like Friends Reunited!)
Sx
HELLO!
I've been away for a bit, hence no new info from me.
BUT I know from various sources that this site is getting quite a bit of traffic.
PLEASE DON'T JUST LOOK - ADD YOUR OWN THOUGHTS TO THE SITE.
Thanks a million.
annax
Steve,
Can we please have the next installment of your story. I want to know who Brian is, what happened next, etc, etc!
love, Anna
From : rebekah gemmell
Sent : 14 June 2006 22:35:03
To : kiernanna@hotmail.com
Subject : weblog
| | | Inbox
I'm a bit blown away!! And I'm not really that sort of person! It is just seeing peoples' names from so long ago. I need some time to think about it all and think how best to put into words how I feel about it all!
I have two little kids and live 20 miles east of Oxford, bishy has three and lives in Carmarthen!!!
What you are doing is really interesting and could re-unite a lot of people at least in common feeling. I'm sure i can add some bits - just where do you start.
I also have a small favour to ask - if Catherine Rogers gets in touch with you, please could you forward her e-mail, as I lost touch years ago and it feels important to keep up with everyone.
I'll be in touch,
Bex
Hi Anna:
I saw your bio on the Kingston page -- it is odd to imagine you grown up when I haven't seen you for 20 or so years...
It looks like none of the links on the blog page are working, but I would be happy to add stuff when they are (anonymously, of course). As for Ted, and all of the other characters we grew up with, the problem is that these people are still around and some of what people remember will undoubtedly be less than flattering, especially if viewed from a non-West Wales perspective. One of the things we were exposed to as kids was a distinct lack of "not in front of the children."
Anyhow, I have lived in Santa Barbara for over 8 years; I moved from Wales to Dorset at 9, and then I eventually ended up at University of Sheffield doing a journalism degree, got married to an American who grew up with a holiday cottage near Fishguard, and came out here when I realised moving back to Wales was too much like retiring. Most of my career up until two years ago was around media/public relations; I worked in academic publishing when I first came out here and then taught newspaper design for four years at the local two-year college. This quasi-creative approach to life certainly comes from the way I was brought up, and it is telling how many of my friends have ended up as journalists or in similar careers: we are all to a degree outsiders to the cultural mores that most people take for granted. Now, I am getting ready to finish my juris doctor, and I take the Bar in February: I clerk for a criminal law judge, and work for a law firm that handles education defense. So, I guess my mother would say I turned out pretty straight (to her dismay). I'm in touch with a few people from Wales, the Wheeler kids of course, and my grandparents are still there: I drag my husband to the Queen's Hall when we come down and take the kids to see the Steiner school.
Anyway, let me know when the links are working and I will see what I can drag up,
ANON
obviously i am sick of the sight of that picture of me popping up and will replace it soon with something less pretentious.
From: Will Rogers
To: kiernanna@hotmail.com
Subject: re hippies in Wales
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 22:11:16 -0400
>Hi Anna,
>
>You probably don't remember me, my names Will, I was the tall,
>skinny brother or Catherine Rogers.
>
>Anyhow I just bumped into your blog. I have to say this is
>fascinating . . . probably just my post-modern narcissistic
>nostalgia, but I often wondered what happened to this subculture. I
>desperately pretended I was "not a hippie kid" back then, but hey it
> all comes out in the wash . . .
>I think it was a social experiment. I think its aspirations were to
>free us from the perceived materialism of the rest of modern
>culture . . . but sadly I do think it failed. Our insistence on
>being "alternative" just made us feel special, and in turn this
>made us even more narcissistic. . . a kind of materialism to our
>own self image.
>
>Hey but the concept of your PhD sounds really cool! re 'the past is
>not fixed, rather it is partly constructed through a shared or
>collective consciousness'
>
>Is that true? I mean obviously the experience of it is seriously
>magnified when we think about it . . . I mean right now I remember
>everything . . I think I could even speak Welsh if i tried : ) .
>. . but the facts themselves they are what they are. However I do
>believe that any perspective has to be somehow shared in a
>collective consciousness before it can become objective reality.
>Maybe thats the same thing?
>
>Good luck! Curious to know how this all goes . . .
>
>PS I guess the alternative thing rubbed off on me somewhere . . I
>now art direct a popular spiritual magazine in the US
>
>PPS Are you in touch with Merlin at all?
well I've been away and thought about it all and I'm still at a bit of a loss. I'm having a bit of a problem with the word hippy and its definition because I think in Wales you were hippies because that was how other people saw you and not because you felt like one - what does a hippy feel like!!!!
I don't mean to be awkward, it maybe a personal thing, and that to observe things clearly you have to be on the periphery and never entirely committed!
I feel that a lot of the alternative thing was based a lot more around common interests e.g self sufficiency ,music etc, and it was not so much social experimentation as coincindence and certain charismatic characters gelling to provide glamour and kids!!!I think people needed each other ,because in the early 70s the english were really a minority and a middle class one too- there was no class system apparent at that time unless you count the chapel.
Its funny really, my attitude really shifted when I left Wales,I felt I was shallow to be precious about 'home' becuase there were cool people and places everywhere. you could argue that that was my way of dealing with leaving such a place.
I haven't found an alternative to Wales yet and I would like to find somewhwere to bring up my kids that offers them infinite time and space to explore the basic stuff - nature etc without the world encroaching in on them but I don't think it is possible in the uk.
I don't intend to sound paranoid, but we all grew up in a kind of Utopia, with lovely naivety, idealism and conviction played out against the countryside of hebron ,Glandwr etc, you can't beat that really can you!
I am trying to find the class photo from glandwr that shows us all in it, if no one minds I'll try and post it in.
Anna, you said somewhere on the blog that you wondered if we were competitve because of how we were educated. I think we were encouraged to view the world as our oyster and to have rich experience filled lives and to live to our full potential.While I'm not really following a career as such, I hate 'mediocre',I do feel I owe it to my upbringing to be remarkable in some way. However as I gain responsibilities I find I have to live more in the world that is out there rather than the world I generate around me, which is what I think you tend to do when you are young and able to be more spontaneous. I've run out of steam, but i will think some more if this is usefull/interesting.
Bex(Rebekah)
Well...
Just called Catherine and she mentioned this site. So, of course, I had to have a look.
I have to say that sometimes looking back into my time in Glandwr is a sweet and slightly dishonest indulgence - because I recreate it so prettily in my head - but...there was something about the people and that little river-valley that made it feel like a proper childhood should feel. Even if there was a lot of al-fresco weeing (my abiding memory, not sure what this may mean though).
Wishing you joy with this endeavour, Anna, it's been very interesting and illuminating to read some of the comments. I shall have to return to it.
Love Helen x(Lang)
Post a Comment
<< Home