Campaigning poet, Heathcote Williams, died on 1st of July and he and his continual flow of words and other work will be missed by many, including me. Age didn’t mellow him and, given the turbulent times we are currently living in, there is more need than ever for dissenters who aren’t afraid to call-out the power-hungry and the corrupt for their actions, the actions that trample over others and are tearing the natural world apart.
My one and only encounter with Heathcote Williams was at the Elephant Fayre in 1984.
The Elephant Fayre was a small festival that ran on the Port Eliot estate of Peregrine Eliot, 10th Earl of St Germans between 1981and 1986. It was a magical little festival where everybody seemed to be adding to the festivities in one way or another with music as only one element. I went twice, the first time in 1982. I arrived on the back of a motorbike, my last hitched ride from London, and for the final mile found myself flanked by a legion of Hell’s Angels who then roared off in spectacular fashion. The festival was wonderful, a strange mix of hippies and proto-goths, the latter group having