The Counter Culture

By the time I was fourteen/fifteen in 1964/5 I was starting to feel very dissatisfied and trapped. I’d enjoyed a very liberal upbringing with plenty of freedom and no indoctrinating religion or politics. I’d spent my childhood running wild in the countryside with the trees and wildlife. All pretty ideal. Then hormones had kicked in. It was the 60s. Beatles, Stones, Beat groups and girls.

I felt as if I was caught up in some competitive machine, weighed down by expectations. I was being pushed through the exam machine. You competed. You took your ‘O’ Levels and was shunted along. Those that made the grade moved to the next level. The chaff dropped out to a life of factories or trades, apprenticeships and ‘working with their hands’. Those that made the grade were shuffled into the sixth form for vaunted ‘A’ Levels and, if you made the grade, on to universities and careers.

It was a game I was loathe to play. I was regularly getting into trouble at school for hair and uniform infringements coupled with poor attitude. Canings, reprimands and being sent home were becoming regular. School was more of a social event for me – hanging with like-minded lads, chatting to the girls, talking music, sorting out parties, gigs and the weekend. Without consciously making any decision I wasn’t playing the game. My parents were concerned but did not intervene. We had talks.

By the age of fifteen I’d begun to appraise their life. Mum was a housewife. She was bored to death and had no purpose. Dad worked on newspapers in London. He got up at six thirty, left home by seven thirty, commuted to London, came home at six thirty, ate, sat in the sitting room, read the papers (all the papers – it was his job) and watched the news. At ten he went to bed. Repeat for six days. On Sunday he had a lie-in, mowed the grass and occasionally went to the pub for a pint before our Sunday roast. They had a ‘nice’ suburban life on a ‘nice’ housing estate with a ‘nice’ bungalow, a ‘nice’ car and a comfortable life. They’d just been through a war; seen friends killed and were probably traumatised. That life probably seemed ideal. It was what they had aspired to.

It wasn’t what I aspired to. It shrieked boring. It screamed pointless. It looked like death warmed up.

The system churned and I felt I was caught up in this sausage machine. But I had my music, friends, girls and rebellion.

Then, at around sixteen, I read Kerouac – first ‘On The Road’ and more importantly ‘Dharma Bums’. A whole new world opened up and it was a world that appealed to my hormone-drenched mind – girls, jazz, wild clubs, adventure, crazy friends, poetry, marijuana, road trips and an underlying quest for meaning, purpose, satori, understanding and fulfilment. Yes please! This was more like it!

By sixteen I was becoming more and more aware of the politics of the world – the haves and have-nots, the social hierarchy, the threat of nuclear war and the cold war games (we’d lived through the Cuban crisis and all that brinkmanship between Kennedy and Khrushchev). We lived under this constant threat of annihilation.

In those days in the mid-sixties Dylan seemed to be articulating all those concerns and fears – nuclear war, racism, inequality and the political/social madness we were in. I’d discovered Ginsberg and adopted ‘Howl’. It seemed to express the insanity I felt myself to be swept along in. Then I started reading Burroughs which thoroughly confused me with his narcotic nightmares yet seemed to make sense. Then I discovered Henry Miller.

School seemed pretty irrelevant. I had a motorbike and started hitting the London clubs. The sixties was taking off. The underground scene was starting up. I had friends introducing me to Blues, Folk, Psychedelia and like a sponge I was soaking it up. Life was fun. With my wild mates we were doing our own Kerouac. I saw myself as Sal Paradise. School saw me as a pain in the arse. Parents were worried.

Then, at seventeen, I discovered Roy Harper. I’d already got into Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and Jackson C Frank but that first Harper album blew me away. More importantly his rambling gigs connected. Then the second album and ‘Circle’ seemed to put into words exactly what I was feeling.

For me the sixties was a magic period in which I lived the life I had dreamed of and felt completely free. I’d scraped into college in London and had no ties. I’d found my life partner and was madly in love. Life was perfect. Three Harper gigs a week, access to every band under the sun, a group of crazy friends, a range of underground clubs, books to read, music to absorb. I was living the dream. I was Sal Paradise and I was, like an Arthurian knight, on a quest for purpose, adventure and meaning. I too was seeking that Zen burst of satori. Life was a mad experiment.

Through the late sixties and seventies Roy Harper seemed to articulate the way I was feeling about life and society. With songs like McGoohan’s Blues, I Hate The Whiteman, Me and My Woman, The Game, The Lord’s Prayer and many more he put into words the discontent we were feeling.

The underground scene was an expression of what became known as the counter culture. I gravitated towards it. I didn’t get into any heavy politics or religion, though many did. The counter culture was more of an attitude. We dropped out of the game. We were no longer playing for the wealth and status. We weren’t hankering after the big house, trophy wife and big limo. That game felt hollow. We did not believe that the establishment (state and church) held any purpose or value. It was merely a warmongering power game. It seemed to me that I’d be a lot happier living a simpler life with a higher morality and values – put simply – love, friendship, equality and sharing, a life that was more in tune with nature and spirituality.

Society with its patriotism, nationalism, racism, xenophobia, wars, hypocritical religion and corrupt politics seemed to have no relevance to my life. I rejected it. I felt myself to be part of an international fraternity, a brotherhood/sisterhood and a new world. We shared different values, different drugs, different lifestyles and different aspirations. Above all, we rejected the corrupt, hypocritical values of the society we were part of. It was all phony.

It was all very idealistic. The counter culture existed in parallel. We had our own society and values. We had our own newspapers – OZ and IT. We recognised each other on sight and shared. We were all on the road.

Of course, reality intruded. Our social leaders tended to be musicians and political firebrands who sold out and opted in. Big business moved in and commercialised rebellion. Making a living undermined freedom – the need for somewhere to live and something to eat required money. Eastern spirituality was just as iffy as Christianity. Having babies tied us down. Nuclear war was universal; you couldn’t exist separate to a war. Dreams of equality for gender and race were just dreams. So we compromised.

Some of us went into politics to try to improve the system. Some of us (like me) went into education to attempt to instil ‘better’ values into the next generation. Some did other things. Some dropped out altogether and tried living off the land.

The counter culture became a rear-guard action as we continued to espouse our values and freedoms while living inside the machine.

Perhaps the counter culture exists in our heads?