BOOK SHOP
THE BATTLE OF THE BEANFIELD
Edited by Andy Worthington
The definitive book on the Beanfield. Fourteen chapters featuring extracts from the police radio log and in-depth interviews with a range of people who were there on the day — including travellers Phil Shakesby and Maureen Stone 9Moz), journalists Nick Davies and Kim Sabido, the Earl of Cardigan and Deputy Chief Constable Ian Readhead — as well as Lord Gifford QC, who represented 24 of the travellers at the Beanfield trial in 1991. These accounts cut through the myths, misconceptions and propaganda that have built up around ‘The Battle of the Beanfield’ to present a detailed picture of what actually did happen.
Also included are many previously unseen photos, a description of the making of the documentary ‘Operation Solstice’, and chapters which set the events of the Beanfield in context. These look at the evolution of the free festival scene, new travellers, convoys and peace protestors, ‘raves’ and road protests, the campaigns for access to Stonehenge, and the wider implications of the events of the Beanfield, through increasingly draconian legislation, on civil liberties in the UK.
To order a copy, go to Andy’s website at The Battle of the Beanfield | Andy Worthington.
STONEHENGE - CELEBRATION AND SUBVERSION
by Andy Worthington
This innovative social history looks in detail at how the celebrations at Stonehenge have brought together different aspects of British counter-culture to make the monument a ‘living temple’ and an icon of alternative Britain. The history of the celebrants and counter-cultural leaders is interwoven with the viewpoints of the land-owners, custodians and archaeologists who have generally attempted to impose order on the shifting patterns of these modern-day mythologies.
The story of the Stonehenge summer solstice celebrations begins with the Druid revival of the 18th century and the earliest public gatherings of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the social upheavals of the 1960s and early ’70s, these trailblazers were superseded by the Stonehenge Free Festival, which evolved from a small gathering to an anarchic free state the size of a small city, before its brutal suppression at the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985.
In the aftermath of the Beanfield, the author examines how the political and spiritual aspirations of the free festivals evolved into both the rave scene and the road protest movement, and how the prevailing trends in the counter-culture provided a fertile breeding ground for the development of new Druid groups, the growth of paganism in general, and the adoption of other sacred sites, in particular Stonehenge’s gargantuan neighbour Avebury.
The account is brought up to date with the reopening of Stonehenge on the summer solstice in 2000, the unprecedented crowds drawn by the new access arrangements, and the latest source of conflict, centred on a bitterly-contested road improvement scheme.
To order a copy, go to Andy’s website at Stonehenge: Celebration & Subversion | Andy Worthington