800 Hippies Hold Mansion Near Buckingham Palace

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32099, 22 September 1969, Page 15

800 Hippies Hold Mansion Near Buckingham Palace

(N.Z. Press Association— Copyright)

LONDON, September 21. Eight hundred hirsute Hippies have begun the seventh day of occupation of a 100-room mansion in the shadow of Buckingham Palace after calling for kindred spirits to come to join them.

As they sunned themselves on the ornate balconies of No. 144 Piccadilly before a crowd of spectators yesterday, the Government angrily announced that no social security relief would be paid to them if they applied for it.

Mr David Ennals, Minister of State for Health and Social Security, told a political meeting that he had left strict instructions that if any of the squatters applied for Government hand-outs they were to be sent packing. Describing them as “squatting exhibitionists,” Mr Ennals said the Hippies were “anti-social rebels without a cause who have no claim on the compassion of the community.” The Hippies indignantly claim their take-over of the classical-style mansion is a protest against the number of vacant premises in London while thousands are homeless. They have also said they want to set up a new revolutionary community and centre for underground culture. Meanwhile, the crowd in Piccadilly, including tourists from the neighbouring Hilton Hotel, awaited developments. Part of the squatters’ arsenal was on show on the balustrades—plastic balls filled, with water taken from the building next door. 1

The balls are used in a variation of the French bowling game of “boule” and would, with descending velocity, deliver a nasty crack to an unprotected skull. There were also hints yesterday that the Hippies had found a hoard of foils in a closet left over from the days when the building housed a fencing school. Other weapons, they said, included thunderflashes—fireworks used in Army manouevres which make an

extremely loud bang and can injure in confined spaces. Dr John Moffit, chief mouthpiece of the London Street Commune, as the squatters collectively call themselves, assured listeners that his comrades abhorred violence. “Rut if they try to drive us out we shall meet violence with violence,” he said. ’ Dr Moffit says that he is the son of a London Harley Street medical specialist, a former student of St Paul’s School and a graduate in

“primitive sociology” of Cambridge University. So far there has been only a scuffle when spectators tried to lay -hands on the Hippies and police intervened. The Hippies claim that a sniper in nearby Hyde Park is using an ingenious device to shoot iron bolts at them. The legal authorities have approved action to have the building cleared. The assault might come at any time in the next few days, the very early hours being regarded as the most probable time.