GB21 Deene Park
Back at Deene for a second year, Amnesty International was highlighting children’s rights, CMS had a cardboard cathedral built by 100 children from all over the world, and Christian Aid was showcasing world music at this 21st Greenbelt. And Performing Arts coordinator Justin Butcher brought his self-penned Passion Play to the festival to mark, as he put it, “our coming of age.” Mr Brudenell granted Greenbelt a 10-year lease on the estate and the “Deene Decade” was duly declared!
Roots, Rhythm and Redemption
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1994 also saw the birth of ‘The Velvet Smoking Jacket’, a languorous late night show with comedian Paul Powell and journalist Cole Moreton. While worship featured a Roman Catholic Mass, the Late Late Service, Joy from Oxford, Wild Goose from Iona, the Society of St Francis and, a thousand choruses later, the return of Graham Kendrick. And the Fine Art programme included the Gates of Experience exhibition, featuring the sculptures of Stephen Broadbent. The Fringe hosted ‘a progressive rock / gospel / opera / musical spectacular’, starring Marc Catley, the Flaming Methodists and a cast of 10s. Urban Species brought us their infectious jazz rap; Sam Fox (one of the more
bizarre Greenbelt bookings) brought us a couple of headliners, before moving on to an Alpha Course (allegedly). Midnight Oil brought their campaigning environmentalism from down under, while Martyn Joseph brought his new friend Tom Robinson for a showstopping set in the Big Top. American social activist Jim Wallis was back and New Zealand’s Mike Riddell paid his first visit. TV-presenter and journalist Jeremy Vine was around, while Anne MacGuire of the MacGuire Seven, wrongly arrested for the Guildford pub bombings in 1974, also spoke. The Sunday service giving was directed through Amnesty and the Jubilee Campaign to work with child prostitutes in the Phillipines and Guatemala and to the Open Door Aids relief project in Brighton, among others. Greenbelt had found a new home in Deene. And, as the festival title suggested, it was beginning to put down new roots. In the powerful rendition of its own Passion Play, Greenbelt was reminding itself of the source of its redemption, the beating heart of its unfolding story.
Bog standard Here’s one toilet tale we couldn’t resist telling. It concerns one of those Greenbelters (and we know there were many) who would manage to keep their bodily functions to Number Ones only while at the festival, saving their Number Twos for their return home. But by Monday night our hapless hero realised that he couldn’t hold out any longer. Armed with six sheets of toilet paper (all he could scrounge from his friends), he made a dash for it. Taking a deep breath, he entered the dark cubicle, turned straight round, pulled down his trousers and got down to business. What he didn’t realise was that by the end of the festival in those days you daren’t sit, you had to hover. Instead of feeling the plastic loo seat, his bum hit the mound of what other Greenbelters had left behind. Pooh – ‘scuse the language – splurged up his front and back. Gagging, he tottered to the tap with his pathetic six sheets where he was given a J-cloth by a compassionate camper and did as best he could. Crawling into his sleeping bag, he prayed for morning, home and a hot shower. Strangely, his urge to pooh had disappeared. Along with all his friends.
Main photo: The CMS cardboard cathedral 01: Pete Garrett and Midnight Oil stir it up on mainstage 02: Stephen Broadbent’s sculpture. ‘Can you tell what it is yet?’ 03: Justin Butcher’s Passion Play in the courtyard at Deene
Thirty Twenty One
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