Albion Dreaming (21 page)

On Wednesday 6 April, Britain’s first LSD court case opened when John Esam stepped into the dock at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, charged with conspiracy to distribute LSD. George Shindler, acting for the prosecution sounded unconvincing in court when he outlined the legal issues, noting that the drug did not yet come under the Misuse of Drugs Act, but hoped it would soon. Some of those in the public gallery wondered why Shindler was so hesitant and why, if LSD wasn’t covered under the Misuse of Drugs Act, there was no mention of it being covered under the Poisons Act. Shindler added, perhaps in an attempt to have Esam remanded in custody, that: “It is clear that Esam is in touch with people all over the world who are taking this drug.” But the magistrate was minded to grant bail to Esam and his co-defendant Russell Page, until 19 April.
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Following the revelations by
London Life
, the
People
and the
News of the World
, it was inevitable that LSD would come to the attention of the BBC. When it did they immediately commissioned a freelance producer, Jack Bond, to film a piece on LSD for its
24 Hours
programme.

Bond decided to film an LSD party at the home of Chelsea antique dealer Christopher Gibbs on April 16. Gibbs was well-known on the LSD scene, having been a visitor to the World Psychedelic Centre, and his Chelsea flat played host to many LSD sessions. Gibbs was an enthusiastic LSD user and for him it, “blew away the cobwebs and removed lots of layers of armour.”
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With
its sumptuous decorations and view of the River Thames, Gibbs’ flat was not only beautiful, it was regarded as
the
place to take LSD. The wealthy and socially mobile Chelsea set took LSD there many times and film maker Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon recalls taking LSD there with Mick Jagger.

The
People
paid £100 for a tip-off about the party’s location and sent a couple of reporters to cover the story. Their report, splashed across the front page the following morning, was predictably sensational. The BBC and
People
journalists witnessed what appeared to be a wild “happening”, with numerous people under the influence of LSD and other drugs. “A happening is a party at which people do whatever comes into their heads – self-expression, man” one guest at the party told the
People
. Self-expression was just a tad too much for the journalists who could make no sense of the event. Sensory overload was the order of the day, with many attendees decked out in what appeared to be fancy dress. Some people stared transfixed at temporary sculptures in one room. In another room there was a traditional psychedelic light show; and in another a surreal film was being projected. While some of the
People
article sounded plausible, other parts appeared to be fresh out of the book of drug clichés. One such questionable quote was: “Look at me, I’m high on LSD. I’m a baby again.” The
People’s
traditional prurience shone through in the accounts of how “Men danced with men – women danced with women” and its observation that in a darkened room where the LSD trippers were watching a light show, men and women were embracing.
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The BBC filmed what they could and fled, one of the crew saying, “I’ve had enough – that was too much for anyone to take”. When the BBC saw the front page of the
People
they back-pedalled, a press officer stating, “What part of the film is used is an editorial decision. It is still not certain when we shall include this material in the programme or how much of it or in what form.”

At Esam and Page’s court appearance on 19 April the prosecution introduced new evidence into court. Alongside the charge of selling LSD Esam and Page were also charged with sale of DMT. DMT, or dimethyltryptamine, is a fast acting psychedelic drug several times stronger than LSD. The effects of DMT are
difficult to describe but some DMT users have likened it to being launched, seemingly for eternity, into a million alternate universes, though the effects last in reality for no more than thirty minutes. DMT was available throughout the Sixties in London but due to its dramatic and unpredictable effects it was taken by relatively few people, most preferring the much more manageable and user-friendly LSD.

Once again there was some confusion in court as to just which law Esam and Page had transgressed. Esam now believed he had not broken any law and pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, reserving his defence. None of the newspaper reports about the case mention which law they were being prosecuted under and, looking at the case in retrospect, it is hard to understand why the magistrate did not discharge the pair.

John Ryman, for the prosecution, argued: “We are dealing with the use of a type of drug not considered by the courts to any extent.” Here, Ryman was being disingenuous as he knew full well that until now LSD had not been considered in
any
court. He added: “We must, therefore, have the best considered judicial interpretation of these matters.” The magistrate gave Esam and Page bail to allow the prosecution to organise its case. It was to be several months before they would be in court again.
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History shows Esam to have been correct in deciding to challenge the law. Others weren’t so prescient. The first successful prosecution for LSD took place in late May when Roger Lewis, a freelance photographer, appeared at Marlborough Street Magistrate’s Court charged with possessing thirteen LSD-laced sugar cubes and aiding and abetting the sale of LSD. Lewis’ defence was that he had become interested in LSD after reading about it in
London Life
and that he had bought some in a Chelsea coffee bar. He pleaded guilty and was discharged on the count of possession but fined £25 for aiding the sale of LSD. It was clear to London’s judiciary that Chelsea was becoming well-known as a place where LSD was frequently used and could be easily bought. In an LSD prosecution in August, involving a King’s Road boutique owner, the magistrate noted: “There are too many drugs going about in Chelsea.”
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Michael Hollingshead was sentenced on 24 May. Legal Aid had been refused and, though he could have paid for legal representation, Hollingshead’s ego and megalomania got the better of him and he decided to conduct his own defence. He compounded this folly by arriving at court high on LSD which, as he notes in a classic piece of understatement, “... enhanced the unreality of the scene ...” Hollingshead accepted the charges relating to cannabis, but denied being in possession of heroin and morphine, saying they had been left in his flat by a man named Arthur. Needless to say, the judiciary was unimpressed with his defence and he was sentenced to twenty-one months in custody.
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As prisoner 4380, Hollingshead settled down to life in London’s Wormwood Scrubs and tried to make the best of a bad situation. While in prison he noted: “I myself had a reasonably steady supply of hashish, and a stash of LSD which Richard Alpert and Owsley had left during their visit to the Scrubs.”
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Hollingshead might have had LSD in prison, but once again it seems his ability to mix fact with fiction got the better of him. Owsley, a.k.a. Bear, (now living in Australia), utterly refutes this claim; “I’m sorry – your source is false about me ... I never met Michael Hollingshead.”
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This is yet another example of Hollingshead’s disingenuity, a mixing of fact with fiction to create a mask of public identity. All his stories, unless backed up by third party evidence, must be treated with a degree of suspicion.

Hollingshead’s time in prison was uneventful, with one major exception. The MI6 agent, George Blake, imprisoned for forty-two years after it was discovered he had been passing on secrets to the Soviets, was also a prisoner in Wormwood Scrubs. During conversations with Hollingshead, Blake expressed an interest in taking LSD and one Sunday afternoon when the prison was quiet and inmates had free access between cells the pair took the drug. Initially everything was all right but Blake soon began to tense up and became paranoid that Hollingshead was working for the intelligence services and had given him a truth drug. Blake eventually calmed down, spending the final hours of his LSD experience in deep thought, reflecting to Hollingshead that he might not be able to cope with his long prison sentence. Blake
escaped and fled to Russia a few weeks after his LSD trip and Hollingshead’s account of his LSD trip has never been corroborated. Hollingshead, thought to be a model prisoner, also left Wormwood Scrubs, but by a more conventional transfer to the open prison at Leyhill in Gloucestershire.

With Hollingshead under lock and key and the World Psychedelic Centre closed down, the London LSD scene had lost some of its focus. Now Leary was not coming to Britain to market his brand of drug-induced religion, and in the absence of any other psychedelic gurus in London, the LSD subculture was free to develop in its own way. The purposes people used LSD for were limited only by the number of LSD users but some deserve special mention, if only to illustrate that LSD use was not all motivated by a desire for peace and love.

Terry Taylor had left England in 1963 to live in Morocco, where he pursued the life of an expatriate beatnik. He returned to London in 1966 and introduced a new strand of thought into Britain’s burgeoning psychedelic culture: magic. Taylor is a fascinating character, about whom little is known. He is noteworthy in the history of LSD in Britain because his 1961 novel
Baron’s Court, All Change
, featured the first fictional reference to LSD in Britain: “‘Really?’ my junkie friend said, sounding interested, ‘What’s it now? Bennies, L.S.D., or Nems?’”
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Taylor had been encouraged to take up writing by Colin MacInnes, and became the role model for the hero of MacInnes’ tale of emergent youth culture,
Absolute Beginners
. Through MacInnes’ patronage Taylor was introduced to a world of bohemian creative types such as surrealist painter Ida Kay, who would influence his interests in art and the occult. At the time of writing the novel Taylor had not yet taken LSD but his interest in it would have far reaching consequences for him as the 1960s progressed.

Baron’s Court
is a classic novel of London beatnik life, its nameless protagonist rebelling against straight society through fringe religion, drugs, multi-culturalism, jazz and sex. Yet it would be just another genre novel were it not for the fact Terry Taylor was thinly fictionalizing the life he lived.

In the early Sixties Taylor left Britain for Tangier. There,
with other Europeans and Berber tribesmen he formed a group practising drug-induced magic. American poet Johnny Dolphin was involved in this group and in his travelogue
Journey Round an Extraordinary Planet
, describes how Taylor’s magic circle used marijuana to materialise thought forms: “Each one would concentrate, projecting his inner scene. The one with the most power would make the scene that would take over the night in the Magic Room ... Terry, lean, deft and poised, prepared the kif from the dried plants, carefully selected from the Berber women’s stocks. Then he would pass out the majoun cookies ... We sat backs to the wall in silence, focusing on making the scene appear.”
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Dolphin continues: “Terry wanted to turn all London on and later helped start the process with street acid together with his tall, thin-nosed call-girl friend from Chelsea.” This was an aim Taylor would soon achieve.

When Taylor returned to London he vigorously pursued his interest in the occult, now combining his rituals with LSD as well as marijuana. He formed a magic circle in Notting Hill Gate involving, among others, two hippie call girls, Bernadette Whybrow and Julia Callan-Thompson. Magic rituals are incredibly powerful psychological events in their own right. When magical practice is combined with LSD the effects of both are exponentially intensified. Taylor’s group soon discovered the potent mix of magic and psychedelics to be highly effective in the evocation of thought forms to reality. But the aftermath of these sessions was physically and mentally exhausting, and the group began smoking heroin to dampen their over-stimulated imaginations. What began as an occasional calming smoke of heroin led inevitably to intravenous use and years of addiction for several of the group’s members. Taylor’s magic group operated in London for a few years and he and his hippie girl friends would soon become involved in Britain’s first illegal LSD manufacturing and distribution network.
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There was a general perception among the police and public that LSD was already covered under the Poisons Act, but LSD’s exact legal position was unclear. Roy Jenkins, Britain’s Home Secretary, believed LSD was dangerous and wanted the drug brought under the umbrella of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1964, so events were set
in motion to achieve this. Jenkins’ decision to deal with LSD had been influenced by a variety of factors. The increasing number of ill-informed scare stories in the media, plus pressure from some sectors of the medical establishment, contributed to a general sense of unease that LSD was a problem which needed dealing with rapidly. If Jenkins allowed LSD to remain legal it would call into question the reason for legislation against other consciousness-altering drugs. This would open a debate the government did not want and so Jenkins found himself in a situation where he had no choice but to support legislation curbing the possession and use of LSD.

In June the
British Medical Journal
published a leading article calling for LSD to be made illegal. Citing a study of 129 people who had received LSD therapy, the
BMJ
claimed that two patients committed suicide and four others attempted to take their own life. The study was flawed though as there was no attempt to determine whether or any of the deaths and attempted suicides was as a result of taking LSD or whether there was a predisposition to suicide. For this study to have had any validity, a control group of subjects without identified mental health problems would have been needed, as well as a group who took no LSD at all.
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