I was there, 2 broken ribs, 11 stichers across my head concrete block cracked on my skull, b4 arrested. Remarnded on false charges, Bus totally smashed and finally found not guilty. Thank you Lord Cardigan for being our 'up' voice, you also saved us a second trashing, and spoke out for us, and the freedoms we where aspiring towards. Thank you
@@harrycarry516 it means 'Lovely day chaps' is nothing but a cowardly , sad, little troll who wouldn't know 'integrity' nor 'honour' if they slapped he/she/it across the face.PS : Note that the troll called 'Lovely day chaps' has already renamed it's sad little self twice in 2 days ,1st to ''This Finger Kills''..then into ''Stop Changing Your Account'' ...pathetic isn't it.
I grew up there.. Not many people had a problem with their presence or the festival. Stones are free., Have been for thousands of years. Sad time in Wiltshire history.
They had blocked the roads off and surrounded the site with barbed wire AND blocked the convoy. There really was no need for this violence other than the police wanting to indulge in it.
"The whole affair was a happening organised by the Arts Council. ' Police' were played by unemployed skin heads, hippies by unemployed Punks and the "experts" by the debt ridden landed gentry. Thatcher remained in power due to psyops like this." 🤥 Mr Almost Tru
Supposedly the 1985 Stonehenge festival would have been the 12th consecutive gathering, and as such should have received royal assent and would have become a chartered legal festival. If this is the case then it was stopped illegally to prevent it becoming legal.
@@sgw8903 just because you've not heard of it doesn't mean it's not true. There's a thing called the world wide web. Maybe try know and do the research yourself. I mean the comment or has told you what he knows now it's up to you to get of ya arse and do it yourself.
The whole point of the riot was to teach the hippies a painful lesson. It is very clear from the footage and testemony, that the cops initiated the violence.
Happy Solstice today SHOCKING video.. was 17 then and was so frightened, I'd never seen anything like it, was at Greenham Common too before this.. Tragic and heartbreaking watching it, I weep and find it hard to watch.. Tash hope your ok girl . LYN your awesome..YOU ALL ROCK.. 🌊🌿🕊☀️
Lot of the policeman from Wiltshire Constabulary were veterans of policing the coalfields in the Miners Strike. They used the same tactics they used on the miners in 1984 the following year to stop the convoy in 1985 in the Beanfield at Cholderton. Wiltshire police and police from the south were taken up north because many of the local coppers would not do the dirty work on people in their own mining communities.
Yep they sent the met up to the northeast because they knew local cops wouldn’t have the appetite for that kind of violence against people who had a just cause
This is horrific. I can't believe what they did to those people's homes. Breaking baby toys, guitars, speading tuna fish about, what excuse can there be for that?
@@brianmorecombe2726maliciously destroying things why smash a guitar and camera up it was vengeance towards people they hate they wouldn’t do it to the Irish travelers as they fight back
This still makes me sick . 2024 and I really can't get my head around the fact that the criminal savage behaviour dished out by the filth still hasn't been dealt with .The force needs to be held accountable for their horrible actions
@@stephenmcgraw8871you are an American. I won't go for the insult I would like to post you've already had me banned one today.is that because you can't take criticism or is it just because you are an American and you, maybe, are out of touch with reality
@@stephenmcgraw8871 You can't trespass, it's made up nonsense. The world belongs to us all and NO ONE deserves what those DISGUSTING BEAST PIGS did to innocent people.
5:30 The problem is : certain jobs attract people with certain traits. People who are emotionally and intellectually immature may want power and oppression over others, a trait that under normal circumstances could be described as psychopathic.
There is no space in the UK for counter culture. Thousands of years of land owning have created a conservative landscape with the various power structures including the Church, Royalty, Politics, Land Owners, Farmers, Police, Military and big business in tight control of the status quo. You can’t reverse the lack of freedom since the more mobile populations which had a huge space to roam in the times when Stone Henge was built and used for worship. It’s a dream to have the freedom, the off-grid small holding lifestyle where you can appreciate the land and work with it, pulling down the usual barriers to movement and where you live/pay tax etc. Growing up in the 70’s I felt for these folks and also felt the fear of nuclear annihilation through education. It felt like the end of alternative life style but I don’t really know what that means, I have led a traditional life of education,work family, permanent home. Such a shame really that there are no spaces for freedom of movement beyond holidays and day-trips. I think ultimately when you can’t forage and run a small holding as an activist it does become very hard to sustain the lifestyle and clearly the Gov’t of the 80’s did everything to shut it down. I can’t help but wonder if the Gov also despise the traditional traveller community that are clearly more savvy in regard to maintaining their freedom whilst “keeping their heads down”. Perhaps a lesson in more subtle and less radical pushes against authority could have seen this way of life survive beyond the Thatcher era.
It’s the same shit over here in the US. The corporate power structure is the government and they want a captive audience as a consumer class. No other lifestyle suits that model so it is shit down violently.
@@vixenfire I am a robot actually. Well spotted and if you have been travelling since 84, then clearly we don't have a problem. People like me (robotos) require your education on the way forward and I would welcome that information.
Perhaps it's still a way of life for some, just because you are not permitted to live a certain way does not automatically void a 'way of life' :) One can hope we might see a revival, once the exodus to the green belt is complete and cities are mostly deserted there will be plenty of places to park up at least...
Police should be MADE to discuss this now. Find the retired in charge and find out why they had such a hatred towards travellers.. They viewed us all as dirty junkies. Fact
@@hmq9052Irrelevant. Imagine asking a person who, as an adult, reports abuse they received whilst aged 12 and being told: is it still happening now, now you’re 37?
@thenunt Who do YOU think manipulated ALL this. Smashed up the Vans. Imposed restrictions. And broke it all up. The Lords. Dukes. And Earl's of Freakmasonry
I was at Stonehenge in 1981 ,82 ,83 & 84 . I wimped out and stayed away in 1985 . Didn’t get back to the solstice until 2007 and 2019 . At 2019 I was amazed to be one of the few there whom would’ve been born before 1985 let alone 1970 …🙄❤️to the spirit of Wally
Yes I agree. He has a heart and could understand that everyone is different. He could not see any problem these travellers were causing. Now why could the police not see the same thing?
I gave my mate Stig a Clash t shirt just before he went to that festival in 1986. Next thing I knew he was wearing it on the front page of the Sun while being arrested and led to a van by two coppers.
I took out all the seats and away I went It's a right ol banger and the chassis bent. It's got a great big peace sign across the back And most of the windows are painted black The windshields cracked it's a bugger to drive It starts making smoke over to 35 It's a psychedelic nightmare with Million leaks But it's home sweet home to Some sweet arsed freaks Slow down ittinerent child the road is full of danger. Soon I was rumbling through the morning fog With my long haired children and my one eyed dog . With the trucks and the buses and the trailer vans My long throw horns playing Steely Dan We straggled out for miles Along the beggars Hill When the word came out that we'd lost the ol bill You can bet your boots I'm coming when the times are hard That's why they keep my dossier In Scotland Yard Ittinerent child don't do what your doing Ittinerent child you'd better slow down We headed into happy Valley Seeking peace and love With a lone helicopter Hanging up above We didn't realize till we hit the Field there were 400 cozers Holding riot shields They terrorised our babies And broke our heads It's a stone fucking miracle That no one's dead. They turned my ramshackle Home to a burning wreck My one eyed dog got a broken Neck Slow down ittinerent child The boys in blue are waiting Rock in peace Ian dury
@@andywfc1 Ian Dury did give up his day job as an art teacher to form the Blockheads. The rest is history. Itinerant Child was on his 1997 album Mr Love Pants.
@ARU-vid User They should make children live on a bus for a week and learn to play the tambourine.They could call it earth school.Have nice day A You Tube User.
these are people with principles and beliefs to be admired. I look on them from afar and think that deep down, these are my beliefs yet the wanton need to own that Ferrari or that bigger house or the oneupmanship of a bigger salary than the other man prevails in my brainwashed head. It’s so important to place our needs in perspective.
You can live a comfortable lifestyle of your choice but still be a decent human being. I and my husband are now in our 60’s, still working, have our own car each, a mortgaged home [soon to be mortgage-free] but we are respectful of others. We both came from working class backgrounds, our parents lived in social housing. I, particularly, have always been a bit of an ‘Earth mother’, in touch with nature, an animal lover etc etc. I was parked up in a car park in Perranporth back in January, there was wahat was obviously a travellers van parked 2 bays away from me. I noticed a beautiful cat by the van and started petting it, the owner came out of the van and we started chatting, first about the cat, then just general chit-chat. He and his partner had lived in their van for several years, both lovely, friendly, decent people. Just like myself 🕊️
@Chris Cheltenham that's absolutely true. You explained that exactly how it is. Evil that they treat a community like that. Is discrimination. We don't have to live like slaves. There has to be balance. Too many people are only concerned with material things. If they want to live this way let them. I have no problem with it then or now. I have worked and paid taxes my whole I don't mind that people live on benefits. Its not much money to live on. Enough to get by just about. There isn't enough jobs for everyone in the world anyway
This is horrible. Poor people trying to make a life. And you get the weight of the English police force (not the local police) we need an inquiry. that woman going back to her trashed bus really got to me. She was so strong considering what had happened to her baby and home.
That "OPEN SPACE" intro was awesome! Clearly CGI with what appears to be either an early form of some type of color-mapping or a cell-shader. Looks fantastic!
Long enough time has passed now so let's have the police release the footage from then for public scrutiny.. They filmed everything for evidence. Let's see who was violent and who started the trouble and who were trying to defend themselves ironically by NOT fighting back... Instead protesting the forced violence upon the vehicular homes.
@Different People no.. Not body cams but they took video cameras and filmed that whole event. I know cos I've seen snippets of it, which they released to press. But they have the whole shebang from start to finish.. Ask the guys who were there and victims to the thug heavy-handed police. Theyll tell u they were filmed.. And I bet many a copper had sat jeering over the footage with remarks like... Oh yea just watch this one.. This one catches Im a right good un... And Yea that got the bastards out.. Didnt stay in there after that... And other such nastys.
It makes my blood boil. We recently had a peaceful folk festival cancelled that's been running for years in Victoria, Australia because the local top Pig decided he didn't like the idea of a Festival outside his town. The event had been running for years and had raised tens of thousands of dollars for the township as well as help support local businesses and trade. In the end and because it was on private property a "birthday party" was held on the grounds as a private event, but not before the cop came down to the owner and threatened to bring police and dogs up from the city. This was a family folk festival and the local mayor was furious that the authorities had got in the ear of local councillors, who ultimately voted to cancel it. I'm now involved in guerrilla festivals and parties because screw them.
Most of us support the modern-day police 100%, especially when someone calls them pigs. That the riot police in this old documentary were in the wrong seems possible, but it was not an easy situation.
It's a measure of how corrupt a police force is that their immediate response to every situation is violent and aggressive. They treat every offence, no matter how petty, as a serious crime and every person in the vicinity as a serious criminal. And of course, it helps if that so-called arm of the public trust is supported in its actions by the government of the day.
I am so glad and grateful that you and others think and feel the same way. I have felt isolated and alone for a long time because I thought no one else was aware of it. What troubles me most is that we can't do anything about it. Everything is so deeply rooted that ordinary citizens of Britain can do nothing to defend ourselves. They play with a loaded deck. We're fucked
I was at most of Stonehenge festivals lived in Salisbury then 1984 was bliss that year 😊my heaven until they stopped it .and we know why 😒😏love and light and peace to the real people wherever you are 😊💛💛💛💛🙏🙌
Great to see all the supportive comments here and that this kind of resistance to a corrupt capitalist mainstream is on the rise again. As the young guy says around 15 min, its an idea, and it keeps coming back. Lots of complicated things going on, but the basic idea is: that people get to control their own lives and create their own sense of purpose. Let's hope indeed that idea and the effort towards it is never snuffed out by undemocratic conservatives, capitalists and the police that do their bidding.
That young guy (Nandor Tanczos) became the first Rastafarian MP in New Zealand and effectively shaped the entire country's progress on waste reduction in the 20th century. But of course they were wasters, good job the police waded in. ;-)
The Pigs of the 1980's were absolute animals, to be honest I'm not entirely sure that much has changed 35 years later. Shocking treatment of peaceful people.
@ARU-vid User So what? As long as they don't harm you ,they are free to live as they see fit. Not everyone is fit to be a mindless robot of societal system.
@ARU-vid User It’s hard to know where exactly to start with your comment, so I’ll just paraphrase Malcom Tucker - you’re so fucking dense that light bends around you.
Thank you for this, very interesting to me, as a man living alone in his van travelling Britain's ancient sites... but I always give Stone Henge a miss because I went there many years ago and was so angered by English Heritage's huge ticket price, and the pure gaul of them to charge entry at all that I have never since been able to bring myself to return. Now I know how those brigands of British history set up their ticket booth. So it seems to me, looking at this, that I roam a no-man's land left in the wake of a battle fought some 40 years ago. Bravo English Heritage, bravo National Trust, what a sterling job you do of turning those sites lent you into little supermarkets built of ancient stone. A hex on them, from the bottom of my heart, they kill what they claim to conserve, very plainly, and replace it with a plastic noticeboard and selfie sticks... whilst only granting free access to academics, surely they have no right to any of it, or no more than any Briton born, yet they claim themselves protectors, brigands they are, nothing more. 🐉
how can people can still be surprised about that? Hardwired for violence, humans have WAR in the brain, and will do it at any scale available. I can't relate with human race. so i am crazy
A decent solicitor would be able to find various reasons to successfully sue the police for their actions in this scenario, but the police know that people like this can't afford a solicitor of any kind and so can act with complete impunity knowing full well that nobody will ever hold them accountable. One law for the rich.....
Woh man, u was their I'm 53, and remember all the news @the time and my parents saying they need a wash and a job,... and I was 15 so first time I saw and started to think different from my parents
and rip earl of cardigan as well he took a ton of sh!t for the way he stood by the convoy ruined him in fact and their still out to get him even now and out of them all he was the only one who stood by them and hes paid for it cause they expected him toi go along with it
@@djdarksidejungle559 one thing i liked about this one, was the reporters and landowners take. most people dont want violence regardless of stance and belief
Soldiers were dressed up in police overalls and took the brunt of the violence that they were trained for. I know of one miner who spotted his son. Shouting at him " Don't dare come home or I 'll bury you myself!"
With house prices at crazy prices, no matter how many green fields houses are built on, houses to many will never be ‘affordable’. Zero hours contracts and even more so in the last year 20/21 with ‘reported’ unemployment figures heading to 3 million, with real figures you can add a million onto that more people are losing their homes, living in cars and stealth vans...it’s 2021 have social standards been improved? No the same old, same old except the rich are even richer, the poor even poorer and you mock my words you could be the next one signing on, as we aren’t out the covid woods yet, as more people are going to become homeless and the banks win again.
I was 16 then, met some really interesting people, good times. People were genuinely decent, intelligent, well spoken, and not malicious whatsoever. A few leeches came and went, but my experience of interactions was mostly positive with everyone.
Battle of the bean field, we all got free entry to Glastonbury in 1986, and then the public order act, illegal gathering of 2 or more people, well done Maggie
Great 'Policing'! Govt. enforcers. And even if those in the convoy had largely resisted (I'd doubt many did). But if they had the petty vindictiveness of vandalising their only possessions is pure Yob behaviour by the Police Gang... Yes Gang.
But they were tied to the system. They signed on, used the public roads, used the national health service when it was needed and demanded all citizens rights despite contributing little, or nothing, to mainstream society.
They talk about being on the dole for years and refusing to look for work. Sorry that’s not wanting to be left alone, that’s taking advantage of that system. It’s stealing from everyone who works and can barely get by because they are forced to pay for your permanent travel vacation.
Stonehenge was built by pre-christian pagans, but modern-day pagans aren't allowed to gather there and worship? They're keen on "protecting" Stonehenge because it makes PROFIT as a tourist site, otherwise these ancient stones would be ignored and even built over!!! Does genuine local culture/community gets in the way of selling an experience to masses of tourist sheep? The irony of a spiritual site surrounded by police & barbed wire renders it as un-spiritual as if they paved over the meadows and built corporate high rise office buildings.
I'm in two minds. I admire these travellers for what they stand for and believe the world would be a better place if we all had the same peace-loving attitude. Then a part of me despises them for living off welfare when they look able bodied, when I have worked for 30 years doing nighshift. I think they'd raise healthy, well ajusted children who don't star at screens, but feel they'd be indoctrinated to the extreme left. I wouldn't be brave enough to live so insecurely so have accumulated houses and wealth and become part of 'the system'. The growing divide between the haves and have nots worries me even though I'm firmly in the 'haves' camp. When this dived becomes too big we get a revolution. I sit on the fence with my views, wish for an egalitarian utopia but realise I'm stuck in the system, playing my best game. Why am I so conflicted?
Nothing's simple in this world, so being conflicted is a sign of intelligence. Having said that, there are well understood reasons in human psychology as to why you cannot fully acknowledge to yourself that someone else's lifestyle is better than your own (even according to your own morals), for example: - The Familiarity Bias - The Sunk Cost Fallacy
I fully understand your opinion, my family is at the lower end of the “haves” and try to have my family steer clear of the “keeping up with the Jones “ mentality. I see this as a disproportionate response and most of the people interviewed seem like really lovely people, but as in any large gathering I’d say there were a few trouble makers which had infiltrated it. Also unsure how wise/good parenting it was to be bringing young children along to such an event. Welfare should be there for down on luck people unable to provide for themselves not a free ride through life but that’s just my personal view based on personal experience. All in the police actions and those that sanctioned it were wrong and malicious.
Because you shouldn't have laboured for 30 years in unfair conditions, and are feeling vengeful that there are others who aren't suffering as you did, again, only because you had. You are perpetuating the myth politicians want you to believe, that you must work to earn your keep while others profit immensely and unimaginably off your labour while doing no labour themselves.
Because you’re right wing. You live with an inherently contradictory series of reactionary grievances that you try to cram into a fallacious ideology, causing endless cognitive dissonance.
Great to see peeps here in 2021 ( still in lockdown) . This was disgusting behaviour from the police , I remember when it happened , I had friends that were there , their children were terrified, their homes destroyed . It was all so wrong .
For those who want more info, a Journo from the ITN (TV News) Kim Sabido who followed the convoy and filmed piece-to-camera shots, filmed the illegal police riot and later on back home, the footage that was the most gruesome "mysteriously" vanished along with the duplicates. In 1990, the duplicates where found and was added to the documentary called "Operation Solstice" The officers involved did get into legal trouble but its bitter sweet TBH.
I spoke to a ex mounted policeman ( now in his eighties) who told me his best days on the force were when he bludgeoned miners around the head from his horse. Same period in thatchers Britain…I haven’t spoken to him since.
Why are they so threatened by these people that are living peacefully, not hurting anyone. I could understand if they were a violent or subversive group but they literally hurt no one. It baffles me. Again good ole Maggie waged war on her own people
What restraint. And not if the boot was on the other foot with us so called lesser mortals smashing into their houses and beating up their wives and trashing their houses and traumatizing their kids.
Bloody amazing, its a peace convoy, the way the police acted was a disgrace, smashing vans up , beating people , what the actual fuck , at this point im raging at such injustice
Long live the convoys / those days will never come again they know what bus your on smh/ most were just people who don't want to live in prison like situations and be with nature / I is was one of them x
The problem I have among others is they never even checked for children these where people's homes so it's not a stretch to assume there might be kids and the police where no more then hired thugs no justification their actions I mean they don't treat murderers that way
@@chrishall8705 The police were breaking the law and the police code of conduct . That's not how you serve the public. These people ARE the public as well. Police brutality is not acceptable or lawful. Smashing windows in to the body of a sleeping baby is definitely not serving me, thank you.
lmao what a sad n poor excuse for a human being you are, if u take into consideration that not all of us were drunk assholes, we had to get drinking water wood for fuel to keep warm and make money during the summer to live then far from being lazy we were very productive, we had to be, unlike u dust brained idiots who without their water on tap n washing machines n central heating screwing up the environment, our days were filled with activity and standing up for our rights while you lot just idly watched as our freedoms were slowly eroded by thatcher and her bastard henchmen, the future you get you surely will deserve ya idiotic no-brainer
Douglas Holland I have just put a book together about how bad the working class had it during the Victorian era, called The Empty Hand-A poor life. You should read it.