Hells Angels

---

Police storm 144 Piccadilly to the Villa squatted in three weeks

had been Fifty years ago, The Police rushed to drive a makeshift drawbridge, the hundreds of squatters from a prestigious Mayfair address. The three-week-long occupation had 144 Piccadilly, symbolized the stand-off between the mainstream Society and the 1960s counter-culture and made Headlines around The World .

by the time several hundred "unwashed Hippies" decided to make it at home, which had a 100-room mansion in London's West End , empty for years.

had During the squatters, was the takeover of abandoned properties in the centre of London for the years, this was a first-class address in The Heart of the London branch. In addition to 144, another manor house was where The Queen spent The First five years of her childhood.

After a decade in the rock music, drugs, and radical political ideas had, more and more frequently used, some of the cast symbolizes The Final collapse of the company.

the Reporter on a British Pathé newsreel from the time squatters as "scroungers and drop-outs, the" thought to refer to The House , you could service snub to the conventions of decent Society ... The Real homeless a bear".

"It's kind of drama fears about the counter-culture, The Alternative Society , schematically, much in The Public eye," says Phil Cohen, now professor Emeritus at the University of East London , but then the squatters' leader, and known as "Dr. John."

"It was something that represented outside of their control, and [], a whole generation of people against your company. "

A sergeant in The Police Department speaks with Dr. John, seen here in a striped sweater on the improvised drawbridge at 144 Piccadilly, Dr. John, alias Prof Phil Cohen

the Crouch, The height of The Alternative movement for several years, the claim of the capital of the large number of empty was.

The demolition of The War -damaged properties, and General slum-free rooms, a housing shortage had created. At the same time, it is in the areas of planning blight, as the owner intentionally properties will be empty until their development has been increased. The Law at the time allowed to empty buildings for use as emergency shelter for the homeless.

squatters would make The Most of this legal leeway, you move on to another Property - often around The Corner - when the bailiff came.

A "Derry " - slang for a dilapidated building - offered an option to Young People , says an alternative to the "taxpayers of the nine-to-five lifestyle," Prof Cohen.

The squat, received wide coverage in the media

in order to organize To protect themselves against The Threat of eviction, some decided. The resulting group became known as the London Street commune (LSC).

It was the LSC that broke in 144 Piccadilly in September 1969. They barricaded The Doors and installed a temporary drawbridge through a ground floor window, over The Dry moat surrounded The Building . Word spread, and hundreds of Young People who hung around The West End, including runaways, ex-borstal kids, Rent Boys and drug dealers, moved.

The House was soon known as "HippyDilly".

squatters would sleep in the old Compaña

"It's an extraordinary place - it was palatial," says Prof Cohen was.

The squatters would sleep in the Villa, the extensive Compaña, while The House sessions were in one of the two large ballrooms.

Inside, there was a degree of organisation. The people would be with the task, the different roles, including the procurement of food by the friendly catering staff in restaurants and hotels.

As the fascination and media coverage grew, spectators would show up, some chanting: "the monkeys in the Zoo . "

Eddie Doughton, remembers the 100-room mansion as "a good place to crash"

also in the press an almost permanent presence outside. Gangs of skinheads would gather, but in front of The House staffing, " "safety" - Hells Angels stationed at the Villa of the drawbridge.

Eddie Doughton, a 19-year-old anti-war poet, had quit his job at the Admiralty, after realizing he was "part of the "war machine", was among The Residents .

He remembers him as "a good place to crash," which was supposed to be "much larger than it is supposed to be".

"Famous people come and go in the legion's pay," he adds. "You just wanted to be seen, to be hip. Actor Oliver Reed floated, got his picture taken, then to the left. "

"We see the writing on the wall" are the slogan was painted on 144 Piccadilly irritated that the device, according to Prof Cohen

Many have been motivated of which, crouching, through a radical policy, but some were more interested in Party and stay somewhere rent-free.

"We're a bunch of stoners, Mate - Phil [Cohen] was the agitprop," says Richie gardener, one of the other squatters, went on to be a roadie for the likes of Paul Mccartney and Nina Simone .

Now 67 and living in Hay-on-Wye on the Powys-Herefordshire border, he says his time in the knee, the production of it was bend.

"you go away from The Streets to know that they are going to be OK, you can survive it all. "

Richie gardener says, in occupied houses, the manufacture of it

Prof Cohen was true to many simply wanted to "enjoy their puff pastry and their music", but he retains the squat had a political objective.

"We were acting as a kind of urban Guerilla," he says. "The City might belong to us, belong to each, it is not easy to belong to the wealthy. "

He would tell a Reporter stationed, wanted to outside of The Group , a "real-people's forum, A Resistance movement against all these institutions, like The Family , schools, prisons, borstals".

However, the magnitude and the position of the squat led to a media-organized moral panic", he says.

"It was the idea that their Property was no longer sacrosanct. In fact, I remember one of the Headlines to do the " What if the hippies come to your house tonight.

"Somehow, there was this new generation that had come out of nowhere. It was outside of The Family , it's enemy was even against the idea of The Family .

"It could not be controlled and their own children were able to run away and join us. "

newspaper reports of the squat in General, negative, and sensationalist, was One of the squatters, during a confrontation with members of The Public outside of The Building

So, on 21 September, after the squatters had ignored an eviction order and remained inside The House for three weeks, 144 Piccadilly was successfully raided by The Police .

officers persuaded the squatters, the " enable security, visit them on the makeshift drawbridge, to "a sick pregnant woman."

Once inside, they let their comrades in and The House was soon under the control of The Authorities .

"There was garbage everywhere. People had written on the walls, and things like that," says Graham Harris, the Under-Sheriff of London, went into The Building after The Police stormed it.

were distributed to The inmates, most of them decided not to resist. Despite all the arrests, very few were accused.

A top-hat Hippie is discharged, by a police officer, after police stormed 144 police officers remove a woman from the squat

Prof Cohen and other LSC members in a different shifted stocky, about a mile away, on Endell Street. Later, he returned to his studies at a University in London.

A luxury hotel now stands on the site of 144 Piccadilly, which was demolished in the 1970s.

The LSC revolution is not to be concluded and disseminated to squat is also a thing of The Past , but the issues around the availability and affordability of housing have not disappeared.

Previously a civil matter, in 2012, a crime was to squat in residential Property .

Prof Cohen, who says, finally, a housing Association flat, where he still resides, and rented crouching is a viable option For Today 's homeless.

"people who have become homeless, on the whole, isolated. You don't have the same kind of support-structures, the same type of network that would enable them to take collective action.

"It's much, much harder now. The whole thing was put under punishment. "

squatting

Source of news: bbc.com