The Social and Cultural Context - Paul Ernest

Post date: 13-Oct-2009 00:34:09

In the early to mid 20th century Hampstead was already known as a place for artists, intellectuals, actors and bohemians. After WW2 it became a settling ground for displaced artists and intellectuals both from abroad and from within the UK. There were many Jewish artists and intellectuals, but also Indian, European, South African and others settling in Hampstead including leftwing Americans fleeing from McCarthyite persecution. 1960 was the perfect time for the second generation, children of the Hampstead incomers, to seek new identities, now that their parents had, to a greater or lesser extent, lost their family connections and severed their roots with the past.

At the same time there was the growth of new youth cultures, including the Beat Generation, the Angry Young Men, Rock and Roll, the Folk Scene, Traditional and Modern Jazz, political protest movements (CND: Ban the Bomb, Anti-Apartheid), and new youth groups (Teddy Boys, Mods & Rockers). Teenagers also had more freedom, autonomy and spending power. Popular music was now aimed directly at teenagers who could buy 45s, EPs, and even LPs. All this was the background to the Witches Cauldron Coffee Bar, as a central focus for a certain type of youth culture in Hampstead.

The Witches Cauldron provided coffee and other drinks, and a food menu including such dishes as spaghetti bolognaise (still an exotic dish in the UK). But most of all it offered a venue where young people could talk, discuss new ideas, meet other young people throughout the day and evening, and plan further activities. Later, around 1963-64, the Witches Cauldron opened up downstairs, the cellar, where one could play music on the jukebox like the Dave Clark 5's 'Glad All Over' and dance to it. There was also quite a bit of live music at the Witches, but this was towards the end of the hey day that I am describing.

Thousands of young people, and some not so young, passed through the Witches Cauldren to meet friends, to arrange to go on dates, go to weekend parties, engage in political activities and go on demonstrations. A wide range of characters were regulars at the Witches Cauldron, mostly pleasant young people eager to see and make new friends, and some more troubled and disreputable types. The problem was telling one from the other!

The Witches Cauldron was aptly named, it was a melting pot of all of the types of people listed above, as well the children of Hampstead bohemians, working class locals and immigrants, and various waifs and strays. It was a vibrant mix of young people intent on making connections, developing their knowledge and above all else, having fun.

Mostly this fun was going to pubs or parties and having a few drinks and dancing. There was lots of laughter, chatting, infatuations with pretty girls and handsome boys, and if you were lucky, getting a new girlfriend or boyfriend. But going to the movies was also fun, whether it was film classics at the Everyman and Hampstead Playhouse, or Hammer Horrors at the Golders Green Odeon. Trips away were also planned like going to Paris, the South of France and Italy in 1961; Paris, Barcelona and Tangier in 1962 and 1963; Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon in 1964; and Turkey, Iran and Afgahanistan in 1965, for example. Friendships made or further cemented at the Witches lay behind these adventurous Summer holidays away from our parents.

Sometimes this fun went wrong. There were parties in Hampstead and the suburbs in which people from the Witches Cauldron (also known as the Hampstead Set) were invited. Typically teenage girls would invite us over for a party when their parents were away. Heavy drinking sometimes led to the party going out of control, with scores of uninvited guests invading, and houses being ransacked and trashed. There were also occasional thefts. After one such incident the parents requested return of missing items and we circulated the news among friends and acquaintances that unless there was restitution the police would be called in. Fortunately the matter was resolved sensibly. (See Partying and the Witches on Witches Site).

The Witches' crowd were not just pleasure seekers. We were passionate about political issues. The Hampstead contingent on the 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963 Aldermaston Ban-the-Bomb marches included many of the Witches crowd. We were also involved in the Committee of 100 sit downs in Whitehall, regular Anti-Apartheid demonstrations in London, and well as the anti-Polaris nuclear missiles demonstrations. Of course demonstrations like the Aldermaston Marches meant some mingling and partying in the overnight stops! (See Hampstead Youth Politics - some recollections on Witches Site)

Not surprisingly, for a group inspired by the Beat Generation, there was also widespread experimentation with drugs. Mostly this was just smoking cannabis and taking amphetamine pills like 'purple hearts'. This lead to much joy and laughter. Cannabis not only causes great hilarity, but opens up the senses and imagination so that the deeper meanings of music, art and life are revealed. Whether this is an illusion or not, the imagination and outlook of the smoker can be permanently broadened and enriched. Small amounts of speed led to quite a few deep all-night conersations in which one bared ones' soul and made deep contact with ones fellows. The warmth and love one felt for one's conversation partner were palpable. This forged bonds that are still remembered and prized to this day.

There was some hard drug usage. In this milieu it first began around 1963. A few people died from overdoses or linked medical problems over the following decade. But heavy drug use was never more than a minority habit, to coin a phrase, and some of those who tried it out only dabbled without addiction. It was never part of the Witches scene, and the centre of action moved to The Duke of York pub near Goodge Street and the Dilly (Picadilly Circus) with its all night chemists nearby. Those few who did get addicted and survived, beat it and went on to live happy, constructive and fulfilling lives. But that is a whole other story that takes us further away from the Witches Cauldron and into the future! (See XYZ of Drugs on Witches Site)

One of the great things about conversations at the Witches was the sharing of enthusiasms about developments both in the arts and in politics. Enthusiasms about music - popular, blues, jazz, folk, classical - about films - classic or new - and about books were all shared. As well as Kerouac's On the Road, Ginsberg's Howl, Burroughs' Naked Lunch. I was introduced to Borges' short stories, Lowry's Under the Volcano, Henry Miller's banned books, Rechy's City of Night, not to mention Baudelaire, Apollinaire, St John Perse, Rimbaud (all in translation) and many other classics. Some among us were poets themselves, like Julius Holley, who also introduced us to the work of Robert Duncan and Charles Olsen. We visited museums, went to concerts, scoured libraries (especially Hampstead Main Public Library in Arkwright Road) and passed our newly won cultural knowledge around among ourselves.

We were the next generation of Hampstead intellectuals. We were excited by all the new developments in art (Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mondrian, Dada, Surealism, Bauhaus), classical music (Messiaen, Stockhausen, Stravinsky), popular music and its roots (rock, soul, blues, R&B), jazz (Armstrong, Bird, Mingus, Monk, Coltrane, Miles), other music streams (Moondog, Shankar), poetry (the Beats, the War Poets, French poetry), Cinema (Renais, Truffaut, Goddard, Kurosawa, Bergman, Ray, Cassavetes, Eisenstein, German Expressionism, British Realism), writers (Mailer, Miller, Buroughs, Borges, Camus as well as Hemingway, Steinbeck, Greene). Theatre (Beckett, The Angry Young Men, Ionesco, Pinter), architecture (Le Courbusier, Gaudi). philosophy (existentialism), mysticism (Buddhism, Cabala) as well as the intellectual movements started by Marx, Freud and other thinkers. These are just some of the more significant names drawn from memory.

The best of us were full of passionate intensity while the worst lacked all conviction, dedicated solely to hedonism and suvival. We were burning with joy over the heavenly connections we made within the starry constellations of culture, wisdom and humanity. New understandings and enthusiasms, bound us together in intense conversations soul to soul. We shared explorations, engaging in the great human project of bringing the promethean fire of knowledge down to earth. We were capturing illuminated understandings forbidden to Adam and Eve from the Tree of Life. This included the meaning of life, the nature of love, the purpose of art, the secrets of religion. We were mapping out the terrain that our expanding psyches would occupy, embarking on the age old human adventure of coming to know! We were young, thirsty for adventures of the mind, eager to choose from the best that humans had created so far, especially the modern, hip, innovative elements of culture. We were the children of our intellectual parents, inheritors of their traditions. Where some lacked these roots, at best they grew like roses on a dunghill, exceeding the intellectual wastelands that had given them life. Stepping from childhood to adulthood can be the greatest adventure known to humankind.