I wrote some notes on the advance of the law in June. From March, the country had been in ‘lockdown’ and some were holding events with little concern for public health. Events were also held in ‘nature reserves’ there was some violence and then leaving a humongous mess. The covid-19 restrictions have been eased somewhat since then, but gatherings of more than 30 outside are still prohibited under new regulations. I have been concerned at increasingly obnoxious tightening of law and restrictions on gathering since the 1980’s, dealing with protest, gatherings, festivals, travellers etc …. High Court Injunctions, the Public Order Act 1986, Entertainments (Increased Penalties) Act 1990 and the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. All this before the next shed-load that I’ve been writing about and predicting that is still to come. All of those laws were brought about by government concerned at our ability to organise and enjoy events put on by ‘our tribes’ and wishing to live life free of their oppressive rule. But, I do now find myself conflicted. I have done my best to advise and stand up against all of the above because the law was designed to favour those vested interests in governmental control, attempts to squash dissent and the centuries old practice of restricting access to ‘our land’. Now however, the current restrictions are trying to deal with public health. Surely, this is proper and we should have greater regard for the health and wellbeing of all of us. It is inconvenient I know, with people chomping at the bit to ‘get on down’ with each other and socialise in our tribes again. The health concern will be used by authorities as a convenient excuse to excerpt the control they have always been trying to do, but the issue is a real concern to society at large and I think we should have a care for others who may be affected. Hence my confliction.
Police break up an illegal rave in a Hackney railway arch https://news.met.police.uk/videos/police-break-up-an-illegal-rave-in-a-hackney-railway-arch-110979
This from earlier in June 2020 ……
I have been asked to make some notes on the progress of more laws on aggravated trespass that are coming down the pipe. It seems things are delayed because of the Covid-19 lockdown and government being a bit distracted at the moment …. but the Home Office are still on the case and Priti Patel is most defiantly up for it!
Notes on law progress at: The government has consulted on new police powers to criminalise unauthorised encampments https://tashuk.wordpress.com/2020/06/22/the-government-has-consulted-on-new-police-powers-to-criminalise-unauthorised-encampments/
1. To begin, can you speak about how you got into photography and what made you decide to focus on it?
I have been involved with photography since school [long time ago]. Taking it up more seriously when being involved with these gatherings. I come from a free festival and traveller background. Surprisingly to many, I also worked as an accident ambulanceman in the London Ambulance Service. I also volunteered and worked for ‘Release’ a drug and welfare organisation and helped set up the ‘Festival Welfare Services’ and the ‘Travellers Aid Trust’ charities that helped to provide medical, social and legal advice services to those living on the road attending festivals and related events. Those that the state excluded and made no provision for. We also felt that we should try to do many of these things for ourselves. DIY.
However, policing was becoming more aggressive and in addition, it was apparent that the ‘main-stream media’ were not accurately portraying events.
I took photographs initially with the mission of attempting to record the way the authorities reacted to a new group of social misfits as they were seen. Some of these photographs enabled people to be successfully defended in court. They showed circumstances that would have been otherwise unavailable. Thus my initial interest in photography was merely a means of gathering evidence. I began to record more aspects of life on the road. There is no stereotype of a festival goer or traveller that is truly representative and so the project grew to take this into account.
Not very many people were trying to photograph these events at the time; the exception appeared to be the tabloid press intent on rubbishing events and the police looking for evidence. Against this background, it was clear that every effort and time should be given to reassure people of my intentions. This was hard to begin with because of many peoples past experiences. But my purpose was understood and I was welcomed and encouraged.
I was further able to lower suspicions by showing a “slide show”, perhaps next to a stage. Where for the first time, those assembled were able to see the work of one of these “photographer types” who came and went and nobody knew who they were! The show I did became known to the traveller’s circuit and seemed appreciated. It also of course exposed a bit of a “double standard” held by some that enjoyed seeing pictures of themselves and friends on home ground, but did not like having their photos taken. Some have still said that “I steal their souls” by taking photographs.
To take things yet more seriously, in my 40’s I completed a BA(hons) in Photography. Then in my 60’s did and MA in Photography. All trying to ‘keep my pencil sharp’ and to keep ideas alive! I am currently an Alumni Fellow at Nottingham Trent University.
2. Could you speak about how you got involved in photographing the early “free festivals” in the late 1970s, and give us a sense of what these events were like?
‘Free Festivals’ developed from people being fed up with the exploitation, rules, squalor and general rip-off that so many events came to represent. They discovered something. It is a powerful vision. People lived together, a community sharing possessions, listening to great music, making do, living with the environment, consuming their needs and little else. Parallel to all this, the squatting movement was taking off in the cities and groups such as the ‘San Francisco and ‘Hyde Park Diggers’ were beginning to question land rights.
It is from these beginnings that the 1970’s saw the establishment of many commercial and free events. The Windsor People’s Free Festival became an annual event over the August Bank Holiday.
As numbers continued to rise, and with the politics of the situation, (after all, we were in the Queen’s back garden), in 1974 Thames Valley police eventually acted. Forcibly breaking up the site with much violence and injury. I was drinking a cup of tea; sitting on a log round a fire when a line of police arrived and little ol’ naïve me thought that they would just say something like …. “Now come along now, move along” or somesuch. Not a bit of it. A police sergeant, without a word being spoken raised his truncheon and whacked me round the side of the head. I fell off my log, spilt my tea …… and I’ve never been the same since! Quite an education that has continued to shape some of my attitudes and politics. (They have been hitting us with sticks for over fifty years now!)
After finding a sense of community and purpose, some for the first time in their lives, many adopted an alternative lifestyle and travelled between events in the ‘season’. They didn’t go ‘home’ in between. You got to choose your neighbors and defeated the alienation that many had felt back in the cities. A regular summer circuit had been established. From May Hill at the beginning of May via Horseshoe Pass, Stonehenge, Ashton Court, Inglestone Common, Cantlin Stone, Deeply Vale, Meigan Fair, and various sites in East Anglia, to the Psilocybin Fair in mid-Wales in September, it was possible to find a free festival or a cheap community festival almost every weekend. Young people from traditional travelling families began to come into the festival scene and people from the cities began to convert vehicles and live on the road. As the habit of travelling in convoy caught on, larger groups of performers were established. They were joined by a wide variety of traders of different kinds. So the New Traveller culture was born.
The following years the gathering at Stonehenge became the People’s Free Festival at the summer solstice. People looked at the various examples provided by gypsies here and in Europe. To nomadic people across the world. To try life outside the house in many different ways and to pick and select those means that make life comfortable, easy and meaningful. The ‘bender’, the Indian ‘tipi’, the Moroccan ‘yurt’, the Romany ‘bow top’, the western two-man tent, the truck and the double decker bus.
Suddenly, life on the road in an old £300 1960’s bus, truck or trailer seemed like a bloody good option weighed against the prospect of life on the dole in some grotty city where the only values being espoused by the Tory Government were those of me, me , me and more me – what was a poor boy to do. Five of you – £60 each , forget about the Tax and Insurance (fascist claptrap), let’s just chuck a few mattresses in the back of the Bella Vega and head for the nearest festival where we will be welcomed with open arms and be swallowed up into the new age traveller family bosom. Simply making do!
The temperature had been rising for some time. Assisted by the representation in the press and their invention of the ‘Peace Convoy’, a moral panic was created. The papers were full of the shock – horror that we have come to expect. The Sun’s – “Gun convoy, hippies attack police” (No mention of gun in the article!). The News of the World contributed – “The Wild Bunch – Sex-mad junkie outlaws make the Hell’s Angels look like little Noddy.” These were headlines read my millions of people and made modern day `folk-devils’ out of essentially peaceful people.
At a meeting of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), in early 1985, it was resolved to obtain a High Court Injunction preventing the annual gathering at Stonehenge. This was the device to be used to justify the attack at the “Battle of the Beanfield” on the 1st June in Hampshire. Well it wasn’t a battle really. It was an ambush.
A distance from Stonehenge, just short of the A303 and the Hampshire / Wiltshire border, two lorry loads of gravel where tipped across the road. So many policemen running down the convoy ahead of me smashing windscreens without warning and ‘arresting’ / assaulting the occupants, dragging them out through the windscreens broken glass. 1600 police officers attacked.
Kim Sabido of ITN, a reporter used to visiting the worlds ‘hot spots’ did an emotional piece-to-camera as he described the worst police violence that he had ever seen. “What we – the ITN camera crew and myself as a reporter – have seen in the last 30 minutes here in this field has been some of the most brutal police treatment of people that I’ve witnessed in my entire career as a journalist. The number of people who have been hit by policemen, who have been clubbed whilst holding babies in their arms in coaches around this field, is yet to be counted…There must surely be an enquiry after what has happened today.” There wasn’t. Things were never the same again and some parts of the lifestyle, turned into a refugee column with no means of economic support. Then came the free party / rave scene.
3. Could you give us a sense of the various alternative cultures celebrated at Stonehenge Free Festival, and what it was about these groups that most resonated most strongly with you?
By the end of the 1970s a regular summer circuit had been established. From May Hill at the beginning of May via Horseshoe Pass, Stonehenge, Ashton Court, Inglestone Common, Cantlin Stone, Deeply Vale, Meigan Fair, and various sites in East Anglia, to the Psilocybin Fair in mid-Wales in September, it was possible to find a free festival or a cheap community festival almost every weekend. Young people from traditional travelling families began to come into the festival scene and people from the cities began to convert vehicles and live on the road. As the habit of travelling in convoy caught on, larger groups of performers were established. They were joined by a wide variety of traders of different kinds. So the New Traveller culture was born, emerging into public view at Inglestone Common in 1980 with the New Age Gypsy Fair.
The Stonehenge Free Festival had been held at the Summer Solstice since 1974. However at 1977 event, numbers suddenly increased and this became the Annual People’s Festival. Since then, the numbers involved doubled each successive year. The 1984 festival attracting hundreds of thousands over a six week period. For a significant number, the stones of the Henge became THE place to be to hold the hippie/punk/anarchist/biker/ traveller ritual of festival ….. Many didn’t go home after. The circuit helped provide an economy. Strolling players, service, food, vehicle maintenance etc. Skills learned, barter and exchange.
The word ‘environmentalist’ hadn’t been applied yet, but in conducting experiments how things might otherwise be … I think we were making a contribution.
4. Could you share the aims of the Stonehenge Free Festival, the activities that transpired here, and the kinds of people who came out to celebrate summer solstice over the years?
There was a whole festival circuit. It was all about travelling and building communities, tribes, and societies. A kind of anarchy [which is a very scary word for some … but they have had a bad press].
Stonehenge has cosmic and so very great historical significance and people have probably gathered there for around 6,500 years. It is thought strange by me / some that after all that ‘use’ you can now commit crime by gathering there and then being charged with ‘aggravated trespass’.
It became a large event where conversations and meetings took place on where to go next and round the year’s circuit.
Most didn’t go into the stones, the festival was on fields nearby, but on the solstice morning many did. I think the pictures selected in the Café Royal book show a wide variety of people having a spiritual ‘pull’ to the place that is so difficult to explain. To some of the more’ Viking like’ amongst us of course, the tribe can party and have fun.
5. Could you describe what it was like to attend these events and share any particular memories that stay with you over the years?
The prehistoric monument at Stonehenge has long held a fascination for the mystically inclined and so it was only natural that those within the counterculture who believed that the ancients situated their sites at places containing special powers would want to hold a festival there. After all, at their best when the music was right, when the people acted in unison and that rare communal shared pleasure came to pass (if only fleetingly) that festivals could conjure up a heightened awareness. It was this search for IT that inspired many folks to take the annual pilgrimage to the Henge, in addition to the general feeling amongst hard core hippies that their psychedelic explorations happened to mimic the mind-set of the ancients I suppose. Also, of course, an excuse to get down and party hard for increasingly long amounts of time until 1985.
6. Lastly, looking back at this era, could you give us a sense of some of the lessons and wisdom of the period that would be particularly pertinent today?
Through the 1970’s and into the 1980’s I remember as a pretty scary time locally and in the world. Locally; unemployment, inner city unrest, crap housing, squatting, policing. Internationally; Economic stress, Thatcher & Regan scary nuclear developments with cruise missiles and the like. Folks banded together looking for ‘alternatives’ to what can we do differently.
Many developed a sense of common purpose and identity. There was an acceptance that modern life was too fast, expensive and polluting to the environment. We had discovered Anarchy in action, and it worked! [well sort of]. People began working out and managing relations within ‘our’ communities, without reference to Them. So many that the state excluded and made no provision for. Many felt that we should try to do many of these things for ourselves. ‘DIY’.
Thing globally, act locally!
Political liberation and questioning how we live, consumption, recycling and trying out different shelters. Concluding that nomadic folk have quite a few solutions and all comes to nothing, if you don’t have access to land.
So, we took some!
Posted in.|Comments Off on Alan Lodge Festivals Photography Interview
Some of us have been involved for years in opposition to progress of laws ranged against us and our activities. I come from a free festival and traveller background. Surprisingly to many, I also worked as an accident ambulanceman in the London Ambulance Service. I worked for ‘Release’ a drug and welfare organisation and helped set up the ‘Festival Welfare Services’ and the ‘Travellers Aid Trust’ charities that helped to provide medical, social and legal advice services to those attending events. Those that the state excluded and made no provision for. We also felt that we should try to do many of these things for ourselves. DiY.
At the Beanfield / Stonehenge 1985 and many other events before, the police were able to ‘deal with us’ by means of High Court Injunctions. These were temporary bits of law that judges provided the police with a ‘legal cloak’ to provide cover for their operations.
The tory government at the time, then passed the Public Order Act 1986, enacted in 1987.
Section 39 of that act says:
Power to direct trespassers to leave land.
(1)If the senior police officer reasonably believes that two or more persons have entered land as trespassers and are present there with the common purpose of residing there for any period, that reasonable steps have been taken by or on behalf of the occupier to ask them to leave and—
(a)that any of those persons has caused damage to property on the land or used threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards the occupier, a member of his family or an employee or agent of his, or
(b)that those persons have between them brought twelve or more vehicles on to the land, he may direct those persons, or any of them, to leave the land.
Thus a new criminal offence for a being a trespasser on land and not to leave it after being ordered to by police.
The Home Office had stated: “That the clause was a response to the `problems’ of new age travellers and that the power is not aimed primarily at Gypsy groups”.
Yea right!
All of this resulted in the virtual end of the Free Festivals, through 1987 …. and onwards. Some disagree with me, but a ‘second wave’ of events then started.
If section 39 says that we may not ‘reside there’. What if we don’t reside there, but stay up all night and ‘make a racket’ ?? 🙂 …. thus, the beginnings of the Free Party Scene. A new style developed getting round the law. It is obvious though, that many of the same people with the same tackle from the festivals were instigators in the party events. Many of us felt more optimistic at these events, since towards the end of the 80s things were getting bad on the festival circuit and simply turning into a refugee column. Then raves revitalised the scene
Political attention, once again, was now targeted against these new impromptu rave events, resulting in the Entertainment (Increased Penalties) Act 1990. Introduced by John Majors Personal Private Secretary, Graham Bright, this private members bill brought in massive fines of up to £20,000 for the organisers of unlicensed events. Once again this legislation had a dramatic effect on the free festival/rave scene, pushing event organisation into the hands of large commercial promoters with the necessary sums required to pay for licences and policing.
The second chapter of all this, starts from the first resurgence of a large event at Castlemorton at the base of Malvern Hills in May 1992.
Leaked documents from Avon and Somerset Constabulary demonstrated the existence of Operation Nomad. Force Operational Order 36/92 marked `In Confidence’, revealed:
“With effect from Monday 27th April 1992, dedicated resources will be used to gather intelligence in respect of the movement of itinerants and travellers and deal with minor acts of trespass. Resources will be greatly enhanced for the period Thursday 21st May to Sunday 24th May inclusive in relation to the anticipated gathering of Travellers in the Chipping Sodbury area.”
As a result the thousands of people travelling to the area for the expected Festival were shunted into neighbouring counties by Avon and Somerset’s Operation Nomad police manoeuvres. West Mercia Police were overwhelmed by the arrival of upwards of 30,000 folks. Many were in the area already because of our tradition of having the a free festival around Inglestone / Sodbury Commons in Avon, around the May Bank Holiday.
So, again, the tory government thought we can’t have all this and the Home Secretary of the time, Michael Howard said at the Conservative Party conference that he promised grass-roots supporters the most comprehensive programme of action ever launched against crime. Listing 27 measures, Mr Howard said: “In the last 30 years, the balance in the criminal justice system has been tilted too far in favour of the criminal and against the protection of the public. The time has come to put that right. I want to make sure that it is criminals that are frightened, not law-abiding members of the public.”
The outcry following Castlemorton provided the basis for the most draconian law yet levelled against alternative British culture. Just as the Public Order Act 1986 followed the events at Stonehenge in 1985, so the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill began its journey in 1992, pumped with the manufactured outrage following Castlemorton. By the time it reached statute two years later, it included criminal sanctions against assembly, outdoor unlicensed music events, unauthorised camping, and `aggravated trespass’. The law also reduced the number of vehicles which could gather together from twelve (as stipulated in the Public Order Act 1986) to six.
The more famous section was their effort in trying to get a legal definition of what they mean.
Section 63. Powers to remove persons attending or preparing for a rave
(1)This section applies to a gathering on land in the open air of [F120] or more persons (whether or not trespassers) at which amplified music is played during the night (with or without intermissions) and is such as, by reason of its loudness and duration and the time at which it is played, is likely to cause serious distress to the inhabitants of the locality; and for this purpose—
(a)such a gathering continues during intermissions in the music and, where the gathering extends over several days, throughout the period during which amplified music is played at night (with or without intermissions); and
(b)“music” includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.
a group of “ten or more persons” waiting for “such a gathering to begin there,” will find themselves being asked to “leave the land and remove any vehicles or property,” they happen to be in possession of on the land. Police officers of at least the rank of superintendent, were granted permission to make arrests and seize equipment.
Looking back at the Legal Bill that Killed off British Rave Culture
We examine the four pages of documents that effectively put an end to the golden days of the UK party scene. – Vice UK
Some media descriptions of Travellers / Ravers included “hordes of marauding locusts” (Daily Telegraph), and “These foul pests must be controlled” (Daily Mail).
In November 2019, the Home Secretary Priti Patel announced a review of the law to extend the Public Order Act 1986 and the Criminal Justice Act 1994 in dealing with Police Powers to Tackle Unauthorised Encampments. This review has concluded in March 2020.
Those that even knew that this was happening think that she just means gypsy travellers at the side of the road or on private land. Hence mostly only those folks and their representatives took the trouble to respond and say all this strengthening of the law is a bad idea.
I say that when this finally comes out as a bill, it will include a shed-load of further trouble for a whole load of different people engaged in such a variety of activities.
Aggravated trespass, protest, union activities, festivals, parties, assemblies of a variety of sorts. Even the ramblers are worried it might restrict access to the countryside. [I think that this does show such a wide variety of people are likely to be affected].
Those that bring vehicles and equipment on land would then not just have them confiscated and returned a bit later … but destroyed.
At time of writing, we are in the middle of a countrywide lockdown, with the country trying to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, hence I guess some of the process is on hold or delayed. Haven’t heard of developments for a little while, BUT it will happen and I feel folks need to be more aware. To then consider what are you going to do about it?
I might add that some folks organising ‘raves’ in Leeds
Leeds Rave at a Nature reserve
Illegal woodland rave in Leeds sparks anger as 200 people break lockdown rules to party. May 2020
.. and Manchester over 13/14th June [and many others] during the current emergency are most definably not helping. The injuries, lack of provision for care and the god awful mess …. They will be cited by the authorities in the near future on why more urgent need for these powers to be introduced.
Summer of illegal raves expected in England despite coronavirus crisis – Guardian
Strengthening Police Powers to Tackle Unauthorised Encampments: Written statement – HCWS80
Home Office: 04 November 2019
Made by: Priti Patel (Secretary of State for the Home Department) HCWS80
Strengthening Police Powers to Tackle Unauthorised Encampments
Today I am announcing the Government’s plans to consult on criminalising the act of trespassing when setting up an unauthorised encampment in England and Wales. I recognise the distress and misery that some unauthorised encampments cause to many communities and businesses across the country. Currently, this kind of trespass is a civil matter and the powers available to the police are limited.
My predecessor, the Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP, announced to the House of Commons on 6 February that we would carry out a public consultation on amending the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to lower the criteria that must be met for the police to be able to direct people away from unauthorised sites. He also announced that the Home Office would conduct a review into how trespassing while setting up an unauthorised encampment could be made a criminal offence in England and Wales, learning lessons from other countries like the Republic of Ireland, where this is already a criminal offence.
I am announcing today that having considered the legislation in the Republic of Ireland, I would like to test the appetite to go further than the original proposals. I would like to broaden the existing categories of criminal trespass to cover trespassers on land who are there with the purpose of residing in their vehicle for any period, and to give the police the relevant powers to arrest offenders in situ and to seize any vehicles or other property on unauthorised encampments promptly.
Tomorrow, we will launch a public consultation on whether criminalising unauthorised encampments would be preferable to the amendments we originally proposed to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, and if so, how it should work. The consultation will be available tomorrow at www.gov.uk/government/consultations/strengthening-police-powers-to-tackle-unauthorised-encampments and will be open for four months. A copy of the consultation will also be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
I thank Members for their continued engagement on this important issue.
This statement has also been made in the House of Lords: HLWS78
Consultation on measures to criminalise trespassing when setting up an unauthorised encampment in England and Wales.
Consultation description
We would like to consult on measures to criminalise the act of trespassing when setting up an unauthorised encampment in England and Wales.
We would also like to consult on what an alternative approach to this could be:
amending section 62A of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to permit the police to direct trespassers to suitable authorised sites located in neighbouring local authority areas
amending sections 61 and 62A of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to increase the period of time in which trespassers directed from land would be unable to return from 3 months to 12 months
amending section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to lower the number of vehicles needing to be involved in an unauthorised encampment before police powers can be exercised from six to two or more vehicles
amending section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to enable the police to remove trespassers from land that forms part of the highway
Home Office Consultation paper: Strengthening police powers to tackle unauthorised encampments [27page pdf]
There is a recognised national shortage of sites for Gypsies and Travellers (Cromarty et al, 2019). As a result, Gypsy and Traveller households are more likely to experience housing deprivation than any other ethnic group (De Noronha, 2015). Many families do not have a place to stop or call home, which has serious health and social implications for Gypsy and Traveller families, many of whom cannot access basic amenities such as water and sanitation and experience difficulties in accessing services such as education and healthcare. Due to the lack of available pitches, families are forced to camp in public spaces, which can exacerbate relationships with the settled community and may place Gypsy and Traveller families at higher risk of experiencing hate crime.
>>>>>
For those of you that think that all this is ONLY about Gypsy Travellers …… I want to point out that EVEN the Ramblers / walkers are upset about all this …… I think that this should show that there are so many activities that are likely to get caught up in all this WILL include raves / free parties / illegal festivals / many other gatherings etc etc etc…..
Trespass proposals could be ‘thin end of the wedge’ for walkers
” …. Trespass is currently a civil wrong and criminalisation would be a major change in the law – and one that could have a significant impact on walkers.
Gemma Cantelo, head of policy and advocacy at the Ramblers, said: ‘We’re worried that these proposals are the thin edge of a wedge, which could result in an erosion of people’s rights to access and enjoy the countryside.’
‘It’s vital that the access rights that the Ramblers and others have fought for over the years are protected. A reported 84% of police forces do not support the criminalisation of unauthorised encampments, so this seems like a sledgehammer approach to policymaking. Government’s priority should be to make it easier for people to get outside and enjoy the benefits of walking and nature – that’s good for our health and the planet.”
Ramblers Response: Home Office consultation on unauthorised encampments
In short, mind out, they haven’t finished yet and they do mean you!
I believe that the communities I have been involved with represent genuine endeavours in discovering enduring and sustainable ways of life and conducting experiments in how we and the planet may survive. I wish them well in these uncertain times.
An ongoing diary of stuff, allsorts, and things wot happen ……
I am a photographer with a special interest to document the lives of travelling people and those attending Festivals, Stonehenge etc, what the press often describe as ‘New Age Travellers’ and many social concerns.
With my photography, I have tried to say something of the wide variety of people engaged in ‘Alternatives’, and youths’ many sub-cultures and to present a more positive view.
I have photographed many free and commercial events and have, in recent years, extended my work to include dance parties (’rave culture’), gay-rights events, environmental direct actions, and protest against the Criminal Justice Act and more recently, issues surrounding the Global Capitalism.
Further, police surveillance has recently become a very important subject for me!
In recognition of this work, received a ‘Winston’ from Privacy International, at the 1998 ‘Big Brother’ Awards. The citation reads: “Alan Lodge is a photographer who has spent more than a decade raising awareness of front-line police surveillance activities, particularly the endemic practice of photographing demonstrators and activists”.
I am based in Nottingham, UK.
Quotes & Thoughts
“Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But, conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance.
In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock!!”
Harry Lime [Orsen Wells] The Third Man 1949
“Civilization will not attain to its perfection, until the last stone from the last church, falls on the last priest.”
Emile Zola
“….I have an important message to deliver to all the cute people all over the world.
If you’re out there and you’re not cute, maybe you’re beautiful, I just want to tell you somethin’- there’s more of us ugly mother-fuckers than you are, hey-y, so watch out now…”
Frank Zappa
Tash on YouTube
