Now a long time Nottingham resident and social activist, Alan Lodge, ‘Tash’ comes from a free festival and traveller background. Living in old buses, trucks and caravans, he drove around the country on ‘the circuit’ with his family and friends.
Since the late 1970’s he has been photographing events and the people around him, with One Eye on the Road and always another on the response of the police.
Join us at Sumac Centre on the early evening of Saturday 7th June for a display of Tash’s photos, and a discussion with Tash about free festivals and wider issues of Policing and Protest.
This will no doubt include his activism in Nottingham from Critical Mass to Heckler & Koch, from Nottm Indymedia to the Green Festival.
There will be snacks from Veggies and a social at Sumac’s Forest Fields Social Club bar afterwards.
40 years ago, Molesworth peace camp, part of a campaign organised from Nottingham Rainbow Centre, was evicted by thousands of police and army, in one of the most expensive evictions in British history. Many of those evicted formed a ‘Peace Convoy’.
On 1st June 1985 Tash documented the prearranged police ambush of the Peace Convoy, travelling though Wiltshire for the annual Fee Festival at Stonehenge. This has been been dubbed the Battle of the Beanfield.
Five Leaves Bookshop will also be holding an illustrated talk with Alan Lodge Tash at 4.45 on Sunday 1st June.
Whilst the Sumac Centre event will travel with Tash from the 1970’s to today, the Five Leaves event focuses his lens on the 40th Anniviversary of the Battle of the Beanfield.
Stonehenge ‘85.
Battle of the Bean Field.
A year after crushing the miners, Thatcher turned her eye to the burgeoning counter-culture, mobilising 1300 police officers in an attempt to halt the counter-cultures most significant annual event- the Stonehenge Free festival. pic.twitter.com/mXNX9wMZGY
— Seth Dresden Wheeler (@sethnotes) June 21, 2023
A short history of the People’s Free Festival – from Windsor to the Beanfield
with stills photography by Alan Lodge ‘Tash’.
