AFTERTHOUGHT
Strong men weep
JOHN WELLS
Us just unbelievable, friend, like the re- turn of the prehistoric monsters trapped in the ice for millions of years or something. It's great really, but also strange and hor- rible in a curious way, if you know what I mean. You know, this weird smell thing for instance; like very old cupboards opened after thousands of years. It just knocks me over.' So much for the reaction of a typical Hyde Park 'regular' in red velveteen bell- bottoms, a drooping fawn moustache, blue tinted round glasses, and a dusty fuzz of frizzled fawn hair, as hundreds of thou- sands of middle-aged and elderly fans gathered in the park last week-end from all over the English-speaking world for the first Patience Strong Festival of Poetry and Dance.
The organiser of the festival, Mr Alf Brahms, who spoke to me in his poster- cluttered office in Dean Street, Soho, has been at pains to emphasise throughout that this was no simple commercial under- taking. 'When Patience agreed to appear— and this is the first time she's done her act in public for twenty-five years, at least on this scale—I realised there'd be a fantastic response from the fans, and I even took the precaution of adjusting prices a fraction in order to regulate demand. But we've been flooded in this office, inundated with re- quests. Retired ice-hockey enthusiasts from British Columbia, Old Contemptibles from New Zealand, a party of Conservative Lady Wrestlers from Capetown, the Sydney Over- Seventies Surfing Club, a group of Republi- can ex-weightlifters from Florida, the Minsk Senior Citizens' Ballet Ensemble . . . just simple, ordinary people without any political axe to grind, who recognise in this poetry the way they want to live, what they believe life is about. I find the sheer weight of numbers very moving.'
And certainly British Rail, who organised hundreds of extra trains over the Bank Holiday weekend to bring the fans to the festival, had very few complaints. 'Hooli- ganism was down to a minimum', British Rail Public Relations Officer Mr Sean Lamb told me, 'one or two isolated cases of hippy youths being assaulted and thrown off the train, three or four smashed toilet facilities, but they were apparently due to accidents or misunderstandings arising from inadequate familiarity with the modern apparatus: a handful of drunks, one reli- gious maniac, otherwise model travellers with a well-developed sense of respect for other peoples' property. I would not have said they represented any threat whatso- ever to the established order. On the con- trary, I would have said that with a few more folk like then about, this planet would be a great deal quieter place to live.'
As the fans streamed through the streets from the main line railway stations, pas- sers-by seemed at first to be struck dumb with amazement. Then, inevitably, there were ribald comments from by-standers about the length of some of the male poetry-lovers' hair, about their tubular trousers and white plimsolls, about their wives' summer hats, handbags, corsets, or calf-length summer frocks. But following the admonitions of their heroine—`a friendly smile, a kindly word'—the fans re- acted only with a benign gentleness that impressed many youthful onlookers with its cool sincerity. 'We was roughing up one old geezer,' a Cockney youth told me out- side the park, 'you know, kicking an hole in his straw hat, and snapping his stick in half, and he was just beaming away like he'd been smoking marijuana or something. Very passive they were.'
Whatever their mood on the way to the festival, the atmosphere as the time approached for Miss Strong's appearance was vibrant with suppressed excitement. Among the crowd, bright with club ties and flowered summer dresses, with copies of the Daily Telegraph serving as umbrellas during the frequent showers, there was a stirring murmur of anticipation that made itself felt increasingly during the `warm-up' in which Mr John Betjeman, Mr Stephen Spender, Mr Christopher Logue, Mr Adrian Mitchell and Mrs Mary Wilson read popu- lar numbers from their work. Activity in the tented stalls, offering beer, cigarettes, newspapers, souvenirs and candyfloss to the immense crowd, gradually waned, and when at last the announcement came that Patience Strong herself was to step onto the stage movement was stilled altogether, and there was no sound in the vast auditorium but the soft hiss of falling rain.
Then, as the frail figure in coffee- coloured lace was seen steering its way to- wards the microphone, a slow wave of pandemonium rolled outwards through the audience. Sodden copies of the Daily Tele- graph were shredded and thrown into the
air, countless 'Huzzahs' and 'Hoorays' mingled with the high-pitched screaming of old ladies, and as the multitude swayed wildly back and forth in tearful delirium, the police found themselves forced to make three or four 'pre-emptive' baton charges in order to maintain their positions. Spora- dic fighting was developing when a tiny, frail cough echoed through the loud- speakers, and with a familiar opening lyric `A friendly smile, a kindly ward when clouds loam dark and grey . . .' a roar of frenzied appreciation burst out that could be heard ten miles away at Croydon, and spontaneous ballroom dancing began in which police and park attendants were whirled away to the poetry's infectious rhythms.
The damage from the human whirlwind that swept through the West End on Sun- day night and Monday tearing down 'per- missive' posters and advertisement hoard- ings, smashing theatres and strip clubs. looting and burning the 'progressive' book- shops and magazine stalls, flushing out the seedy denizens of public conveniences and in many cases lynching them on the spot, has still to be assessed. Mr Roy Jenkins, whose lovely home in Holland Park was gutted by fire, and Lord Goodman, whose chambers were shattered by a home-made `blockbuster,' were both still missing last night. Miss Strong herself and the organi- sers have expressed their 'stupefaction' at events, but a nagging doubt remains: the static electricity clearly has been building up for a long time—where will the lightning strike next?
Previous page
