‘Sure. Give us a call next time you’re in London,’ I said, without giving the matter another thought.
Martin Sharp wrote from Sydney; a stinging rebuke to my inscription on his farewell present:
No wonder you tucked Keep the River on the Right so gingerly into my bag. The distance which lately yawns between us reached Grand Canyon proportions with your dedication. As you rush off to the BBC to play Leader of the Underground, don’t moralise to me about Oyster Bars. What an opportunist! I can recall the first appearance we made together on the TV. This was a taped interview at Sharp’s Chelsea studio conducted by Stephen Frears, who was directing a documentary on the Underground for the BBC. When the cameras rolled you explained how the next issue was going to look, and what I, as an artist, must do. In reality, I had conceived and executed the whole idea – the Plant a Flower Child Oz.
Until you met the twins in my studio you hardly knew what a flower child was. Tomorrow you’ll be claiming flower power as your own idea. Don’t get trapped in your fantasies.
If revolution is your calling rather than your posture – and as yet it has only been a pose – then you better pay more attention as to how you got there, and why – your motives are questionable – the stirring up of predictable controversy in search of applause.
Don’t squander your energy. The coming court case offers you the most important chance to demonstrate your integrity in a public forum. If you call the right witnesses, you can place the whole education system on trial and really liberate those millions of schoolkids – you have the intelligence – do you have the guts? Don’t turn the trial into a Carry on Chicago Seven. It can be a first in all the world, a unique opportunity – don’t miss it. Truth is the most revolutionary force of all.
Your inscription on the book was provocative and Schneebaum’s story is amazing – thank you for it – I hope my reply is also provocative. You are surrounded by flatterers. I love you dearly so I write strong words . . . Martin.
On the night of 17 December, Jim Anderson and I visited an address in Holland Park. The dealer was a rangy Australian, a new face on the scene, with whom – to the raga riffs of Ravi Shankar – we sampled his stock. The Kenya heads were a bargain and we bought up big for a Christmas break with friends in the Surrey countryside.
The next morning, lying in bed and skimming the rebel press, I phoned the office. In that split second before the first ring, Marsha’s voice was on line. ‘How on earth did you get through?’ She was almost accusing. ‘The phone’s off the hook. We’re being busted.’ Dozens of cops were in the building, taking away the filing cabinets, the furniture . . . Click.
I shouted to Louise, who was in the kitchen, ‘Put the stash outside’. I called Jim Anderson and told him get round to the office as soon as he could, then hurried down the hall to take a shower. Detective Inspector Luff’s obsession with Oz was intensifying. Raid after raid after raid – what more could he want? The carpet? The plumbing? As I stood on the floor, dusting myself with Johnson’s Baby Powder, Luff burst through the bathroom door. ‘Oh!’ He was embarrassed. ‘We’ve got a warrant.’ His face was puffy, slick with sweat; he looked very pleased with himself. Slinging a towel around my waist, I followed him back to the living room. Six plainclothesmen and labradors were giving their attention to the papers, the bookshelves, the bed, the wall hangings . . .
‘Could you please tell me your name?’ I asked a fat man dismantling the phone.
‘Get stuffed!’
In the hall I accidentally brushed an officer, who said, ‘Do that again and I’ll knock your fuck’n block off.’
I was shocked. But I shouldn’t have been. It later turned out that at this very time, the head of the Drugs Squad, Chief Superintendent Kelaher, had been suspended from duties and faced an investigation.
Louise sat silent and ghost-like on the edge of the armchair. A man on all fours under the table scratched through the waste-basket. I asked his name.
‘Get stuffed!’
‘You’re all called Get Stuffed, huh?’ I said, glancing out the window at another cop contemplating the garbage cans. ‘No wonder our readers call you pigs.’
A pinkish one in a plaid suit clenched his trotter and Luff blurted out, ‘These gentlemen are from the Drugs Squad’ – his tone carried a hint of disdain – ‘they just happened to be passing by.’ Oh, sure. A labrador drooled saliva over Louise’s stack of shoes. My home was turning into Animal Farm.
I flung on some velvet and suede and glanced at the warrant. It was issued under the Obscene Publications Act. ‘So why the narcs?’ Luff ignored this and darted upstairs to raid Jim Anderson. Two pigs and a dog went with him. Jim was grabbed as he ran out the front door, but he and Judith Arthy had already thrown all their illegal substances over the back wall into the grounds of the Russian Embassy. When the Drugs Squad rooted through their flat, they drew a blank – unlike the embassy staff. When Jim climbed over the wall to retrieve their stash, it was gone.
A dusty carton was dragged from a shelf, and its contents – the entire range of Pellens Personal Products – dumped on the bed. The farmyard gathered round. Surreptitiously, I pressed the Sony’s record button.
‘You’re fucking warped – that’s what you are. The pair of you. Twisted.’ The officer’s face was tomato red. He held up a fantastically knobbled and spiked French tickler. ‘I can see why Luff’s got your head on a plate.’ His fingers circled a vibrator, still a novelty item.
‘You’d be surprised where that’s been.’
Tomato Hog hastily chucked the vibrator on the growing pile of suspicious items – the touristy hookah from India, a paperback of Portnoy’s Complaint, back issues of Oz, including a complete set of the Australian edition, the stone rubbings from Angkor Wat . . .
Another officer handed The Hog an envelope from Amsterdam, which had arrived that morning. The brochure for A Summer Day, the doco which featured that champion of animal lib, Bodil Joensen, the darling of the Wet Dream Festival. It was soon on display. On the cover, in her lederhosen and milky plaits, she was shown straddling a pig trough. Dear readers, please let me explain. I had been contemplating running an interview with Bodil in Oz, and had written off for ‘visual back-up’.
It was hog heaven. When the raiders came to this pioneer of interspecies communication in a full farmyard spread, you could have heard a pin drop.
‘What you got there, boys?’ Two female officers stood at the door. The brochure vanished. Louise was marched into the back room for a body search.
Tomato Hog came over to the table by the window, where I was sitting: ‘You’re gunna be done right an’ proper, you are.’
Unfortunately, I glanced at the Sony.
‘What’s this then?’ He flicked it off. ‘An item suspected of concealing dangerous substances.’ It was thrown on the pile.
Louise was escorted back to the room. She was ‘clean’ – in more ways than one. Her bodily hygiene was commended.
I asked Louise to make a note of all future exchanges. When she picked up a pad, it was knocked from her hand. To calm the mood, I put on a record. The player was flung against the wall.
The dogs went crazy over the yellowing stacks of Underground papers. They loved my old socks. They couldn’t be torn away from our decrepit and roach-free harmonium. Somewhere in Wakefield, at an ex-Oz printer’s, stood two crates of aniseed. The foreman had been willing to mix it in with the ink as a decoy service to our stoned subscribers. Having departed that printer somewhat abruptly, we never managed to test the concept. Now, as I watched the confused and tail-wagging dogs, I began to realise that such things as aniseed in Oz were unnecessary. The labradors were hopeless.
But the snouts of the Drugs Squad continued to twitch with such certainty that I began to suspect our affable pusher from the previous night was a plant. The carpet was torn up. The search in the garbage bins under the entrance stairs went into overdrive.
Suddenly, someone was shouting and waving from the railings at t
he top of the steps.
Felix! It was wonderful to see him up there.
‘Richard! Louise! Don’t let the fuckers get you down. I’ve rung Release. Whatya need? Pizza? Fish and chips?’
Yes – we were starving. But before I could answer, Felix was moved along.
Excited yelps came from the garbage bay. The game was up.
‘It’s a public place,’ I said. ‘That stuff could belong to anyone.’
‘What’s this then?’ Tomato Hog revealed a pile of roaches, allegedly scooped from under the bed.
Louise and I were taken by van to Notting Hill Police Station and put in separate cells until nightfall. When I asked for a drink, the station sergeant seemed pleasant: ‘Sure. A Scotch or a pint?’ Water was all I wanted, but to be polite, I said, ‘Scotch.’
So new was I to this shift from Underground to underworld, that it took an hour for his sarcasm to sink in. Neither Louise nor I had eaten or drunk since getting out of bed.
David Offenbach arrived, summoned by Release. He had been kept waiting outside the station for three hours. What a joy to see him, full of sparkle and fight, his arms flaying the air as he disparaged the Drugs Squad. When I moaned about the bully-boy tactics, he said, ‘You were lucky not to be belted and planted.’ Louise was allowed free on her own recognisance, but I was to be detained overnight: ‘Luff reckons you’re a dangerous criminal.’ In the morning, I would be taken to the West London Magistrates’ Court, where, according to Offenbach, ‘They’re tough on cannabis.’
‘It’s my first offence.’
‘That doesn’t matter to Stephenson – if we’re unlucky enough to get him.’ A notorious rubber-stamp for the Yard, A.L. Stephenson had been known to remand first offenders in custody.
The Oz office was a disaster zone, according to Offenbach. Files, filing cabinets, subscription lists, advertising material, accounts ledgers and typewriters had all been lugged to the trucks of Luff, along with 4,000 back issues and even the part-prepared artwork for the next Oz.
We shook hands – ‘See you in court’ – and I settled into the cell, hungry, weary, angry, thirsty and sorry for myself. The lights of the cell were left on all night, so I dipped into my paperback – slid into my pocket as I was hustled from the basement – Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall.
Although due at court at 10 a.m., Luff did not arrive at the police station to pick me up until 10.30, a delay which later assumed significance. Despite a sign proclaiming ‘fingerprints are not compulsory’, I had been pressured into rolling my fingers on the ink-pad (‘We tell the bench you refused, and he chucks away the key’). In the back of the police car, when Luff opened his briefcase, I noticed a copy of Playpower.
‘Did you steal that from my home, too?’
‘I bought it at the Mandarin Bookshop.’ He wanted to know why I stooped to publishing porn. ‘It doesn’t even give you a decent living.’
‘Read Playpower, you’ll see that my generation has a different outlook on life.’
‘A filthy outlook.’
‘Obscenity’s in the eye of the beholder, Mr Luff. You see it everywhere.’ I told him that I had barely noticed the ad for Suck, until he had frothed over its contents in the magistrates’ court.
‘My guidance comes from God,’ he said. ‘That’s the difference between you and me. I accept His law.’
From a cell underneath the courthouse, I was led upstairs to the dock. Uniformed cops ringed the room, making it hard to believe that the bench was independent. Offenbach appeared at my side and rasped, ‘Stephenson! – but don’t worry. I’ve got six sureties.’ From the solicitor’s bench, Louise blew a kiss. Offenbach added, ‘Quarter of a million!’
I glanced at the gallery. The phones must have run hot. Reassuring faces sat in a row. Jim, Felix, Marsha, Ed Victor, Colin MacInnes, Judith Arthy and a scowling Tony Palmer. The roly-poly jazz critic of the Observer, George Melly – whose wife, Diana, worked at Release – signalled a thumbs up.
It happens in seconds. The whisky-faced beak. A mumble from Luff. A date set for the following week. Offenbach rises to make a formal application for bail . . .
‘Sit down. I’m not going to grant bail.’
Offenbach remains standing, stunned.
‘Sit down. You can apply before the judge in chambers.’
‘But I haven’t fin . . .’
‘Sit down!’
Cops close in. I yell, ‘This has got nothing to do with drugs – it’s a personal vendetta by Detective Luff.’ Pinning my arms, the cops drag me away. Louise weeps. Judith screams again and again. George Melly shakes his fist. ‘You senile prick . . .’ A voice yells, ‘Fascist.’
I shout from the door, ‘This is a political trial . . .’ A steely arm locks over my head and rams me down the stairs, bent double. Keys turn. The cops hurl me against the bricks.
‘That might shut you up!’ Doors clang. I lie on the floor like a sack of potatoes, panting.
Hmmm. The façade of civility is sure starting to slip from the British legal system. Shouts and alarums echo from above. I’m scared – yet angry. Not only because of the swiftness of my ejection, but because I suddenly feel the cogs of a cold and complicated mechanism swing into action. Today it had silenced me in court; tomorrow it could silence the magazine.
The Black Maria wound its way through London landmarks, loading on sullen remandees from various Petty Sessions. Reindeers soared above the awnings of Harvey Nichols; Santa Claus rang his bells at Marble Arch. Through a slit of glass, I watched the bustling Saturday shoppers – the prams packed with gift-wrapped boxes, the hot-chestnut hawkers hugging their overcoats – all beyond my reach. Not a single face glanced our way. The invisibility of captivity was as bad as being chained to the seat.
The check-in procedure at Brixton jail was thorough. A series of snail-like queues, a slew of paperwork. In the space marked Level of Education, I wrote BA, and the screw said, ‘We get a lot of those here’. My street gear crushed in a sack, a grey uniform slung over my arm. Each prisoner was made to sit in a hot, shallow bath – welcome in my case – which we then scoured, under close supervision, for the next inmate. A shivering wait in a corridor without any clothes, then a ‘medical inspection’. Perhaps they’ll diagnose malnutrition, I thought, light-headed from lack of sustenance. An elderly gent in a white coat, a veteran of Crimea, perhaps, glanced disparagingly at my weedy frame, and barked, ‘Put your clothes back on, lad, before you get pneumonia’. The shirt prickled my skin and the trousers were tailored for Arthur, the fattest man in the world. Dinner was a slice of bleached bread and a tin of icy ‘spaghetti rings’.
In the top bunk was a friendly fellow who had murdered his wife’s lover. They caught him the next day at his sister’s. ‘Why didn’t you hide in a hotel?’ I asked. He said he had no notion of how to arrange a room. ‘What about catching a ferry to Europe?’ He had never held a passport. Like others I was to meet in the morning, this was a man who had been born with the odds against him. Pretty soon I was picking up tips. How to silence a supermarket’s burglar alarm, how to unlock a front door through the mail slit. ‘Don’t you ever try to go straight?’ I asked an old lag, as we shuffled in a circle on the asphalt. After the first conviction, he said, crims were considered fair game, and rounded up for every line-up. When I expressed surprise at their lack of aggro, one remarked, ‘Off duty in a place like this – we’re the nicest people in the world. Catch us on the job and we’ll blow your head off.’
By Sunday afternoon, the food had picked up and my trousers had ceased to fall down. A forlorn Christmas tree stood in the yard, and a screw handed me a box of baubles. Just as I was getting the hang of coaxing cardboard angels across the pine needles, I was told to get my kit and report to the office.
There they were – my saviours! Louise, David Offenbach, Andrew Fisher. On a golf course in Gloucestershire, said Offenbach with a grin, Mr Justice Bridge had interrupted his swing to grant bail – £250 on my own surety, and £500 from George Melly.
Hugs, handshakes, a quick discussion of future strategy. Louise said, ‘Hurry – we still might make it.’ Of course – the rock benefit for Release.
Andrew Fisher headed his veteran Volkswagen in the direction of Chalk Farm. He and Louise updated me on the court scenes. Fifteen spectators had been thrown into the street. George Melly yelled, ‘Get off the bench’ as he was ejected. The beak had taken his advice, trembling as he fled. Good. Louise showed me the Observer – COURT ROW OVER OZ EDITOR. The ‘elderly magistrate’ was reported ‘visibly shaken’. Terrific. David Offenbach had called the hearing ‘a complete disgrace’. He told the Observer it was ‘a fundamental point of British justice that a bail application be heard in full. My client has never been convicted of any previous offence.’ The paper noted that Release had rounded up a ‘number of literary and show-business figures’, who were prepared to stand joint bail for £250,000 – these included impresario Michael White, and literary agent Clive Goodwin, a founder of Black Dwarf. The defendant was described as wearing a patchwork jacket and ‘looking tired’.
A leggy picture of Louise brightened Saturday’s Evening Standard – the one taken at Jill’s house in Clarendon Road in 1966, soon after my arrival. The Sunday Mirror laced its report – EDITOR SHOUTS AT BENCH – with a juicy titbit. The two defendants had ‘appeared together in a frank film scene’.
Andrew nosed his wreck into a parking space and the three of us bounded up the Roundhouse stairs. The strains of the Who’s rock opera, Tommy, soared into the drab twilight: Feel me, hear me, touch me . . . The doorkeeper’s face lit up, a Hell’s Angel, and he herded us backstage.
‘Far out, man – dig the show.’
In a pale pink boiler suit, Pete Townshend sliced the air with his mad guitar. Keith Moon guzzled booze and flung his sticks like a spastic on speed – for a charity gig, the two of us once raced neck and neck in a stadium on kids’ scooters. Roger Daltrey twirled the mike like a lasso. I’m a pinball wizard . . . The dance floor was a shuffling circle of furry coats and twirling sparklers. Groupies with kohled eyes and luminous stars painted on their cheeks swayed near the stage. Townshend caught my eye and Baazaaaam, he shifted his riff, screaming into the mike: ‘I’m freee . . . I’m freeeeeee . . . A joint was pressed to my lips; Louise’s arm circled my waist, unknown hands patted my back and I became choked with emotion. The word went round. ‘Wows’ and ‘Yeahs’ from the crowd. Townshend and Daltrey jumped higher: ‘I’m freeee . . . I’m freeeeeeeeeeee . . .
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