Post date: 16-Jun-2020 15:07:14

The Witches and Parties - Paul Ernest

One of the main activities based on the Witches was parties – planned get-togethers of people to chat, share drinks, especially alcoholic drinks, dance, get silly, get off with someone of the opposite sex (get off with someone of the same sex, but that was more likely to be done secretly as male homosexual activity was illegal until 1967). However, the Witches lot also gate crashed parties – maybe one or several of us were invited and spread the word.

One thing we all recall is that some people or person, often a girl from among the Witches regulars, would compile a list of the parties for a Saturday night, with addresses and host names. We would meet up at the Witches to begin our party odyssey! I recall the list getting as long as ten entries one Saturday. We would try the near ones first, and move on when the booze ran dry or we felt like it, unless there was a very special reason to prioritise one or more over the others.

The problem is that almost 60 years on I recall very few parties. A few incidents come to mind.

There was a party being held in Bishop’s Avenue by a friend of mine, and of others, at the Witches, around 1962. This is a rich person's address, stilled called millionaires row! I told one or two friends including Paul Vaughn. He was studying at Hornsey School of Art, and cheekily had 100 invitations printed, which he distributed. When I arrived at Bishop’s Avenue there was a crowd of about 50 milling about in the road, denied entry. Since I knew the hostess I was admitted. I went into the front room and opened a window to let others climb in. I was caught with the window open before anybody climbed in. I no longer recall if I tried again and was ejected or whether I stayed and enjoyed the party. I have a vague memory of finding a drinks cabinet in the room and consuming a few drinks.

One party around 1962, probably on a Saturday evening, was in a large house on FitzJohns Avenue. This house was divided up into individual rented rooms with shared facilities. Maybe that evening 2 or 3 inhabitants had a combined party, and as partygoers we had access to their rooms and the bathroom WC off the shared stairs. I have two memories of this do. The first memory is that there were a lot of strangers there including some heavy thuggish types. This was unlike the witches crowd which did not really include any thugs, although one or two were quite handy. Two of the tough guys were big beefy men who took against each other. They fought on the stairs. One had an onion slicing knife that wrapped around his fist like a bladed knuckle duster. The other guy had a bottle. They both lashed out at each other’s heads, and cut great slices open. I didn’t see the blows but saw them lying on the stairs, amid pools of blood, and saw the ambulances come and cart them away. Violence was rare among the Witches crowd, especially ugly heavy stuff like this

My second memory of that party is that when things settled down a couple of tall slimmish guys were wading through the crowded stairs and rooms asking “Anybody got any skins?” My ears pricked up and I said to one, “Yes, I’ve got some skins if you’ve got some hash”. They invited me and a couple of friends into their large double room, and cut some chunks off a slab of black Pakistani hash with a chisel. They gave me a bit the size of my thumbnail in return for some skins. It looked like a £1 deal. So I said can I buy some, say £1 worth. The guy chiselled more off the block, first 1, then 2, 3, and 4 pieces and gave them to me. My eyes were popping out of my head at his generosity. They told the story of how they met a guy with 50 pounds weight to sell, and took him to a block of flats in a taxi and left him waiting while they took large sample, perhaps 8 ounces, to show a fictitious buyer. They ran out through the back of the flats, with their sample, which I was tasting. That's smash-and-grab capitalism for you - short term profit over proper investment and long term growth - never mind the ethics!

Three days after the party I came back with a pocketful of money. They only had enough to sell me £2 worth at this stage, but one of them, Irish Tom, told me he could take me to where I could buy some more. We arranged to meet at midnight a few days on. It was the night before a school day. I remember hiding my day clothes in the basement of our house at 15 Inglewood Road, West Hampstead. I crept down just before midnight and changed out of my pyjamas and snuck out of the cellar door unnoticed, and met Irish Tom up the road at midnight. He drove me to the Roaring Twenties club in Carnaby Street where I scored hash at £7 an ounce. That was the beginning of our good times at the Roaring Twenties club and I took loads of friends there for a year or two to dance and score. One friend, Sue Barnett, found her way there, independently, because she had a West Indian boyfriend named Glenn.

One party I no longer recall was around 1961 in one of those roads that lead from near Hampstead Heath Station into the Heath, like Parliament Hill, or Nassington Road. I recall nothing at all about the party. What I do remember is having half full bottles of whiskey and gin that I had pillaged from the drinks cabinet. As I staggered down the road I fumbled and dropped one bottle which cracked and started leaking. I quickly upended it and saved most of the spirit in the other bottle. Mixed gin and whiskey – lovely!

A week later I was travelling to a small party in Kensington or Chelsea. On the tube, with Paul Vaughn and Vaughn O’Leary I drank this mix of gin and whiskey. There was over a pint. It was horrible. When I got there I started to get drunker and drunker. I recall throwing up into my cupped hands and running to the WC. I was told that later, after cleaning myself up, I slipped a hand down the back of a girl's jeans, and one of the gallants present floored me. Quite right! I have no memory of this whatsoever. I do know that didn’t feel too well at all, and the girl whose parents owned this posh house put me into a carpeted living room on the strict understanding that if I was sick it must be on the tiled fireplace surround. Unfortunately I didn’t manage it and spoiled their cream carpet. After that party I had a two day hangover, probably the worst I have ever had.

Someone posh from the Witches crowd had a birthday party on a boat going up and down the Thames, and we were invited. The on-deck band were the Pretty Things. I shared a joint with one of them on the rear deck while they played. However, the free bar was my downfall and after about 3 quadruple vodka and oranges I spent the rest of the cruise wrapped around the toilet. Friends thought I had gone overboard. I would estimate it was around 62 or 63. Another great party I mostly missed!

When I posted this on Pat Tivy’s FB page, discussing the Pretty Things, Gay Meakin or Schofield asked “are you sure you were actually invited?” I replied “Actually I was - I knew the birthday girl - I just forget who it was now! But you are not far off the mark when you ask! Many times I just snuck in - with the rest of you!! Lol” and Gay replied “we all did!”

I recall one party in a flat in Westbourne Grove and I was the first to arrive just before 8pm. I didn’t know the hosts, but I had been invited legitimately by a mutual friend. But I recall my intense embarrassment standing by their fireplace with no-one present, only the hosts, total strangers to me. An hour later, with another 40 people around me and a few good drinks downed, all was good!

Some of the parties were in the suburbs like Totteridge, Whetstone, Edgware, etc. I recall two in particular. In one a rip-roaring party was in full swing at some poor girl’s, who had invited the ‘Witches Lot’, when somebody discovered the wine cellar. There were dozens of bottles of vintage champagne, lots of Courvoisier brandy, masses of wine. We all got roaring drunk. I recall seeing friends or acquaintances in the garden smashing bottles of champagne against each other, bottles of Courvoisier brandy together. I didn’t approve personally, it was wanton waste and destruction. But was I going to try to stop some drunken rowdy acting up? Certainly not!

Another suburban party went on into the small hours and dozens of us ultimately lay down and slept on the plush fitted rug in the vast open plan living room, dining room, and kitchen. In the morning the cleaners and housekeeper served us all teas and coffees as we lay there! That was civilised! Rather a few cuts above what we were used to!

Dave Young recalls:

Re parties, I will think about those, so many! I remember very early ones at Johnny Rush's place, wherever that was, mostly William Ellis school people and girls from Parly Hill Suniti, Jane, Clare, etc.

Also the afore mentioned Victoria's place in Goldhurst terrace.

Another slightly later one here in Finchley. Some girls from Finchley came to the witches and said: " we are from Finchley and we think the Hampstead and Finchley people should get to know each other and there is a party at our house at the weekend". Something they came to regret. Their parents were away and we wrecked the joint. I remember a door coming of and a chandelier. Someone discovered the well stocked wine cellar. I remember Les wandering in the garden with a bottle of whisky in one hand and one of brandy in the other. In spite of this we stayed all night and were served breakfast in the morning by the au pair. Very civilized. I often remember it with some guilt when I pass the road it was in.

They came to the Witches to try and get some money for repairs and restocking their dad's cellar but did not have much luck.

There were no more invitations from up there.

Maybe I have separated out two memories from the same party?

Some parties got out of hand. I recall one in Reddington Road, Hampstead (another rich person’s address). Everybody got out of their heads. I knew it was getting out of control, when I saw the normally well behaved and responsible Roger Silverman standing in a room full of empty wine bottles smashing them on the wall, one after another. Not like him at all.

Another one in Reddington Road also went a bit wild, It could even have been the same party, I don’t recall, and nor does anyone else! It could have been at Misha Norland's parents' house. When someone pushed the upstairs flat fridge down the stairs I left. I heard that an old bureau was also pushed down the stairs and when it smashed to matchwood at the bottom, a secret compartment flew open and hundreds of black and white pornographic photos flew out! Oops!

Even a topless photo of a girl was pretty risque' in those days! In my mid teens I recall drooling over pictures of women modelling bras and bikinis, in the Littlewoods Catalogue. Bunny Krikler, was an old friend of the family, a South African Jewish immigrant, and one of a whole host of intellectuals who fled the Apartheid regime to Hampstead. He became an adopted uncle to me and Sue, alongside his wife Bernice as aunt. We usually spent Christmas together. I recall him describing in great detail to the assembled family how he had seen a pornographic phote of an entirely naked woman, sitting on a chair, and "you could see every single pubic hair". What a frisson that sent down our spines!

Example of a pornographic photo of yesteryear (1855 actually) showing pubic hair. Not so very different from the many paintings of nudes from Renaissance onwards, although they tended to be more discreet.

An exception, shocking in its day is Courbet's The Origin of the World, 1866

Marina Abramovic has some interesting things to say about this work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=cjen0HRspjo

A brilliant riposte to Courbet's The Origin of the World is the Origin of War by the controversial modern artist Orlan

Orlan, the Origin of War, 1989

Of course these days no one would bat an eye at the picture described to us by Bunny. You only have to type a couple of words into Google to see images as graphic as this, and much more besides!

One young man at the Witches once showed me a picture he carried in his wallet. It was the top half of a naked woman. He pointed to the exposed bosom "water bottle breasts, my favourite!". They were full and shapely indeed.

Example of a woman with water bottle breasts shaped breasts

I never saw anything like this, or indeed, breasts of any shape, at the parties we went to, as far as I can recall, for all the claims of their uninhibited Bohemian debauchery!

Such photos were a bit risque' in the early 1960s! Photos of naked people could be only seen in magazines like Health & Efficiency, or National Geographic's anthropological pictures.