Classics with spliff
Charles Spencer
Tn 1971, my public school, Charterhouse, lwas a weird mixture of Goodbye Mr Chips and San Francisco during the Summer of Love. Boys still dressed up as soldiers in the corps and were bawled at by a particularly malevolent physics master who once removed my cap and stamped on it in incandescent fury during parade, so outraged was he by my 'disgraceful' turnout. On reflection, wearing gym shoes instead of the preferred immaculately polished boots was probably a mistake.
What none of the beaks realised was that Charterhouse was at this time flooded with almost as much cheap dope as Haight-Ashbury, resourcefully smuggled in by pupils who spent their holidays with parents who lived in such exotic climes as India and the West Indies. A 'quid deal' of some of the best grass I've ever smoked almost filled a matchbox, and would allow you to spend at least a couple of afternoons delightfully stoned. FH never forget lying on my study floor with my best friend, and subsequently best man, Tony Brown, after our first ever joint and listening to Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother at max vol while the joss sticks burned. God, it sounded good. Still does.
It has to be said that sometimes things got a bit out of hand — it can't really be sensible having 14-year-olds tripping on LSD, as happened on at least one occasion — but by and large the influence of drugs at Charterhouse still strikes me as largely benign. We believed in love, peace and the Grateful Dead and there are much worse things to believe in.
That was until the Drug Squad arrived. Charterhouse was extraordinarily relaxed in those days. Most afternoons, if you'd managed to oil out of organised sport, your time was entirely your own, and you could walk or bike anywhere you liked in the Surrey countryside provided you didn't cross the A3 or a railway line, It was also easy to get chits to visit Godalming and Guildford, and our magnificently unworldly housemaster, who wasn't nicknamed Dumbo for nothing, once let several of us go unsupervised to a pop concert in Guildford. It was part of some arts festival, and the word jazz was mentioned on the flyer, which all made it seem respectable, but the band in question was actually Kevin Ayers and the Whole World, one of the best psychedelic/progrock outfits of the era.
Like the good little boy I mostly was, I caught the train back to school after the show. A couple of others decided to have a celebratory joint at the top of a multi-storey carpark while gazing over the bright lights of downtown Guildford. The story has it that they dropped their still-glowing roach from the roof to the street below, and its descent was spotted by an eagle-eyed plod on the beat, who raced up the stairs, arrested them and hauled them off to Guildford nick.
Teenagers have a tendency to exaggerate, so it may be only overexcited adolescent fantasy which persuades me that the Surrey Drugs Squad woke up my dormitory at two o'clock in the morning by rattling truncheons down the walls of our wooden crucibles. Certainly, though, the next few days were a nightmare. A long succession of sixth-formers were hauled in for interview by housemasters and the cops, and panicky rumours spread that those being questioned were being offered immunity from both prosecution and expulsion if they coughed up the names of other happy dope-smokers. It was just like Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which many of us had studied for '0' Level. One guy was so terrified he ate his whole stash of hash and was paranoid-high and sleepless for several days and nights on end. Legend suggests he is now an eminent QC.
In the end, the police didn't bring any charges, only a handful of boys were expelled, and the school returned to nonstoned normality. The headmaster even managed to keep the story out of the papers and as far as I know this is the first time the story of the great Charterhouse drugs-bust has ever surfaced in the public prints.
What has brought it all back with the vividness of a Technicolor dream is the recent re-release of Kevin Ayers's first four albums. I hadn't listened to Ayers since that ill-fated gig at the Civic Hall in Guildford, but for those who love English psychedelia and prog-rock at its least pofaced they are an utter delight — quirky, melodic, daringly experimental and blessed with an extraordinary charm. Ayers's disconcertingly deep, posh voice is alone worth the price of admission.
Playing these CDs, you can't help thinking that this is the kind of music Syd Barrett, the founder and presiding genius of Pink Floyd, would have made if he hadn't gone bankers, and he actually appears with Ayers on an excellent demo bonus track, as well as being the subject of one of Ayers's most delightful songs, 'Oh! Wot a Dream'. Seek out Joy Of A Toy (1969) and whatevershebringswesing (1972) and I think you will agree that these are bona fide lost classics of British pop, still probably best enjoyed with a spliff.
Charles Spencer is theatre critic of the Daily Telegraph.
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