Hippie Hippie Shake

by Richard Neville

  ‘More than flattered,’ he replied. Peel confirmed he was often invited to schools to lecture on music, and singled out the article ‘Brown Shoes Don’t Make It’ by Charles Shaar Murray as being of superior standard.

  Brian Leary began with his usual unctuous charm: ‘Sexuality was introduced into the music of the pop scene by a Mr Elvis Presley, was it not?’

  ‘I think scholarly studies would tend to show a sexual element from the earliest days,’ Peel replied, in his Liverpudlian twang.

  ‘Yes, but we have not heard a criticism of Mozart or Beethoven which deals with somebody having an orgasm.’

  ‘If I were to write music, I should be delighted to think people were making love to it.’

  ‘I see you use the expression, “making love”.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So I take it you would consider it bad taste to use the word “fuck”, rather than “making love”!’

  ‘I felt because I was in court, I should say “make love”, but everyone else is saying “fuck”, so I’ll say “fuck” as well.’

  The tabloid crime reporter, who had left the room the minute John Peel appeared, came back. He slid across to Frederick Luff and handed him a folder of press clippings. Discreetly, while the cross-examination proceeded, the clippings were manoeuvred to the desk in front of Brian Leary. Shortly, the prosecutor asked, ‘Are you married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you ever had . . . venereal disease?’

  There was a terrible pause. ‘Yes. Can I explain how?’

  ‘I think not.’ Leary surveyed the jury with an air of tragic weariness. ‘Am I right in suggesting you thought it appropriate to announce on the BBC that unhappily you had contracted venereal disease?’

  ‘Yes, and I would do the same thing today.’ Peel had been invited by the BBC to contribute to a programme on the subject, and was told the biggest problem in combating the disease was people’s refusal to admit they had it. ‘In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few people in this courtroom have caught VD, at some time or other.’

  ‘Forgive me for a moment.’ Argyle glanced down severely at Peel. ‘It’s so terribly easy to say – but what does it mean?’

  ‘The doctors told me that people from all walks of life get venereal disease and are not prepared to admit it.’

  ‘You say people in the court have contracted venereal disease and never mentioned it,’ said Leary, glancing towards the dock. ‘Which part of the room do you have in mind?’

  ‘All parts of the room.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a common disease.’

  Argyle told Leary to move on to another topic, but the prosecutor begged his Lordship’s permission to continue. ‘No,’ said the judge. ‘A very great accusation has been made about people in this court. I can’t see any point in pursuing it.’

  Peel protested, ‘But I didn’t bring it up in the first place.’

  Was there anything funny about Schoolkids Oz? If not, much of it could be dismissed as squalid. For my final witness, I called Marty Feldman, the goggle-eyed comedian then at the height of his fame with a hit TV series, and the courtroom settled down for a little slapstick and social commentary.

  Marty wore a denim suit and bounded into the box. Offered a Bible, he pushed it aside. The judge explained the procedure. ‘If you don’t practise a religion, you can do what’s called affirming. It means the same thing in law.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll affirm.’

  ‘Before you do – why?’

  ‘There are more obscene things in the Bible than in this issue of Oz.’

  ‘That’s not what I wanted to hear.’

  ‘I have my own religion, but I don’t think you would understand it.’

  This little spat with Argyle seemed to put Feldman on edge. I began by explaining to him that the cartoon of the wanking, pupil-goosing teacher was not going down well in the courtroom. ‘Do you think this subject matter is fair game?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I had a headmaster who looked exactly the same. A lot of kids have sadists as teachers. A child has a right to record it.’

  The comedian spoke in quick, belligerent bursts, and Argyle remarked, ‘I don’t know if it matters, but I can’t hear what the witness is saying.’

  ‘I think it matters,’ said Feldman.

  The judge swivelled his chair to face the wall.

  ‘Shall I answer again, judge . . . louder?’ Feldman shouted.

  I pressed on: ‘In your TV work, is censorship sometimes a problem?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We had all these fights with the BBC over Till Death Us Do Part. They said the writer was allowed two “bloodies” and one “bastard” if he took out a couple of “tits”.’

  ‘One of our cartoons, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, has been criticised for encouraging violence.’

  ‘Cartoon violence is cathartic. It doesn’t encourage readers to go out and kill.’

  ‘What about Rupert Bear?’

  ‘It’s got the Establishment uptight, because in some ways it represents their own childhood. In a dictatorship, one of the first things they do is try to outlaw humour. But if a subject can be discussed seriously, then it can be discussed with humour, especially at school. I mean, we were all at school once,’ he continued, raising his voice again and jabbing a finger at the bench, ‘probably even the judge here. Am I speaking up loud enough for you, judgie? Am I waking you up?’

  The atmosphere was so charged with hostility there was no point in continuing. Brian Leary tried a couple of questions, and gave up. The comedian stormed from the stand, muttering as he passed the dock: ‘I don’t think much of your chances, Richard, he’s not listening – too busy reading Oz, the boring old fart!’ Trailing behind him, heading for the phones, was the entire gang of court reporters.

  As July wore on, the headlines got bigger, the stakes higher, and the omens darker. The Little Red Schoolbook, despite its valiant defence by John Mortimer, was ruled obscene by a Lambeth magistrate – the first book condemned in the three and a half years since the conviction of Last Exit to Brooklyn. The publisher was fined fifty pounds. Timothy Leary was arrested in Switzerland and returned to jail in America. In Ibiza, a hippie gathering was broken up by police, who fired shots into the air and, according to The Times, ‘beat twenty people senseless’. After being accused of ‘scaring off paying tourists and causing moral problems’, fifty hippie ‘vagrants’ were forced on to a departing ferry. In the adjoining court at the Old Bailey, the Mangrove Nine, members of the West Indian community (recently abandoned by Michael X), went on trial on charges of inciting a riot. A young African Oz supporter, Olivier, was thrown out of the nearby branch of W. H. Smith, the newsagent chain. Her crime? Wearing an Oz Trial T-Shirt.

  Germaine sent hot kisses and a letter from Italy recounting a ‘certain amusing scene’ in New York, where she had been promoting The Female Eunuch. Strolling in Central Park with Abbie Hoffman, the pair found it difficult to just ‘talk and groove’, because Abbie was torn between putting her down – ‘ever been in jail, Gee Gee?’ – and his ‘Alfish impulse’ to jump her. ‘As there are more cameras in Central Park than trees, I was cringing, just imagining Screw running the cover shot: REVOLUTIONARIES IN THE MISSIONARY POSITION.’

  Germaine resisted his advances, until Abbie ‘firmly led me into the bushes to smoke another joint. And then rolled on top of me. People were freaking out just digging our twosome (and me a full head taller than Abbie). Altogether it was, as they say, pretty far out . . .’

  Her letter was full of concern about the way the trial was going: ‘. . . sweetheart . . . maybe I’ll get my chance to coruscate at the appeal . . . just joking . . .’

  On a postcard of the Old Bailey I replied: Wish you were here.

  Jim Anderson was never in the slightest doubt about the outcome of our case. Oz would win.

  In response to my examination, Jim recounted why, after long, gainful employment in the NSW Attorney-General’s
Department, he came to throw it all away. ‘I became very disillusioned with the adversarial system. I couldn’t handle the way witnesses were browbeaten. In particular, I found that truth was not valued in a court of law, that both judges and barristers were highly hypocritical.’

  I asked him to recall the laying out of Schoolkids Oz: ‘An ideal classroom situation, all of us teachers and pupils . . . with everyone having a lot of fun.’

  Just how much fun I didn’t realise until the night before he took the stand. Kids crashing on his floor over the weekends, smoking hash, listening to rock until dawn. Three of them pounced on his stash of acid in the back of the refrigerator and as they became more and more giggly at the design table, he shooed them out to Kensington Gardens to play. When I turned Jim over to Brian Leary I knew we might be in for trouble.

  Leary’s first question was unexpected and strangely prophetic. ‘You have mentioned your interest in justice. You appreciate, do you not, that publicity can have an effect on the course of justice?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you seen the T-shirt Richard Neville is wearing this morning?’ Puzzled, I stood up and removed my jacket, revealing the lubricious Honeybunch. That night, the Evening News headlined its slim report of the day’s proceedings: OZ MAN SHOWS OFF TOPLESS SHIRT.

  ‘You observe printed on the front: OZ OBSCENITY TRIAL, OLD BAILEY, LONDON 1971. How many of those have been printed?’

  ‘Several hundred, I think.’ Felix was wearing the Luff T-shirt.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s a way of advertising that a matter of great public concern is taking place.’

  ‘Of great concern to you, sir! It seems that if you are convicted of an offence here, and the Court sees fit to impose a fine, then this will be met from the sale of shirts to the public . . .’

  Leary made his way through the pages of Oz. On the subject of the Small Ads, the exchanges followed the pattern of previous witnesses, but with Leary making graphic allusions to ‘perverted’ behaviour.

  ‘Not every child is normal, is he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And unhappily, some boys do incite homosexual men and provoke them into acts of buggery – did you know that?’

  ‘I’ve heard it.’ Jim fiddled uneasily with his Rupert Bear badge.

  Leary moved on to the cover. ‘You see the girl on the extreme left with a penis strapped on?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nice?’

  ‘It’s just a dildo.’

  ‘Of course, but is it nice?’

  ‘Well, it’s beautifully drawn.’

  ‘Mr Anderson, do you find the erect male organ nice?’

  The prosecutor’s question provoked the longest silence in the courtroom so far. Jim didn’t realise until later that for both the innocent and the guilty, playing the lawyer and judge’s game is more important than telling the truth, and that if you don’t play, the game is soon up.

  It was a pivotal Wildean moment that the rest of us watched unfold in dismay. He told me later, ‘A simple yes would have got us all convicted and I refused to lie, so I just shut up.’

  Leary swanned about. Jim shoved his glasses up on to his forehead and stared more closely at the cover. The judge offered the magnifying glass. ‘Maybe a glass of water, Mr Anderson? A chair?’

  Leary changed his question. ‘Would you agree that the male organ is clearly indecent?’

  ‘No, not indecent in the least.’

  ‘Would you mind repeating that for the benefit of the court?’

  ‘I don’t find it indecent in the least.’

  ‘Do you find anything indecent?’

  ‘Lots of things.’

  ‘Name one.’

  Jim’s eyes followed Warren Hague as he made a flanking move towards the bench with a superfluous document, exuding the aroma of patchouli.

  ‘Perhaps if someone urinated in front of me in the courtroom . . .’

  ‘You would find it indecent if someone passed water here in the courtroom?’

  ‘Yes, I think I would, but . . .’

  ‘Mr Anderson, you’re not married are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No children of your own?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you think it a good thing if parents masturbated in front of their children?’

  ‘No, but it would depend on the family circumstances.’

  ‘The what? May we have that reply again?’

  Leary was swinging round from judge to jury, playing the part of an outraged Victorian nanny.

  Jim looked wretched: ‘What do you want me to think?’

  Ashen-faced, he made it back to the dock.

  Felix Dennis took the stand in tailor-made ultramarine overalls designed and donated by the trendy Mr Freedom. Stitched across his chest in day-glo orange were the words: UNIVERSITY OF WISHFUL THINKING.

  Because some of the slang in Oz had confused the Crown, and thereby the jury, I thought it best to start by getting Felix to elucidate.

  ‘The word “freak”?’

  ‘Not a fairground midget. Usually a person with long hair who doesn’t work from nine to five.’

  ‘The phrase, “blowing your mind”.’

  ‘Although it has roots in LSD, it’s now used in a much wider context. I could say a record blows my mind, meaning “fantastic”, without thinking of drugs.’

  ‘“Fucking in the streets”?’

  ‘Certainly not copulating in the highways and byways of the metropolis. It’s just a slogan; a battle cry on behalf of free sexuality.’

  The next phrase, ‘right on’, had troubled the judge over the weeks. He thought it meant ‘write on’. Felix explained that it came from the Black Panther Party in America, and was a term of solidarity and support, often accompanied by a salute.

  The judge was intrigued. ‘Is it the same as the salute of the communist party?’

  ‘Oh no!’ Felix jumped up, clenched his fist and thrust an arm at the ceiling, yelling, ‘Right on!’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Dennis.’ Fists in the gallery shot in the air, and their owners were herded to the door.

  ‘It’s just like “hear, hear”, your Lordship.’

  Brian Leary grilled Felix on aspects of obscenity, but little emerged of significance. On other matters, Felix made admissions, though his manner was as brash and confident as it was when he was doing his ad rounds. The police had interfered constantly with Oz, he breezed, and after publication of the Homosexual issue, they had the audacity to haul him and Jim off to Scotland Yard for a ‘caution’. Indeed, a colleague of Luff’s had told him on several occasions that Oz was ‘pushing too far, much too far’. As for the circulation – enormous! Each copy of Oz was read by about seventeen people, he reckoned, so he put the total readership at, oh, half a million!

  Trawling through the Small Ads, yet again, Leary contended that these ‘pandered to the lusts of homosexuals’, and Felix, leaning heavily on the stand, replied, ‘I find that phrase repulsive, Mr Leary. Would you please rephrase the question?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ snapped Argyle.

  In his own way, Felix tried to wreak revenge on Leary for his treatment of Jim. When asked if he found anything indecent, he uttered with force, ‘I find a great many things indecent, Mr Leary’.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘The view expressed by yourself in this courtroom, that it’s better if information about VD is swept under the carpet rather than discussed openly – I find that indecent.’

  ‘What about parading yourself in the nude, in full view of everybody else? Indecent or not?’

  ‘It would depend entirely on the circumstances. For example, it would be fantastic to take your clothes off and bathe naked in the sea, Mr Leary, on a beach in Acapulco.’

  The prosecutor changed the subject. Did Felix believe there was anything at all which tended to corrupt people?

  ‘Yes, Mr Leary, the object of most people’s lives – money!’

  At the last minute, we
got a wonderful idea – to call Vivian Berger’s mother. This would show the human face behind the Schoolkids Oz, a face with whom the jury could identify. Born in Rhodesia, divorced, she had three children, of whom Vivian was the eldest. Short and plump, with long dark hair, she worked as a market researcher. Grace Berger had recently been elected Chairman of the National Council for Civil Liberties. She confirmed she had encouraged her son’s involvement with Oz. It was an amusing prank, she recalled, until she read The Times one morning, and saw that her son was named as a conspirator. ‘I have never been so distressed by anything in my life,’ she told John Mortimer. ‘I was so sick that I had to call a doctor.’

  Vivian’s claim in his Oz bio, that he had ‘smoked pot at nine and tripped at eleven’, was a silly joke, she said, which had made her angry at the time. Mortimer asked, ‘Has the experience of taking part in the magazine done your son any harm?’

  ‘He expressed his own beliefs, and that these were published has done him no harm at all. As a co-editor he was given responsibility. It is only by exercising responsibility that a child can learn to trust his judgement. But what has done him harm is that the whole thing has been blown out of all proportion.’

  In cross-examination, Brian Leary asked Mrs Berger if it was true that the headmaster at Vivian’s school had confiscated a copy of Schoolkids Oz and mailed it to her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Suggesting to you, surely, that he considered it undesirable to have such a magazine on the premises.’

  ‘Oh, no. He had found some child reading it instead of doing his chemistry.’

  Moving right along, Leary asked why her son, in his article about being caned, had actually named the master.

  ‘Because it was more honest.’ Grace had tried to dissuade him, but her son had insisted on telling the truth.