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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that shines a light on the ups and

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Speaker 1: downs of everyday history. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're

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Speaker 1: reflecting on a dark day for British civil liberties, the

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Speaker 1: time when a paramilitarized police force led a brutal attack

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Speaker 1: against a group of unarmed activists. The day was June one.

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Speaker 1: A convoy of nearly six hundred New Age travelers was

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Speaker 1: assaulted by British police on its way to an annual

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Speaker 1: event at Stonehenge. The event later became known as the

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Speaker 1: Battle of the bean Field, as much of the violence

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Speaker 1: took place in a field adjacent to the historic monument. However,

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Speaker 1: the word battle doesn't accurately reflect what happened that day.

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Speaker 1: Although some travelers did attempt to fight back, they were

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Speaker 1: outnumbered two to one, making the clash decidedly one sided

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Speaker 1: in the police's favor. By the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: numerous unarmed travelers had been severely beaten, their vehicles had

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Speaker 1: been destroyed, and nearly everyone present had been arrested, with

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Speaker 1: many families deliberately broken up and sent to separate Police stations.

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Speaker 1: The New Age Travelers were something of an offshoot of

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Speaker 1: the hippie culture of the nineteen sixties. Developed in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, the British movement aimed to create an alternative

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Speaker 1: lifestyle based on individualism, New Age beliefs, and environmental sustainability.

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Speaker 1: The Travelers got their name from their nomadic way of life.

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Speaker 1: They lived in cars, vans or modified buses and traveled

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Speaker 1: from one musical festival or fair to the next. The

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Speaker 1: movement grew substantially during the early years of Margaret Thatcher's

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Speaker 1: first term as Prime Minister. When she took office in

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Speaker 1: May of nineteen seventy nine, the British unemployment rate was

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Speaker 1: five point three percent, but by spring of nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: four it had risen to the dramatic peak of eleven

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Speaker 1: point nine percent. With fewer and fewer jobs available, thousands

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Speaker 1: more citizens lost faith in conventional society and instead took

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Speaker 1: to the open road, where they formed their own groups

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Speaker 1: and sought to live more simply. The Travelers organized many

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Speaker 1: free festivals throughout England, with one of the largest being

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Speaker 1: the People's Free Festival at Stonehenge. The annual event began

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four as a way to celebrate the

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Speaker 1: summer solstice, and it grew in popularity and attendance year

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Speaker 1: after year. In nineteen eighty four, the ten year anniversary

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Speaker 1: of the event, the Department of the Environment handed off

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Speaker 1: management of Stonehenge and the surrounding area to English Heritage,

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Speaker 1: a charity that maintains historic monuments and buildings. The festival

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Speaker 1: went on as schedule that year, with an estimated one

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand people attending over the course of six weeks,

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Speaker 1: but English Heritage wasn't used to having massive parties held

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Speaker 1: at the historic sites it managed. They voiced their concerns

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Speaker 1: along with local residents, and eventually secured a High Court

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Speaker 1: injunction to prevent the festival from being held the following year.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty five, Many travelers stayed clear of the

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Speaker 1: forbidden festival, but a group calling themselves the Peace Convoy

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Speaker 1: decided not to take no for an answer. On the

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Speaker 1: morning of June Onet, a procession of about one hundred

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Speaker 1: and forty vehicles slowly made its way through the rural

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Speaker 1: countryside hide As they neared the monument, they found the

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Speaker 1: way forward was blocked by police barricades. The vehicles at

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Speaker 1: the front of the line slowed to a stop, and

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Speaker 1: some of the travelers tried to negotiate with the police.

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Speaker 1: It didn't go so well all At once, the police

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Speaker 1: started smashing windshields and dragging out the occupants. The unarmed

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Speaker 1: travelers were then beaten with truncheons, and those who tried

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Speaker 1: to escape were pelted with whatever the officers had on

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Speaker 1: hand clubs, shields, stones, even fire extinguishers. More than thirteen

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Speaker 1: hundred officers from six different counties and the Ministry of

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Speaker 1: Defense were on hand that day. The operation had been

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Speaker 1: planned months in advance, and negotiating was never part of it.

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Speaker 1: After the initial wave of assaults, most of the vehicles

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Speaker 1: sought refuge in a nearby bean field. The police quickly

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Speaker 1: caught up with them, an a tent standoff ensued for

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Speaker 1: more than four hours. The travelers tried to dissuade the

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Speaker 1: police from further violence. During this time, they explained, though

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Speaker 1: the police likely already knew that they were unarmed families, men,

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Speaker 1: women and children who posed no threat to anyone. The

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Speaker 1: eventual response came from Assistant Chief Constable Lionel Grundy. He

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Speaker 1: ordered the arrest of all six hundred travelers regardless of age,

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Speaker 1: and authorized the use of force to do it, And

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Speaker 1: so at seven p m that evening, the police donned

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Speaker 1: their riot gear and began their final bloody assault against

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Speaker 1: the peace convoy. One of the few members of the

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Speaker 1: press to witness the event was a journalist named Nick Davies.

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Speaker 1: In an article for The Observer, Davies described the violence

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Speaker 1: he saw, writing quote, they were like flies around rotten meat,

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Speaker 1: and there was no question of trying to make a

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Speaker 1: lawful arrest. They crawled all over, truncheons, flailing, hitting anybody

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Speaker 1: they could reach. There was glass breaking, people screaming, black

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Speaker 1: smoke towering out of burning caravans, and everywhere there seemed

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Speaker 1: to be people being bashed and flattened and pulled by

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Speaker 1: the hair men. Women and children were led away, shivering, swearing, crying, bleeding,

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Speaker 1: leaving their homes in pieces. Over the years, I had

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Speaker 1: seen all kinds of horrible and frightening things and always

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Speaker 1: managed to grin and write it. But as I left

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Speaker 1: the bean field for the first time, I felt sick

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Speaker 1: enough to cry. In the end, more than five hundred

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Speaker 1: travelers were arrested that day, the largest mass arrest of

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Speaker 1: civilians since at least World War two and one of

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Speaker 1: the largest in English legal history, there weren't enough cells

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Speaker 1: to detain that many people locally, so many members of

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Speaker 1: the peace convoy were transported to different counties, some as

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Speaker 1: far away as northern England. There was no effort to

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Speaker 1: ensure that parents and children were kept together either. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: back in the bean field, the police began systematically destroying

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Speaker 1: the travelers vehicles, which for most were also their homes.

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Speaker 1: Every vehicle there was smashed beyond repair, and several more

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Speaker 1: were set on fire. Seven healthy dogs belonging to the

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Speaker 1: travelers were rescued from the vehicles, only to be put

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Speaker 1: to sleep by officers from the RSPCA. When the smoke cleared,

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Speaker 1: eight police officers and sixteen travelers had been hospitalized. As

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Speaker 1: for the five hundred and thirty seven people arrested, they

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Speaker 1: were all charged with obstruction of the police and the highway.

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Speaker 1: The majority of those charges were later dismissed, with few

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Speaker 1: actually resulting in prosecution. Twenty four members of the peace convoy.

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Speaker 1: It later sued the Wiltshire Police for assaults and criminal damage.

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Speaker 1: The travelers found an unexpected ally in their case, the

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Speaker 1: Earl of Cardigan, a wealthy conservative landowner who had allowed

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Speaker 1: the convoy to camp on his property the night before

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Speaker 1: the assaults on June one. The Earl had followed behind

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Speaker 1: the convoy on his motorbike and witnessed the violence firsthand.

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Speaker 1: He later testified against the police, saying that they had

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Speaker 1: given the travelers no time to comply with orders before

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Speaker 1: resorting to extreme violence. He described how officers had covered

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Speaker 1: their ID badges while smashing the travelers homes with hammers.

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Speaker 1: Most disturbingly, the Earl recounted seeing a pregnant woman quote

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Speaker 1: repeatedly clubbed on the head by an officer. The Earl's

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Speaker 1: testimony lent credence to the traveler's claims and got him

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Speaker 1: labeled as a class trader by the right wing press

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Speaker 1: despite his assistance. Though the case dragged on in court

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Speaker 1: for seven years, the travelers eventually won and were awarded

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Speaker 1: twenty four thousand pounds and damages, but because the judge

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Speaker 1: declined to award their legal call costs, the money just

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Speaker 1: went to paying legal fees. It didn't feel like much

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Speaker 1: of a victory, and that's probably because the real battle

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Speaker 1: had been lost years ago. In six the Public Order

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Speaker 1: Act extended restrictions on unlawful assembly and trespassing, making it

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Speaker 1: nearly impossible to organize free festivals in England, whether it's

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Speaker 1: Stonehenge or pretty much anywhere else. The travelers counterculture lifestyle

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Speaker 1: was being stamped out by the established order, and the

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Speaker 1: final blow was dealt in when the Criminal Justice Act

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Speaker 1: gave police the power to shut down virtually any event

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Speaker 1: with free live music. The era of the free music

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Speaker 1: festival and all that it stood for, was over. Live

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Speaker 1: music would still be played, of course, but only when

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Speaker 1: and where the state allowed, and always with a cover charge.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gay Bluesier and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about on history today than you did yesterday. You

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Speaker 1: can learn even more about history by following us on Twitter,

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Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram at t d i HC Show, and

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Speaker 1: if you have any comments or suggestions, you can always

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Speaker 1: send them my way at this day at I heart

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Speaker 1: media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back

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Speaker 1: here again tomorrow for another day in History class