Talking with the Hippies

All of life continually searches for comfort. And people are no different. We all have ideas of how we can individually make our own lives more comfortable, and some of us never stop wondering if the human race can one day collectively find a better way to live.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure about that myself, but my doubts don't stop me dreaming.

Hope that you enjoy Part 2, there's one more episode of this mini series recorded which I will put up in a week or two.

Please share and so on with everyone that you know who may be interested. Reviews and plugs anywhere and everywhere always appreciated.

Love and Peace

Tom

Old meets Young - Part 2

In this episode of Talking with the Hippies, I'm chatting with Iris about living in Tipi Valley. It just does me so much good to see that the dream is alive and well, and in good hands.

If you enjoy listening to Talking with the Hippies, please like, share, review and all that stuff. And also, if you have stories, thoughts and so on that you would like to share, please do let me know.

Big thank you to Iris, and her sister Lily, for the music we use in this episode. Hopefully more to come shortly.

Love and Peace

Tom xx

This is one of the conversations I had when I recently visited Tipi Valley. I'm chatting with Axle who is the guy who first recommended that I visit. We talk about communities, anarchism, politics and so much more.

I don't really know where to start when it comes to telling you about this place. It has profoundly changed so much about the way I look at life. To me it slightly felt how it felt in the 60s living on the edges of the festival scene. Like when the fence came down at the I o W, and the authorities had to accept the inevitable - the people were in!

I met some beautiful people - some fierce idealists - and some just sheltering from the storm.

There are a couple more episodes still to come from this visit, and I am so looking forward to my next visit when I am hoping to record more. The place is a gold mine!

Love and Peace to everyone, and please do share and review etc. if you enjoy listening to my podcast.

In this episode I chat with Mark. We have a lot of common interests including the history and philosophy around alternative living from the 60s onwards.

Mark talks openly about his involvement with the hard drugs scene - a scene that I know very little about. A big thank you for this - clearly not the easiest thing to discuss.

We also talk about what happened to the hippie scene after the 60s - something I really do want to get into discussing in much more depth.

If you enjoy listening to my podcast please do subscribe to make sure that you get to hear every episode. Release times are a bit erratic, but I do have some interesting stuff planned for future episodes.

Love and Peace

Tom

Part Two of my chat with Miranda and Simeon. 

In this episode we talk about what it is like to bring up a family outside the state education system. I do accept that some people do find the subject of Home Education quite contentious. I want to make clear that I am completely aware that loads of kids are perfectly ok within the school system, and so are their parents, and that is just fine. 

During this session it became obvious that there was a lot more on this subject that we could talk about - we ran out of time - I'm hoping to return soon to record Part Three.

Please share my podcast with friends who you think may also enjoy it. 

As always, making the podcast has been great fun. Thank you for listening. 

In this episode of Talking with the Hippies I take a break from history, and move the focus more on to what is actually happening now.

I chat to Miranda and Simeon. We cover topics like Life, Living in a community, eco housing, sustainable living, and raising a family outside of the State Education System.

I spent a lovely few hours in the permaculture community that they live in. I've got to say it - it was right up my street!  And thank you for such a lovely lunch.

All the music is courtesy of Simeon - Thanks so much for that too.

If you enjoy listening to my podcast please do share the link with your friends, and please remember to follow on your podcast app - that way you will always know when a new episode is published.

And never forget - the Hippies were Right.

Love and Peace

OK, I'm slightly misleading you with the title there. We do touch on the festivals, and they are definitely events that I do want to go into in much more detail, and my guest definitely did go to those festivals, but it turns out he wasn't really there either, if you get what I mean.

Today in Talking with the Hippies I am chatting with Chris Wilko. Chris is an old hippy, a musician, a poet, a philosopher and a storyteller. 

This episode is a collection of classic 60s memories and let's just say, I think we have definitely captured the feeling of those glorious days here! 

All the music and poetry in the podcast is composed and performed by Chris.

Recording this, and putting it all together as an episode of a podcast has been such fun. I do hope that you enjoy listening to it, and if so please can I ask you to pass the link on to any of your friends who you think may also enjoy it.

Also, if you can remember the festivals, the clubs, or in fact any interesting events and stories about the subculture of the 60s onwards please do feel free to get in touch with me at [email protected].

In this episode I chat with Paul Justison. Paul grew up in Tuscon, Arizona and along with 1000s of other hippies in the USA, he moved to Haight Ashbury in 1966. 

What can I say about Haight-Ashbury in 1966/67. Some say it's where the scene all started out. Obviously it's not - it was happening all over - but for sure right at that time some amazing things were happening there. We chat about the music, the politics, the scene in general, Viet Nam, the draft, and some of the stuff that happened next.

Chatting with Paul about the scene in the USA in the Sixties was amazing. I've got to say I relaxed right in to that beautiful West Coast pace there for a minute - how on earth did my life get so hectic!

Thanks for listening to my podcast. And remember, if you want to help fill in with any info/stories/thoughts about those momentous and sometimes glorious days of the Sixties/Seventies and onwards, please do get in touch at [email protected]

Don't forget to share the link with your friends, and follow, like and review my podcast.

Thank you, and kind regards

Tom Widdicombe

In this episode of Talking with the Hippies I'm back on to the subject of Operation Julie. 

I'm on a road trip to the Arts Centre in Aberystwyth to watch a performance of 'Operation Julie - A Rock Musical', followed up by a question and answers session with some of the main characters involved at the time.

It's really is all very interesting stuff, and as you might be realising by now, I'm getting quite involved in the whole adventure (that's code for, I'm pretty certain there's more to come on this subject shortly).

My travelling companion on this journey is John, who in the 1970s was known to a lot of people as Blue. Blue figures in at least a couple of the books that have since been published about Operation Julie. The journey is an ideal opportunity to ask Blue a few questions about his involvement in the story.

I hope that you enjoy listening to this episode of the podcast. Please do share the link with any friends that you think may also enjoy it. Also, if you want to be certain that you catch every episode of Talking with the Hippies, make sure that you hit the follow button on your podcast app.