| NOTES |
Simonwell Farm had been plain Well Farm until the Simon Community bought it around 1965. They used it for a strange combination of purposes - experimental commune, rest centre for workers in the various 'units' and, in fact, the national headquarters. Anton Wallich-Clifford himself was based there, in a caravan in the grounds. He spent quite a lot of time there. |
| The house and small amount of derelict land (it had obviously long since become detached from the actual farm) was situated in a remote part of Kent, near the southern end of the North Downs. It was about 9 miles from Canterbury and the nearest village was Crundale. It was a beautiful area and the narrow lanes rarely saw any traffic other than the occasional farm tractor. |
| The house was kept neat and tidy, in a rustic sort of way, and was certainly better furnished than St Joseph's House (the Kentish Town unit). Here, Anton's quasi-military routine was fairly strictly observed. Whatever form your inadequacy was to take here, it certainly wasn't going to be the armchair form. Upon my arrival, Anton glared at me and asked sharply "What are you doing here?" Whatever yarn I came out with it obviously did the trick, since I wasn't turned away. I was at first given random chores to do, but pretty soon I was put in charge of all housework. I certainly earned my 50 pence a week in this job. It was a fairly substantial farmhouse and the large barn had been converted into dormitories. There were about fifteen people staying there at any one time. |
| Site visitors have informed me that Bridget killed herself in about 1980. Tom then returned to the bottle and ended up on the road again. He died in 1999, aged 79. Anton died some time in the 1980s of TB, for which he is rumoured to have refused treatment. | Anton ruled through his fearsome deputy, Tom Gifford. Tom was a roaring rock-faced bruiser of a Glaswegian in his forties, a dried-out alkie with a criminal record for violence. In fact he was said to have done time for manslaughter after a fight. He was an amazing foil to the ascetic Anton, to whom he was devoted. He was married to a sad, submissive girl about half his age, Bridget, whose badge of office was a black eye. They lived in a cottage not far from Simonwell. Tom's bullying, threatening and constantly deafening style of leadership was actually about right, given the task he had of maintaining law and order and a reasonable level of work among that unlikely crew. I can afford that much generosity, because I was the one person, apart from Anton, he never actually yelled at or insulted. |
| There was another person whom he ignored altogether at first, but this changed dramatically, with extraordinary effect. I shall call her Lynn Radstock, a play on her real name. Lynn was about eighteen. During my first week or so there, she spent nearly all her waking time sitting on a stool in the living room motionless, staring into space. In her lap she nursed an axe, the edge of which she caressed lovingly. The only time she did any work was when the cat had kittens and it was decided they should killed. This job was offered to Lynn, who readily accepted it. She chopped off their heads with her axe. One day, Gifford, who had ignored her up to then, stormed into the room and roared "You stupid bitch! I'll give you the count of three to get up off your fat arse and start working like a slave, or you won't know what hit you!" Lynn calmly put her axe to one side, got up off the stool and asked me pleasantly what work I had for her. It was the first time I had heard her speak. Gifford looked very smug, as indeed he was entitled to be. Lynn worked hard and willingly as one of my assistants for the rest of my short time there. |
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Lynn had been tolerated at Simonwell in the first place only because her brother, Del, was there. He was, as I seemed to have become, one of the few 'permanent' members of the Farm community, the rest being sent back to their units (or to different ones) after a break. This permanency had probably been granted for Lynn's sake, not that the two seemed to communicate at all, not even after the Gifford miracle cure. I struck an immediate rapport with Del. He was a bit younger than I, very small, and habitually morose. In fact he was full of cynicism and bitterness. Nevertheless, he carried out any instructions I gave him, in my capacity as Leader of Domestic Chores, willingly and efficiently. He spoke little. Whenever he mentioned his sister, it was through clenched teeth. I couldn't ask him about his background, as this subject was taboo throughout the Simon Community. |
| Another female member of the community to benefit from the wisdom of Gifford was Janet, a willowy girl with a smart accent and an obsession with cleanliness and hygiene,which got on everyone's nerves. One day, when she had scrubbed the kitchen floor several times with great vigour, she launched into a terrible tirade against a kitchen worker who dared to step on her gleaming tiles while they were still damp. Gifford happened along at that moment and, stepping into the middle of her floor with great deliberation, interrupted her near-hysterical yelling with the following advice. " I would strongly suggest," he growled, "that you make your way to the nearest main road, stick your thumb out and get yourself well and truly f****d by three or four huge, hairy, sweaty lorry drivers". She looked down at her tiles and after a few seconds whispered "Yes, you're right". Tom Gifford certainly had a way with women. |
| Tom's terror tactics were confined solely to trying to ensure the smooth running of domestic affairs. He made no attempt to regulate how people behaved outside of their scheduled work time, as long as no alcohol was brought into the house. For example, whenever Helen managed to persuade a male (any male) to have sex with her in full view of anyone who cared to watch, Gifford certainly frowned, but said nothing. |
| There were certain short-term visitors who, technically, had no right to be there, since they exhibited no behaviour indicating inadequacy. These were the American Vietnam deserters. Through a pacifist organization, Anton had made Simonwell available to them as one of many 'safe houses' around the country, but they never stayed for long, preferring to take their chances in less safe but more conventional surroundings. They did, however, take part heartily in the all-night jam sessions I organized in the barn on a couple of occasions. I played a borrowed guitar and kazoo and sang, while everyone else bashed and scraped things. It must have been dire. It kept Anton awake, but he congratulated us the next morning. |
| Once a week, on payday, we were allowed to walk the nine miles into Canterbury (there were no buses). This was theoretically in order to spend our 50 pence, but it was in fact a working trip. We had a chest of colourful pieces of material of all sorts and we turned these into very flamboyant clothes for these expeditions. The idea was simply to hang about the centre of Canterbury for the amusement of Japanese tourists, who would pay us small amounts for the privilege of photographing hippies. We also wore beads and bells and waved lighted joss-sticks about. My companions all had very long hair, and mine was slowly catching up. We made quite a bit of money, but the terrible thing was that I couldn't spend mine on alcohol. You couldn't go back smelling of it, because of Gifford's being a dried-out alkie. A mere whiff of the stuff would have set him off again, so he claimed. You may have noticed no mention of alcohol for several chapters - this was a long dry period, but not from choice. Before Gifford, simple lack of the wherewithal was the problem. |
| Then Marie-Therese arrived. She was a tall, thin girl of about twenty, and her disposition was a delicious blend of sweet innocence and impish mischievousness. She was full of life and fun and we hit it off straight away, often talking long into the night. Her only job seemed to be to take Anton's meals to him in his caravan. After a while, we began to fool around, pushing and shoving each other. This eventually turned into daily full-scale public wrestling matches, which got quite vicious and caused a lot of bruises as well as hilarity in the onlookers. The trouble was that I had no idea how to go about converting this strange form of intimacy to a more conventional variety.
One morning, Marie-Therese was nowhere to be found. Then, Gifford, seemingly quite sympathetic, quietly informed me that having taken Anton's supper to him the night before, she had not yet emerged from his caravan. When she eventually appeared, we didn't even speak. She spent every night with Anton after that, and they eventually announced their engagement. |
| I now felt that I had to get out of there as soon as possible. |