Cally Phillips' Another World is Possible
Episode Eight – TRUTH
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: 1967 London – JIM
Swearwords: None.
Description: 1967 London – JIM
I feel a bit funny talking about it really. I try and live for the moment and it’s a long, long time ago. A different world. Although I suppose a lot of the things that happened then have made me who I am today. It’s just a bit of a shock. To think about it. But I’ll try and explain. I owe you that much.
You’ve heard of the summer of love. Yes, I know you were alive then, but not really aware of what was going on now, were you? How could you be? You were just a toddler. You see what I mean, this is ugly. Makes me realise how much older than you I am. Roisin, I know you know I’m old enough to be your father but I don’t like to think about it. And more than that, I don’t like the fact that it bothers me. Means I’m more reactionary than I ever thought I would be. Right. That’s not taking us anywhere. I need to focus. On 1967. The Summer of Love.
For a start, the Summer of Love was only a part of it. There was the war in Vietnam for one thing. We all had a bitter taste in our mouth about that. I know it was America’s war but we’d all thought America was something to write home about, till that point at any rate. We’d all got the aspirational bug from America and it was hard to accept that it wasn’t as cool as we thought. Well, I guess we just decided that governments weren’t cool any more (I guess Kennedy getting shot put paid to presidents being cool) and if you scratch the surface he wasn’t any cooler than the rest. Well, I guess we got politicised. I did, anyway. Till then we thought that music would change the world but whatever we did with our music the world just kept changing for the worse and the only way to avoid that fact was to get off your face. That’s my excuse. Oh yeah, it was fun but it was about more than fun.
Of course I did plenty of drugs in those days. Everyone did. I know it wasn’t sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll for everyone but it was for a lot of us. Especially in London. And I was in London in 1967. I’d come down from Sheffield in 1966 and, man, I was in the scene. I was at Central Saint Martin’s, cause I was an artist then. Yeah, I know, we all went to art school, eh? And I guess how I got into it all was through art and music. Nothing’s new in the world, is it? Not now, not then. But when you’re young and you’re experiencing everything for the first time no one can tell you it’s only the first time for you, that the rest of the world’s already been there.
Boy, it sounds philosophical. Well, I was pretty clued up then, too, I thought. I might have been at art school with pretensions of being a drop-out but really dropping out was being ‘in’ in those days and I kind of liked the art school scene. I didn’t let classes interfere with my night life and art school was a good place to pick up girls. Look, you know my wild oats were widely sown. Doesn’t mean anything, does it? You and me, we’re in the moment now and that’s what matters to us. Maybe I shouldn’t have started on this. But you can’t talk 1967 without talking sex. Well, I can’t.
I know you want to know about the poster. About Che. About politics. I’m surprised you asked, really. Nowadays he’s a fashion which has passed and even though people still keep the image on their chests, they usually don’t have a clue who he was or what he stood for. I suppose I can’t expect much more. But he was more... And the poster – that poster, well, it’s got a story behind it.
In 1967 as well as the music scene, there was a big art magazine, underground radical sort of thing, going, a lot of it round Notting Hill, Westbourne Grove area and I was hanging out there a lot. And I got into a couple of magazines, did some artwork for them. I sold them around the city at parties and the like. Oz and IT they were. IT was the Independent Times but it became known as IT because the Times got shirty. Oz had originated in Australia and they came over to London with it and we really took to it. I’ve got some old copies actually, I can show you them. You can read them some day and see what it was we were into. They could be worth some money now, I expect. What price memories?
Okay. Well that poster was done for the double issue of Oz after Che had been murdered. Didn’t come out till 1968, though, I think it was about January. I had another poster up before that, got it given me free by a guy who was running round making all kinds of prints of Che as posters to try and raise awareness. No, not to raise cash cause I think he gave most of them away. I never paid, anyway. But when this Oz one came out, I put it up instead. Framed now, though, to preserve its value, I suppose. Not very hippy. No, I think it’s framed because it deserves the respect of a frame. Sets it apart from just being another old hippy with his iconic memories of the ‘good old days’.
I don’t really know what you want to know. Are you more interested in me in 1967 or in the world in 1967? I guess the world is the more interesting thing to talk about but maybe telling it from my perspective will give you something that’s not a history lesson. I don’t think there are real facts in life but I can tell you what I saw and what we thought and what we did. If I can remember. You gotta remember that this was a really fast living time and we were living from one deal to the next trip and back again – if we were lucky.
I just thought. Maybe we met before. Maybe I was at Agamemnon Road one time. Or more than once. It sounds like the kind of place I hung out. But there were loads of places like that then. Maybe that’s another path we don’t want to go down.
1967. Summer. College was out and we were tripping most of the time. I was flogging Oz more or less full time and I was getting to all the gigs and meeting all the faces. Well, you wouldn’t call them faces then. Folks were freaks or hippies. And hippies didn’t really come in till that summer I guess. When we all took our lead from San Francisco, put flowers in our hair and began to believe in flower power. I don’t think I ever really believed in it. But what young person’s not gonna believe in ‘make love not war’, eh? Then there was Sergeant Pepper. The Beatles finest moment. And we all jumped onto that bandwagon for sure.
Of course I hung out with the Beatles and the Stones and no, I wasn’t impressed. You couldn’t impress me in those days. I was twenty and nothing much impressed me. They were a laugh and all but frankly it all seemed like a lot of hard work to get pussy. The money wasn’t really the deal. The girls and the drugs were the deal and I was getting plenty of both without having to flog around touring, recording and thinking up clever lyrics and tunes all the time. I could just sit around and paint a few things and people would buy them. And if I had no inspiration, I just sold the magazines. Or bummed off my mates. We all bummed off our mates in those days.
But even then, I thought I was more of a political radical than a musician or artist. I thought I cared more about the world than anyone else, I guess. I just didn’t really know what to care about and certainly not what to do.
When I found out that Che Guevara was in Bolivia, I really, really nearly dropped out of art school. That was about March in 1967, I guess. I spent a couple of weeks trying to find a way to get to Bolivia to join in the fight but somehow I got talked out of it. It wasn’t so cheap and easy to get a flight in those days but I didn’t want to just sit around talking about the evils of the world. I wanted to do something. I think really I wanted to make love and war. If I’m honest I think that’s what most young guys want. Yeah they want the pussy but they want the macho stuff too. Of course I grew my hair but it seemed a kind of weak way to make a stand. But Bolivia was not to be. I did read papers – proper papers, not just tabloid type – though I didn’t trust most of what I read in them. I got right into the Cuban revolution. I’ve still got a heap of books somewhere, probably in the back row behind all the record albums and if you’re that interested, you should look into it for yourself. You should never really trust another person’s account. Everyone gives it their spin and you need to find out for yourself. You need to develop your own thoughts, your own opinions and – well, anyway, get as close to the primary source as you can, I say. Don’t take my word, or anyone else’s, for anything. Find out for yourself. That’s how you find out about yourself. In my opinion.
People in London didn’t really care that much about Vietnam, I don’t think. And even less about what was going on in Bolivia. Or Cuba. People were more interested in plastic. Plastic was becoming the real ‘in’ thing. You could get just about anything you wanted in plastic. It’s ironic now, isn’t it, we started the whole oil problem right back when we made plastic the ‘thing’. If we’d only made cars out of plastic, I guess that would make the whole thing sicker…. Well, I think when people in another hundred years look back at the 1960’s, if they can even be bothered, they’ll look at it as the plastic age and they won’t give a shit about the music or the clothes or the wars or any of that. In their context plastic will be the thing. But what do I know?
For me the politics became more and more important. And when I heard that Che had been killed in action it was like a kick in the guts. Then when I found out that he’d been murdered, I went beyond even angry. I guess I just checked out for a time. I mean, I knew I could believe that they’d done that but it was a lot to get my head round. I gave up on everything American. I even chucked out all my American roots music. Of course I bought a lot of it back again later; the history of music is bigger than the history of America and I learned from the Cubans that you can’t hate all the Americans just because they have the evil empire for their government. If you judge a person by their government then we’re all for the chop really, aren’t we?
Well, I guess the point is that Che, and more importantly his murder, became the thing that stuck with me as most important in forming my character. It made me realise that war really does end in killing. That a man can die and that it can be nothing more than a waste of a life. That a myth and a legacy aren’t as good as a living person, fighting for what they believe in. And that it was my responsibility not to forget what he stood for and to do what I could, in whatever way I could, to live up to that. Which is what I’ve tried to do, without losing myself in the process.
I believe Che Guevara was a great man. But I believe in him as a real man, not just as an icon. He’s on my wall as a personal reminder to me every day, not just of the life that I lived and the life that he lived, but of the life I should live today. Of what’s important in life. Which is doing what you believe in, to the best of your ability. And there’s nothing in that that’s incompatible with sex and drugs and rock and roll, I’m glad to say. So that’s my story. For what it’s worth.
You’ve heard of the summer of love. Yes, I know you were alive then, but not really aware of what was going on now, were you? How could you be? You were just a toddler. You see what I mean, this is ugly. Makes me realise how much older than you I am. Roisin, I know you know I’m old enough to be your father but I don’t like to think about it. And more than that, I don’t like the fact that it bothers me. Means I’m more reactionary than I ever thought I would be. Right. That’s not taking us anywhere. I need to focus. On 1967. The Summer of Love.
For a start, the Summer of Love was only a part of it. There was the war in Vietnam for one thing. We all had a bitter taste in our mouth about that. I know it was America’s war but we’d all thought America was something to write home about, till that point at any rate. We’d all got the aspirational bug from America and it was hard to accept that it wasn’t as cool as we thought. Well, I guess we just decided that governments weren’t cool any more (I guess Kennedy getting shot put paid to presidents being cool) and if you scratch the surface he wasn’t any cooler than the rest. Well, I guess we got politicised. I did, anyway. Till then we thought that music would change the world but whatever we did with our music the world just kept changing for the worse and the only way to avoid that fact was to get off your face. That’s my excuse. Oh yeah, it was fun but it was about more than fun.
Of course I did plenty of drugs in those days. Everyone did. I know it wasn’t sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll for everyone but it was for a lot of us. Especially in London. And I was in London in 1967. I’d come down from Sheffield in 1966 and, man, I was in the scene. I was at Central Saint Martin’s, cause I was an artist then. Yeah, I know, we all went to art school, eh? And I guess how I got into it all was through art and music. Nothing’s new in the world, is it? Not now, not then. But when you’re young and you’re experiencing everything for the first time no one can tell you it’s only the first time for you, that the rest of the world’s already been there.
Boy, it sounds philosophical. Well, I was pretty clued up then, too, I thought. I might have been at art school with pretensions of being a drop-out but really dropping out was being ‘in’ in those days and I kind of liked the art school scene. I didn’t let classes interfere with my night life and art school was a good place to pick up girls. Look, you know my wild oats were widely sown. Doesn’t mean anything, does it? You and me, we’re in the moment now and that’s what matters to us. Maybe I shouldn’t have started on this. But you can’t talk 1967 without talking sex. Well, I can’t.
I know you want to know about the poster. About Che. About politics. I’m surprised you asked, really. Nowadays he’s a fashion which has passed and even though people still keep the image on their chests, they usually don’t have a clue who he was or what he stood for. I suppose I can’t expect much more. But he was more... And the poster – that poster, well, it’s got a story behind it.
In 1967 as well as the music scene, there was a big art magazine, underground radical sort of thing, going, a lot of it round Notting Hill, Westbourne Grove area and I was hanging out there a lot. And I got into a couple of magazines, did some artwork for them. I sold them around the city at parties and the like. Oz and IT they were. IT was the Independent Times but it became known as IT because the Times got shirty. Oz had originated in Australia and they came over to London with it and we really took to it. I’ve got some old copies actually, I can show you them. You can read them some day and see what it was we were into. They could be worth some money now, I expect. What price memories?
Okay. Well that poster was done for the double issue of Oz after Che had been murdered. Didn’t come out till 1968, though, I think it was about January. I had another poster up before that, got it given me free by a guy who was running round making all kinds of prints of Che as posters to try and raise awareness. No, not to raise cash cause I think he gave most of them away. I never paid, anyway. But when this Oz one came out, I put it up instead. Framed now, though, to preserve its value, I suppose. Not very hippy. No, I think it’s framed because it deserves the respect of a frame. Sets it apart from just being another old hippy with his iconic memories of the ‘good old days’.
I don’t really know what you want to know. Are you more interested in me in 1967 or in the world in 1967? I guess the world is the more interesting thing to talk about but maybe telling it from my perspective will give you something that’s not a history lesson. I don’t think there are real facts in life but I can tell you what I saw and what we thought and what we did. If I can remember. You gotta remember that this was a really fast living time and we were living from one deal to the next trip and back again – if we were lucky.
I just thought. Maybe we met before. Maybe I was at Agamemnon Road one time. Or more than once. It sounds like the kind of place I hung out. But there were loads of places like that then. Maybe that’s another path we don’t want to go down.
1967. Summer. College was out and we were tripping most of the time. I was flogging Oz more or less full time and I was getting to all the gigs and meeting all the faces. Well, you wouldn’t call them faces then. Folks were freaks or hippies. And hippies didn’t really come in till that summer I guess. When we all took our lead from San Francisco, put flowers in our hair and began to believe in flower power. I don’t think I ever really believed in it. But what young person’s not gonna believe in ‘make love not war’, eh? Then there was Sergeant Pepper. The Beatles finest moment. And we all jumped onto that bandwagon for sure.
Of course I hung out with the Beatles and the Stones and no, I wasn’t impressed. You couldn’t impress me in those days. I was twenty and nothing much impressed me. They were a laugh and all but frankly it all seemed like a lot of hard work to get pussy. The money wasn’t really the deal. The girls and the drugs were the deal and I was getting plenty of both without having to flog around touring, recording and thinking up clever lyrics and tunes all the time. I could just sit around and paint a few things and people would buy them. And if I had no inspiration, I just sold the magazines. Or bummed off my mates. We all bummed off our mates in those days.
But even then, I thought I was more of a political radical than a musician or artist. I thought I cared more about the world than anyone else, I guess. I just didn’t really know what to care about and certainly not what to do.
When I found out that Che Guevara was in Bolivia, I really, really nearly dropped out of art school. That was about March in 1967, I guess. I spent a couple of weeks trying to find a way to get to Bolivia to join in the fight but somehow I got talked out of it. It wasn’t so cheap and easy to get a flight in those days but I didn’t want to just sit around talking about the evils of the world. I wanted to do something. I think really I wanted to make love and war. If I’m honest I think that’s what most young guys want. Yeah they want the pussy but they want the macho stuff too. Of course I grew my hair but it seemed a kind of weak way to make a stand. But Bolivia was not to be. I did read papers – proper papers, not just tabloid type – though I didn’t trust most of what I read in them. I got right into the Cuban revolution. I’ve still got a heap of books somewhere, probably in the back row behind all the record albums and if you’re that interested, you should look into it for yourself. You should never really trust another person’s account. Everyone gives it their spin and you need to find out for yourself. You need to develop your own thoughts, your own opinions and – well, anyway, get as close to the primary source as you can, I say. Don’t take my word, or anyone else’s, for anything. Find out for yourself. That’s how you find out about yourself. In my opinion.
People in London didn’t really care that much about Vietnam, I don’t think. And even less about what was going on in Bolivia. Or Cuba. People were more interested in plastic. Plastic was becoming the real ‘in’ thing. You could get just about anything you wanted in plastic. It’s ironic now, isn’t it, we started the whole oil problem right back when we made plastic the ‘thing’. If we’d only made cars out of plastic, I guess that would make the whole thing sicker…. Well, I think when people in another hundred years look back at the 1960’s, if they can even be bothered, they’ll look at it as the plastic age and they won’t give a shit about the music or the clothes or the wars or any of that. In their context plastic will be the thing. But what do I know?
For me the politics became more and more important. And when I heard that Che had been killed in action it was like a kick in the guts. Then when I found out that he’d been murdered, I went beyond even angry. I guess I just checked out for a time. I mean, I knew I could believe that they’d done that but it was a lot to get my head round. I gave up on everything American. I even chucked out all my American roots music. Of course I bought a lot of it back again later; the history of music is bigger than the history of America and I learned from the Cubans that you can’t hate all the Americans just because they have the evil empire for their government. If you judge a person by their government then we’re all for the chop really, aren’t we?
Well, I guess the point is that Che, and more importantly his murder, became the thing that stuck with me as most important in forming my character. It made me realise that war really does end in killing. That a man can die and that it can be nothing more than a waste of a life. That a myth and a legacy aren’t as good as a living person, fighting for what they believe in. And that it was my responsibility not to forget what he stood for and to do what I could, in whatever way I could, to live up to that. Which is what I’ve tried to do, without losing myself in the process.
I believe Che Guevara was a great man. But I believe in him as a real man, not just as an icon. He’s on my wall as a personal reminder to me every day, not just of the life that I lived and the life that he lived, but of the life I should live today. Of what’s important in life. Which is doing what you believe in, to the best of your ability. And there’s nothing in that that’s incompatible with sex and drugs and rock and roll, I’m glad to say. So that’s my story. For what it’s worth.
About the Author
Cally Phillips has written fiction and drama in English and Scots, much of which is published through HoAmPresst. She also currently works as editor for Ayton Publishing Limited and runs a number of online projects, including The Galloway Raiders, which is the online hub for Scots writer S. R. Crockett. Her latest project to hit the virtual shelves is the #tobelikeche serial, which started in October 2016.
For the archive of Cally’s fiction and drama, follow this link.
For the archive of Cally’s fiction and drama, follow this link.