The Hippie Trail: A History

211 Pages·2017·6.631 MB·English

by  Sharif Gemie, Brian Ireland

Title Pages
The Hippie Trail: A History
Sharif Gemie and Brian Ireland
Print publication date: 2017
Print ISBN-13: 9781526114624
Published to Manchester Scholarship Online: May 2018
DOI: 10.7228/manchester/9781526114624.001.0001
Title Pages
Sharif Gemie
Brian Ireland
(p.i) The hippie trail
(p.iii) The hippie trail
(p.ii)
Manchester University Press
(p.iv) Copyright © Sharif Gemie and Brian Ireland 2017
The right of Sharif Gemie and Brian Ireland to be identified as the authors of
this
work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and
Patents Act 1988.
Published by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
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ISBN 978 1 5261 1462 4 hardback
First published 2017
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Title Pages
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Dedication
The Hippie Trail: A History
Sharif Gemie and Brian Ireland
Print publication date: 2017
Print ISBN-13: 9781526114624
Published to Manchester Scholarship Online: May 2018
DOI: 10.7228/manchester/9781526114624.001.0001
Dedication
Sharif Gemie
Brian Ireland
(p.v) Dedicated to Mary Ellen Ireland, who in 2016 made the final journey
any of us ever will. (p.vi)
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Plates
The Hippie Trail: A History
Sharif Gemie and Brian Ireland
Print publication date: 2017
Print ISBN-13: 9781526114624
Published to Manchester Scholarship Online: May 2018
DOI: 10.7228/manchester/9781526114624.001.0001
(p.viii) Plates
Sharif Gemie
Brian Ireland
following p. 118
1 London, November 1975 (photograph © Dee Atlas, reproduced by permission)
2 Packing the Land Rover, summer 1971 (photograph © Ruth Jones, reproduced by
permission)
3 Dover, September 1972 (photograph © John Worrall, reproduced by permission)
4 Yugoslav–Bulgarian border, March 1975 (photograph © Dr Michael R. Taylor,
reproduced by permission)
5 Somewhere between Iran and Afghanistan, November 1975 (photograph © Dee Atlas,
reproduced by permission)
6 Camels on the concrete highway near Herat, June 1975 (photograph © Dr Michael R.
Taylor, reproduced by permission)
7 Sharing shade, near Quetta, April 1975 (photograph © Dr Michael R. Taylor,
reproduced by permission)
8 Breakdown at the Iranian border, December 1970 (photograph © Anna Kemp,
reproduced by permission)
9 Toilet stop near Agri (Turkey), November 1975 (photograph © John Worrall,
reproduced by permission)
10 Lunch near Isfahan (Iran), November 1975 (photograph © John Worrall, reproduced
by permission)
11 Sirjan (Iran), November 1975 (photograph © John Worrall, reproduced by permission)
12 Sheila and crew of decorated lorry, Herat, Afghanistan, August 1976 (photograph ©
Michael Hall, reproduced by permission)
13 View from the Hotel Niagra, Herat, October 1977 (photograph © Bill Christie,
reproduced by permission)
14 Some local youths who befriended us, Lahore (Pakistan), September 1976
(photograph © Michael Hall, reproduced by permission)
(p.ix) 15 Near the Khyber Pass, May 1968 (photographer unknown – provided by Irene
Milburn, reproduced by permission)
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Plates
16 By the lakeside at Pokhara (Nepal), 1977 (photograph © Steve Ostler, reproduced by
permission)
17 Shalamar Gardens, near Lahore, 1975 (photograph © John Worrall, reproduced by
permission)
18 A teahouse outside Kathmandu, Nepal, 1970 (photograph © Mike Turner, reproduced
by permission)
19 Hippie chicks in Kathmandu, April 1969 (photograph © Bruce Thomas, reproduced by
permission)
20 Tim in Afghanistan, 1975 (photograph © John Burgoyne, reproduced by permission)
21 Home again, August 1975 (photograph © Dr Michael R. Taylor, reproduced by
permission)
22 A 1975 time capsule discovered by my son in 2011 (photograph © Dr Michael R.
Taylor, reproduced by permission)
Every effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyright material, and the
publisher will be pleased to be informed of any errors and omissions for correction in future
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Acknowledgements
The Hippie Trail: A History
Sharif Gemie and Brian Ireland
Print publication date: 2017
Print ISBN-13: 9781526114624
Published to Manchester Scholarship Online: May 2018
DOI: 10.7228/manchester/9781526114624.001.0001
(p.x) Acknowledgements
Sharif Gemie
Brian Ireland
Brian: Thanks to Sharif for his support and encouragement. This would have been a very
different book without the input of those who travelled the trail. Many thanks to those who
agreed to be interviewed, who returned our questionnaires, and who contributed to our blog. In
some ways the conference we organised at the Cardiff Story Museum in October 2013 (‘Touch
the Sky: the Hippie Trail and other forms of alternative tourism’) kick-started this project, so we
are grateful to those conference speakers and to the participants at the roundtable. Thanks to
Maria Nita for some suggestions about the Appendix, and also to Penny Croxson for helpful
advice, sourcing some material and diligent proofreading.
Dedicated to Morgan, Myles and Penny for making it all worthwhile.
Sharif: Thanks to Brian for his cooperation and constant calm. Thanks to all the people I’ve met
in the course of writing this book: I hope that you’ll find that I’ve represented your experience
fairly. Thanks to Maria Nita for discussion, advice and new ideas.
Dedicated to Shirley, with hope.
The authors can be contacted at the following email addresses:
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Introduction: beginning the trail
The Hippie Trail: A History
Sharif Gemie and Brian Ireland
Print publication date: 2017
Print ISBN-13: 9781526114624
Published to Manchester Scholarship Online: May 2018
DOI: 10.7228/manchester/9781526114624.001.0001
Introduction: beginning the trail
Sharif Gemie
Brian Ireland
DOI:10.7228/manchester/9781526114624.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords
A survey of the travellers introduces this book. It includes reference to a database concerning 80
journeys out to the east. The chapter explores the historical context of the 1960s, the counter-
culture, the development of the term ‘hippy’ and its various meanings. Basic information about
the travellers (such as average age, gender, and destination) is given. Existing approaches and
understandings of the 1960s are explored. The start date (1957) and end date (1978) of our
study are explained. The differences between the various travellers are noted, and the qualities
which united them are also identified. Most of our sample of 80 would have refused to identify
themselves as ‘hippies’: this point is considered and discussed. The existing studies of the trail
and similar topics are briefly considered.
Keywords:   Hippy trail, 1960s, Kerouac, Travel, Hippies
‘IT! IT!’1
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Prologue: ‘Eddy’ leaves South Wales
In 1969 ‘Eddy’ was 17 years old and lived in South Wales. He had a group of close friends: they
listened to music by bands and singers like Country Joe and the Fish, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd and
Roy Harper, they went to concerts, they read authors like Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac and Allan
Ginsberg, they searched in their local library to find out about meditation and yoga, and they
experimented with drugs. At one point in 1969 ‘Eddy’ came across a copy of the News of the
World, and read one of its sensationalistic exposés about the horrors of travel to the East, which
described in prurient detail the easy use of drugs, the casual approach to sex and the ill-
disciplined rebelliousness of the travellers. ‘What is happening to our young people?’ the
reporter asked. ‘Eddy’ thought about it, and decided that these horrors sounded pretty
attractive. He quietly resolved to find out more for himself. Over the next two years he worked in
London and South Wales, and saved some money. For a while he was a roadie for a Hindu-
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Introduction: beginning the trail
inspired London-based rock group, Quintessence. He told his friends about his plans to travel: a
couple seemed interested in going with him, but only one saved any money.
In 1972 he set off with ‘Mike’. ‘Eddy’ knew his parents would be worried, and so told them he
was going to Greece, which he thought sounded more respectable and less dangerous than
going to India. ‘Eddy’ had never been outside Britain before and spoke no foreign languages, but
together with ‘Mike’ he hitched and caught trains, and six weeks later they were in India. ‘It was
like someone had opened (p.2) the curtains,’ he remembered when he was interviewed, ‘it was
the Real Thing’.2 He stayed there for two months, but became quite ill. He returned to South
Wales in January 1973, and later became more committed to Buddhism.
This book tells the extraordinary story of ordinary people like ‘Eddy’. Several hundred thousand
of them travelled from North America and Western Europe to various ‘points east’ between 1957
and 1978. In the late 1960s, their route became known as the ‘hippie trail’. For many, it was a
life-changing journey.
Meet the travellers
There is an odd issue that we face when writing a history of the hippie trail and its travellers:
the trail had no official existence. No ceremony marked its opening or its collapse; no flag
identified its territory; no organisation directed its travellers; no leader wrote its manifesto; no
prominent philosophers attempted to make sense of it; no major novelists have written about it;
and no archive has been created to preserve its memory. In order to identify it, we need to
impose our own parameters on the ceaseless, immeasurable and often unpredictable flows of
history.
Our access to the trail began with some conversations with a few friends, and then a decision to
place a small ad in Private Eye in 2012, asking if there were any hippie trail travellers who were
willing to be interviewed. About forty replied: we got to interview some of them, who in turn
recommended other people to us, and we also made use of friends, relatives and further contacts
to find others. We interviewed 34 travellers between 2012 and 2016, and we sent 11
questionnaires to travellers we could not meet. We also searched for relevant published works
through Google, Amazon, Abe Books and Smashwords, and we made frequent visits to the
darker recesses of second-hand bookshops. In this way we found 35 related works, some of them
accounts of travel, some religious meditations or drug-orientated stories, others longer
autobiographical sketches which included substantial sections about a trip to the East. Put
together, these sources allowed us to reconstruct 80 journeys. We cannot claim that this is a
scientifically selected cross-section that represents the hippie trail community; we are well
aware of the limitations of our data. Still, a database concerning 80 journeys seems sufficiently
substantial to illustrate some general trends, and a good place to start our story.
(p.3) The vast majority of our 80 travellers were born in the 1940s and 1950s. Their average
age when they first travelled on the trail was just over 23; the youngest was 16, the oldest 42; 12
of them were teenagers, 55 were in their twenties and three in their thirties or older. About
three-quarters of them were men, and there was no significant difference in the age at which
men and women started travelling. (We return to the topic of female travellers in Chapter 2.)
Their methods of travel varied. They included hitching, travelling in their own vehicles, taking
trains and public buses, commercial coaches and minibuses, sea voyages and a few plane flights.
Frequently travellers would mix buses and trains with hitching. We are certain that our sample
underestimates the number of travellers who went by coach, which was very probably the most
common means of transport to the East in the 1970s. There is a simple reason for this limitation
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Introduction: beginning the trail
to our data: coach passengers usually have less interesting stories to tell. The hitch-hikers and
car drivers recall their adventures as sagas, and are therefore more willing to talk about them.
The coach passengers sometimes resembled tourists – an issue to which we will return in
Chapter 3.
For most of our 80, we have some indication of their education. If we restrict our focus to our 55
British travellers, we find that 14 of them had attended university before they travelled; another
five had benefited from some sort of post-secondary school higher education, whether art
college, polytechnic or teacher-training college; in total about a third of our sample. There were
621,000 students in various forms of higher education in the UK in 1970, when about 8.4 per
cent of 18 year olds went to these institutions.3 The travellers were about four times more likely
to have benefited from higher education than the mass of the British population. This difference
suggests the relatively privileged status of many of our travellers. On the other hand, this point
should not be exaggerated: it remains the case that the majority of our sample did not benefit
from higher education and – as will be seen – there were plenty of working-class travellers on
the hippie trail.
It is often difficult to understand what motivated people to take the hippie trail. ‘Eddy’s’ story of
a chance reading of the News of the World is, in a way, quite typical. Sometimes random events
just seemed to push people along the path. For example, the mystical Dominic Quarrell was
smoking a joint in September 1976 when he heard a voice inside him say: ‘Go to India, find a
Guru, put god to the test.’4 He left almost immediately on a four-month journey. Such anecdotes
(p.4) record chance encounters: it is clear that they only make sense within a larger context
which – somehow – seemed to encourage a certain type of young person to consider travelling.
When asked to explain why they went, our interviewees often fell back on vague terms such as ‘a
quest for adventure’ or a desire to see ‘something exotic’. Attempting to identify clear reasons
for their travel may well oversimplify a complex decision, in which peer pressure, ambition, a
cosmopolitan, open-minded sense of ‘one world’, a desire for learning or self-improvement, and a
search for thrills were all involved. However, having made that qualification, it is clear that
alongside the frequent vague references to a search for the exotic, two reasonably articulate
arguments were used to justify doing the trail: a search for drugs (whether cheaper, better or
just more easily available drugs) and a spiritual quest. Marjorie Kirchner found that these two
issues featured again and again in her conversations with other travellers. ‘Are you travelling to
India for meditation or for drugs?’ they would ask her; she got so tired of this question that
eventually she’d reply: ‘Neither, I’ve come to see filth and squalor.’5 In fact, about a quarter of
our sample referred explicitly to drugs as an important motivating factor, and another quarter
point to spiritual factors.
India was clearly the most commonly visited country: over four-fifths of our travellers went
there. The next most commonly visited countries were Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan, although in
some cases these were simply places that hippie trail-ers travelled through. While Kathmandu in
particular and Nepal in general were often celebrated as the ultimate goal of the hippie trail,
only about half of our travellers reached there. There is some sense of historical evolution in
destinations. Morocco was popular in the 1950s and early 1960s. As the trail developed in the
late 1960s, its centre of gravity moved eastwards, drawing travellers to India and Nepal rather
than to North Africa.
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Introduction: beginning the trail
This brief glance at our database suggests the variety of the travellers: they used different
means to travel; they went to different countries; they gave different reasons for their journeys.
While they were usually young (early to mid-twenties), this was not always the case, and there
were precocious teenagers mixing with thirty-somethings. The single point that clearly unites
them is their decision to travel east.
Their similarities become clearer if one examines their accounts as a bloc. Putting aside the
minority who travelled to Morocco, most accounts tell of a swift journey through western
Europe, which was (p.5) considered too expensive to stay in. Most then travelled through
Yugoslavia or Bulgaria, countries which never attracted the travellers’ admiration; there is no
hint of respect for Soviet-style communism among our travellers, not even from the most
committed leftists. Greece was usually the opportunity for a break from travelling, and many
stopped for a few days at a Greek beach. Then they crossed into Turkey, which is often cited as a
border-nation, sometimes because of the obvious, striking presence of Islam, sometimes by
reference to the Bosporus as the geographic feature that separates Europe from Asia, and
sometimes also because of a looser social or cultural perception that this was a radically
different type of country from those of western Europe. A surprising number mention visiting the
famous ‘Pudding Shop’ in Istanbul, a café which quickly began to cater for hippie trail-ers, and
taking the chance to see the nearby Blue Mosque. Travel through eastern Turkey was often
difficult; there were many areas here in which the travellers were not welcome, and they
encountered stone-throwing and the aggressive sexual harassment of women travellers. Iran by
contrast, seemed a more modern, civilised place, in which there was less open hostility, although
women travellers still reported some harassment. None of the travellers admired the Shah’s
government.
Afghanistan then came as something of a relief: drugs were easily available there and more-or-
less tolerated, Afghan people rarely showed any hostility to travellers, and often would be
positively welcoming and hospitable. Places to stay were usually primitive, but were always
cheap. By contrast, Pakistan appeared crowded, often unwelcoming, and not particularly
interesting. India was overwhelming; many travellers were struck by the strange contrast that,
after struggling with Turkish, Farsi and other foreign languages, now they could be understood
in English. The variety of the country astonished the travellers, and – correspondingly –
extremely different experiences are recorded. Finally, travellers expected Nepal to be
memorable; some were searching for a spiritual experience there. A semi-permanent hippie
colony was established in Kathmandu in the late 1960s. It could be rather cosy, with a range of
specialist shops, cafés and lodging houses, often quite grubby, and – for a while in the late 1960s
– cheap drugs were readily available there. These basic observations feature in most accounts,
whether from interviewees or from published works.
This basic summary of the route and the most common experiences (p.6) leaves out one
important factor: it focuses on the ‘external’ journey. Many travellers found that there was
another, equally important, dimension to their experience: their inner journey. In other words,
travelling along the trail affected them. In the chapters that follow, we will concentrate on this
inner journey.
Studying the sixties: a minority experience?
The exact number of people who travelled east on the hippie trail will never be known. Certainly
there were hundreds of thousands, probably there were a few million (we will return to this
issue in Chapter 3). But however their numbers are calculated, they were clearly a minority of
their generation. These points suggest a well-known argument concerning the 1960s as a whole:
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