It is the summer of 1967,
Commune I Hempstead, London, West-Hampstead
Notes from the Book: “What's
so Wrong with Love and Peace” by Brummbaer
The European Underground
1965-67
DR. ROBIN FARQUHARSON
As I said, we had lots of guests and what follows is a description of our commune by one Robin Farquaharson, who stayed one night and became a close friend later on:
“It was to Commune I Hempstead that I had taken my bed-settee and luggage on that disastrous Monday, 6th November, 1967. The setting seemed inauspicious for a commune: one room, medium-sized rather than large. Two double beds, a table and some chairs. It hardly seemed at all likely that in this so crowded space room could be found for all my junk; but found it was. This though I had met the members of the Commune for the first time only the day before, and though I could think of none of my friends of long standing to whom such a request would have been remotely acceptable. On the wall of the Commune’s single room was the one identifying feature of all the communes I have since seen in London – a wall newspaper. Drawings, poems, notices, advertisements. The open communication channel that made the group a commune and not just a collection of three people, but an entity. An entity whose mode of functioning was not clearly defined, but whose members clearly had formed themselves into one organism.”
This paragraph is taken from the book “Drop out” by Robin Farquaharson.
It starts with the following statement:
Publisher’s note
Dr Robin Farquaharson walked into this office out of the cold, unannounced. He carried his only possession, a sleeping bag, and asked for a 35/- advance for a week’s work of writing. He borrowed paper and pencils and the resulting chronicle is here printed as he wrote it. He understands the consequences, if any, of its publication.
The last sentence refers to the content of the book in which Robin among other confessions admits to being gay, being manic depressive, and taking LSD. It’s still 1967!!! (Attempts to decriminalise homosexuality had failed in both 1962 and 1966, but was eventually ratified by an Act in 1967 that allowed homosexual acts between consenting adults, over the age of 21, in privacy. R.F.)
More from the Book: “What's so Wrong with Love and Peace” :
We had barely found room for Robin’s stuff and decided for a spot for his sleeping bag, when he already visited Dave and Denise’s room, where he introduced himself as a friend of mine. Dave had just taken a hit of acid and politely offered one to Robin, who was not ready for a grinning red-haired gnome offering a sugar cube with the profound question: “Would you like to try some LSD?”
Robin had never taken a psychedelic drug in his life, nor contemplated such.
But there was Mick, who was tripping with Dave and Denise and Mick was a gorgeous 17yearold, light as air, a lively face surrounded by a mane of tousled, blond hair, the kid, who could never sit still. He had just decided to suss out the nature of the universe within the next three days, and had already begun. As the diagram on the wall behind him testified:
“Suss out” was the term he used for this process of “Satori–on-the-go”-method – and as they say, enlightenment doesn’t care how you get it…
Mick temporarily blocked Robin’s decision-making capacity and the sugarcube disappeared in his mouth.
Then he turned around and asked me if I thought this was a good idea…
I was disgruntled enough not to join in the tripping, first of all because nobody here knew Robin and, second because Robin had no experience with psychedelics ever, and nobody knew what to expect.
So I decided to play ground-control, or as they say amongst initiates: I stayed around to remind everybody of the misery and boredom of a brain without drugs.
I tried to melt with the furniture and after a lot of invisible gesturing between Robin and Mick, they finally agreed on moving next door for a more intimate encounter, and I could go to bed after all – Robin was now Mick’s responsibility. (End of “What's so Wrong with Love and Peace”)
ROBIN
FARQUHARSON A POET:
Gratify
the body.
Eat when you’re hungry,
drink when you’re thirsty,
fuck when you’re randy.
If you want to exercise self-control,
try it on the intellect. R.F.
Eat when you’re hungry,
drink when you’re thirsty,
fuck when you’re randy.
If you want to exercise self-control,
try it on the intellect. R.F.
Robin
Farquharson was tall, 6feet, blond, with boyish looks in spite of his
thinning hair.
He was a self-proclaimed “manic-depressive”, but some of us diagnosed him more like having a “manic-very manic” type of disorder. He was one of the most intelligent people I ever met. As smart as he was – sometimes you had to blow his nose, tie his shoes, and fix his zipper to make him socially acceptable.
His doctorate for original work on the Theory of Voting was awarded by the University of Oxford in 1958, and he won the Monograph Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for related work in 1961.
He was a self-proclaimed “manic-depressive”, but some of us diagnosed him more like having a “manic-very manic” type of disorder. He was one of the most intelligent people I ever met. As smart as he was – sometimes you had to blow his nose, tie his shoes, and fix his zipper to make him socially acceptable.
His doctorate for original work on the Theory of Voting was awarded by the University of Oxford in 1958, and he won the Monograph Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for related work in 1961.
ROBIN
FARQUHARSON'S CURRICULUM VITAE:
Born
1930BA (South Africa), Rhodes University, 1950.
BA (Hons) (Oxon) in Philosophy, Politics & Economics, 1953.
Laming Travelling Fellow,
The Queen’s College, Oxford, 1957.
D..Phil (Oxon) 1958.
Research Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, 1958.
Research Officer, University of the Witwatersrand,1961.
Monograph prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the field of
the social sciences, 1961.
Senior Research Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge,1964.
Computer Consultant from 1966.
Dropped out 1967.
As he writes himself:Like when I was reprimanded by the head of my department at Witwatersrand University for holding non-racial parties; like losing my South African passport for anti-apartheid activities Different from the wrench I felt resigning my Churchill College fellowship after one year and three nervous breakdowns. Marvellous folk, they gave me 3,000 journey money on leaving. A pity I ran through it so fast. But then that was because the college had put the loot under the control of two trustees. The trustees, dear friends of mine whom I had nominated, let me take it out of the trust account to present the Home Office, a little disturbed already by my two certification orders, with proof of my means. In fact I had already received 1,400 in instalments over nine months. Running through the remaining 1,600 in three weeks was, though in a sense a tragedy, a gas – the greatest gas of my life. Mini-cabs to Edinburgh and back, twice. Attractive chauffeurs at 50 a day. Then giving out fivers in a pub in Thame – for that I got lifted and spent three days on a temporary order in the bin at Littlemore, fortunately able to walk out at the psychological moment on a tip-off that a permanent order was being prepared.
Then that good job with the management consultants, two hundred a month, rising from trainee consultant to number four in the company in four months, but summarily dismissed (the letter reached me in a bin at Radlett, Herts.) for engaging staff without authorization under the influence of an acute manic condition. Finally four months with the computer programming company, rising this time to number two but earning only 1,500 a year, reluctantly raised in October to 1,800. The sickness of my boss at having to grant this raise undoubtedly was a factor in my dismissal on 6th November, 1967, on a charge of “taking liberties”. R.F. Drop Out
BA (Hons) (Oxon) in Philosophy, Politics & Economics, 1953.
Laming Travelling Fellow,
The Queen’s College, Oxford, 1957.
D..Phil (Oxon) 1958.
Research Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, 1958.
Research Officer, University of the Witwatersrand,1961.
Monograph prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the field of
the social sciences, 1961.
Senior Research Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge,1964.
Computer Consultant from 1966.
Dropped out 1967.
As he writes himself:Like when I was reprimanded by the head of my department at Witwatersrand University for holding non-racial parties; like losing my South African passport for anti-apartheid activities Different from the wrench I felt resigning my Churchill College fellowship after one year and three nervous breakdowns. Marvellous folk, they gave me 3,000 journey money on leaving. A pity I ran through it so fast. But then that was because the college had put the loot under the control of two trustees. The trustees, dear friends of mine whom I had nominated, let me take it out of the trust account to present the Home Office, a little disturbed already by my two certification orders, with proof of my means. In fact I had already received 1,400 in instalments over nine months. Running through the remaining 1,600 in three weeks was, though in a sense a tragedy, a gas – the greatest gas of my life. Mini-cabs to Edinburgh and back, twice. Attractive chauffeurs at 50 a day. Then giving out fivers in a pub in Thame – for that I got lifted and spent three days on a temporary order in the bin at Littlemore, fortunately able to walk out at the psychological moment on a tip-off that a permanent order was being prepared.
Then that good job with the management consultants, two hundred a month, rising from trainee consultant to number four in the company in four months, but summarily dismissed (the letter reached me in a bin at Radlett, Herts.) for engaging staff without authorization under the influence of an acute manic condition. Finally four months with the computer programming company, rising this time to number two but earning only 1,500 a year, reluctantly raised in October to 1,800. The sickness of my boss at having to grant this raise undoubtedly was a factor in my dismissal on 6th November, 1967, on a charge of “taking liberties”. R.F. Drop Out
That’s
the day I met him and the “taking liberties” charge stemmed from
the events of this morning. It all started with a bunch of
night-trippers who spent the wee hours of a Sunday morning in the
all-nite cinema of the Arts Lab. Robin must have been in a mighty
manic episode when he decided that we – the present – had to
found the “London Diggers”
(The Diggers were an English group from the Sixteen-hundreds practicing an agrarian lifestyle based upon the concept of small egalitarian rural communities, kind of socialist with common property. They caused a revival of the Diggers in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, California and New York during the mid-1960s of which we were aware through a very effective underground news syndicate.)
He insisted and to make sure we took him serious, he invited us all to meet at his office which was at a very posh address on Regent-Street. About thirty of us eventually roamed around in his office building, seriously planning all kind of improvements in the social structure particularly of the poor, the homeless, and the handicapped. Half of us were still starry-eyed from the enlightenment last night, and, “man”, we were ready for a new beginning – and wasn’t the fact, that we were sitting in this expensive office to plan the future of mankind, proof that we were doing something right?
Meanwhile the black doorman was sneaking around, giving us suspicious looks because he only let this bunch of wild-eyed longhairs into his building after Robin pulled rank on him, being the Vice-president of the company. The doorman than was instrumental in getting Robin fired the next day, for “taking liberties”!
That’s why he arrived at our flat two days later, needing a place for his stuff and place to crash. We became good friends after his acid experience. I was fascinated by this mind so infinitly larger than mine. One of his bad habits was to abuse anybodies phone to call an abundance of friends that he had all over the world and leave unpayable phonebills. Even RonnieLaing finally threw him out of “Kingsley Hall” for talking to Canada for fourty minutes at five in the morning. Ronnie Laing called Robin: “…a strange guy, very intelligent and totally out of his fucking mind.”
Since we had to pay for everything in advance in our commune, somebody with Robin’s talents and bad habits could do us no harm and we always remained friends.
We stayed connected until he died in a house-fire some years later – as rumors suggest a victim of arson in a house he was squatting.
(The Diggers were an English group from the Sixteen-hundreds practicing an agrarian lifestyle based upon the concept of small egalitarian rural communities, kind of socialist with common property. They caused a revival of the Diggers in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, California and New York during the mid-1960s of which we were aware through a very effective underground news syndicate.)
He insisted and to make sure we took him serious, he invited us all to meet at his office which was at a very posh address on Regent-Street. About thirty of us eventually roamed around in his office building, seriously planning all kind of improvements in the social structure particularly of the poor, the homeless, and the handicapped. Half of us were still starry-eyed from the enlightenment last night, and, “man”, we were ready for a new beginning – and wasn’t the fact, that we were sitting in this expensive office to plan the future of mankind, proof that we were doing something right?
Meanwhile the black doorman was sneaking around, giving us suspicious looks because he only let this bunch of wild-eyed longhairs into his building after Robin pulled rank on him, being the Vice-president of the company. The doorman than was instrumental in getting Robin fired the next day, for “taking liberties”!
That’s why he arrived at our flat two days later, needing a place for his stuff and place to crash. We became good friends after his acid experience. I was fascinated by this mind so infinitly larger than mine. One of his bad habits was to abuse anybodies phone to call an abundance of friends that he had all over the world and leave unpayable phonebills. Even RonnieLaing finally threw him out of “Kingsley Hall” for talking to Canada for fourty minutes at five in the morning. Ronnie Laing called Robin: “…a strange guy, very intelligent and totally out of his fucking mind.”
Since we had to pay for everything in advance in our commune, somebody with Robin’s talents and bad habits could do us no harm and we always remained friends.
We stayed connected until he died in a house-fire some years later – as rumors suggest a victim of arson in a house he was squatting.
DR.
ROBIN FARQUHARSON
By Guy Legge
By Guy Legge
http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/iow-70-r-farquharson.html
<The festival mentioned is the Isle of White Festival 1970>
The late Dr was ( according to him ) a member of the White Panthers and was one of those who wished to declare the festival free. Guy Legge knew Robin and wrote this memoir for the site .We would like to gather more information on Robin and any other members of the White Panthers who were involved at the Isle of White , so if you have any more biographical information please contact us
The trouble with life is that it is like any other game; one can face defeat. It depends of course what one has been up against and losing a match in the premiere league can still mean a team is playing at a higher level than a team that wins in the third division. But what of losing? You can either face the issue honestly or start playing foul.
For political reasons we have invented a myth called mental illness. People who are dysfunctional in terms of performing as useful members of society be they criminals, the unemployed, or those who are hard to understand are classed as a bloody nuisance and ways have been evolved of dealing with them. Mental illness is a medical explanation of madness. It’s bullshit but lets not concern ourselves with that. What then is madness? It’s a political concept. It means, "I don’t have to listen to you". This is what we mean when we diagnose someone as "mentally ill". It’s true throughout life that if we don’t want to listen to people we denigrate them and refers to them as niggers, blacks, poufs, women, nutters, and communists or mad.
This does not exonerate the oppressed however. Life may be stacked against you, it might have dealt you some bad cards but that does not mean that ones reaction to these issues is legitimate. Such is the plight of the mental patient. Such people desperately try to articulate their woes through metaphors like hearing voices or being god, and a society that loses patience retaliates by saying such things as they have biological malfunctions of the brain called schizophrenia for example.
Thus I knew Robin. He was on a reception ward at Horton Hospital, Epsom in the early seventies. I was classed as a schizophrenic and he was a manic-depressive two famous labels of oppression. He was twenty years older than me but had fallen foul of the psychiatric authorities at about the same time in the mid sixties. I was only fifteen when I was first fobbed off as a schizophrenic. I was intelligent enough to fight being drugged but at this time, the very early seventies, I had been sectioned for 28 days for refusing treatment.
My earliest memory of Robin was of him showing a group of us his book, Drop Out. I was impressed that it had the cover illustrated by Alan Aldridge who had produced amongst other things the Beatles Illustrated Lyrics. I didn’t actually get around to reading it until about a year ago. It has to be said that Robin’s description of "dropping out" is a bit shallow and consists of crashing out with his London friends. It’s not so much a description of dropping out, (a concept that did not commonly have any significance until the eighties and such things as peace convoys), but a description of the nature of mania. I shall explain.
Robin was classed as a manic-depressive, a term he used himself. Such people become chronically manipulative and elated and do things like going on shopping sprees and booking into hotels, neither of which they can afford. It’s just a strategy to avoid unwelcome reality, usually chronic depression, just an absurd personality trait that has got out of hand. Thus the modern term is bi-polar disorder, a swing from depression to elation. Robin describes these highs perfectly in the book along with an interesting comparison with the use of LSD. Robin’s highs included in the book include indecent exposure and conning Shepperton Studios that he was a film producer.
This role of film producer was another of my introductions to Robin. He approached me one morning on the ward and asked if I would appear in his movie. I asked what it was called and he said "Ivan the Woodcutter". I asked where the cameras and equipment were and he said we were only going to have a dress rehearsal. I asked about costumes and he said I could wear his clothes. I declined his invitation. He refused to leave me and I eventually swung a fist at him and I had the experience of this crazed South African with a handle-bar moustache squaring up to me. The staff cooled things down.
Another memory is of him trying to phone his mother in South Africa in the small hours on the ward phone. He was trying to reverse the charges.
On another occasion he had a copy of the International Times with him (the famous hippy rag with the picture of Mary Pickford on the Logo) in which he had advertised his latest venture, The Open University. Anyone interested was asked to contact Robin at ward 5, Horton Hospital, Epsom. I asked him what I could study if I signed up and he said "everything from physics to plastics design".
Other times he was very pleasant company. He once started categorically that there was nothing wrong with me. I have often wondered how much he had thought this remark through. There was much indeed the matter with me, most of which had been caused by psychiatric care.
I really can’t remember the precise sequence of events now but at one point Robin was returned to us from Longrove, a particularly nasty bin across the road from us (Epsom had five bins in all, much to the annoyance of the local inhabitants). Longrove was at one point in the fifties, home for one Ronnie Kray. Robin was in a wretched state and had acquired a broken arm. This fracture he told us was the result of being so drugged up that he had fallen down some stairs.
I have recently discovered that Robin was a patient of R.D.Laing’s at Kingsley Hall. Laing has been quoted (in Mad to be Normal by Bob Mullan) as describing Robin as being 16 stone and not liking walls thus going on the rampage smashing things. This was not the Robin I knew. A more familiar description is of him declaring that what was really needed was not Kingsley Hall but some six hundred acres of land outside Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
Laing describes Robin as "a strange guy, very intelligent and totally out of his fucking mind". Mention is made of his compulsive use of the telephone and his attempts to reverse charges, even with the Ethiopian government.
He was well connected, his amazing academic background putting him in contact with very influential people. The description of him in Brian Hinton’s book on the Isle of Wight festivals trying to reverse the charges on a call to Rupert Murdoch rings true.
<The festival mentioned is the Isle of White Festival 1970>
The late Dr was ( according to him ) a member of the White Panthers and was one of those who wished to declare the festival free. Guy Legge knew Robin and wrote this memoir for the site .We would like to gather more information on Robin and any other members of the White Panthers who were involved at the Isle of White , so if you have any more biographical information please contact us
The trouble with life is that it is like any other game; one can face defeat. It depends of course what one has been up against and losing a match in the premiere league can still mean a team is playing at a higher level than a team that wins in the third division. But what of losing? You can either face the issue honestly or start playing foul.
For political reasons we have invented a myth called mental illness. People who are dysfunctional in terms of performing as useful members of society be they criminals, the unemployed, or those who are hard to understand are classed as a bloody nuisance and ways have been evolved of dealing with them. Mental illness is a medical explanation of madness. It’s bullshit but lets not concern ourselves with that. What then is madness? It’s a political concept. It means, "I don’t have to listen to you". This is what we mean when we diagnose someone as "mentally ill". It’s true throughout life that if we don’t want to listen to people we denigrate them and refers to them as niggers, blacks, poufs, women, nutters, and communists or mad.
This does not exonerate the oppressed however. Life may be stacked against you, it might have dealt you some bad cards but that does not mean that ones reaction to these issues is legitimate. Such is the plight of the mental patient. Such people desperately try to articulate their woes through metaphors like hearing voices or being god, and a society that loses patience retaliates by saying such things as they have biological malfunctions of the brain called schizophrenia for example.
Thus I knew Robin. He was on a reception ward at Horton Hospital, Epsom in the early seventies. I was classed as a schizophrenic and he was a manic-depressive two famous labels of oppression. He was twenty years older than me but had fallen foul of the psychiatric authorities at about the same time in the mid sixties. I was only fifteen when I was first fobbed off as a schizophrenic. I was intelligent enough to fight being drugged but at this time, the very early seventies, I had been sectioned for 28 days for refusing treatment.
My earliest memory of Robin was of him showing a group of us his book, Drop Out. I was impressed that it had the cover illustrated by Alan Aldridge who had produced amongst other things the Beatles Illustrated Lyrics. I didn’t actually get around to reading it until about a year ago. It has to be said that Robin’s description of "dropping out" is a bit shallow and consists of crashing out with his London friends. It’s not so much a description of dropping out, (a concept that did not commonly have any significance until the eighties and such things as peace convoys), but a description of the nature of mania. I shall explain.
Robin was classed as a manic-depressive, a term he used himself. Such people become chronically manipulative and elated and do things like going on shopping sprees and booking into hotels, neither of which they can afford. It’s just a strategy to avoid unwelcome reality, usually chronic depression, just an absurd personality trait that has got out of hand. Thus the modern term is bi-polar disorder, a swing from depression to elation. Robin describes these highs perfectly in the book along with an interesting comparison with the use of LSD. Robin’s highs included in the book include indecent exposure and conning Shepperton Studios that he was a film producer.
This role of film producer was another of my introductions to Robin. He approached me one morning on the ward and asked if I would appear in his movie. I asked what it was called and he said "Ivan the Woodcutter". I asked where the cameras and equipment were and he said we were only going to have a dress rehearsal. I asked about costumes and he said I could wear his clothes. I declined his invitation. He refused to leave me and I eventually swung a fist at him and I had the experience of this crazed South African with a handle-bar moustache squaring up to me. The staff cooled things down.
Another memory is of him trying to phone his mother in South Africa in the small hours on the ward phone. He was trying to reverse the charges.
On another occasion he had a copy of the International Times with him (the famous hippy rag with the picture of Mary Pickford on the Logo) in which he had advertised his latest venture, The Open University. Anyone interested was asked to contact Robin at ward 5, Horton Hospital, Epsom. I asked him what I could study if I signed up and he said "everything from physics to plastics design".
Other times he was very pleasant company. He once started categorically that there was nothing wrong with me. I have often wondered how much he had thought this remark through. There was much indeed the matter with me, most of which had been caused by psychiatric care.
I really can’t remember the precise sequence of events now but at one point Robin was returned to us from Longrove, a particularly nasty bin across the road from us (Epsom had five bins in all, much to the annoyance of the local inhabitants). Longrove was at one point in the fifties, home for one Ronnie Kray. Robin was in a wretched state and had acquired a broken arm. This fracture he told us was the result of being so drugged up that he had fallen down some stairs.
I have recently discovered that Robin was a patient of R.D.Laing’s at Kingsley Hall. Laing has been quoted (in Mad to be Normal by Bob Mullan) as describing Robin as being 16 stone and not liking walls thus going on the rampage smashing things. This was not the Robin I knew. A more familiar description is of him declaring that what was really needed was not Kingsley Hall but some six hundred acres of land outside Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
Laing describes Robin as "a strange guy, very intelligent and totally out of his fucking mind". Mention is made of his compulsive use of the telephone and his attempts to reverse charges, even with the Ethiopian government.
He was well connected, his amazing academic background putting him in contact with very influential people. The description of him in Brian Hinton’s book on the Isle of Wight festivals trying to reverse the charges on a call to Rupert Murdoch rings true.
Amazing
stories surround Robin. He is even claimed to have had occult powers.
He latterly inhabited a bohemian, anti-establishment world and
apparently got himself into trouble with the authorities at the 1970
Isle of Wight festival by claiming to be a spokesman for the "White
Panthers"and trying to take over.
However, Robin is now dead. I have been told he died in a house fire. I always shy clear of any attempt to glamorise madness. It is too destructive to the individual and their environment. On the other hand I denounce with great vigour any attempt to drug dysfunctional people as "mentally ill "and in need of "medication".
The somewhat childlike nature of "disturbed" individuals that was so observable in Robin gives a clue to what is really going on. This adult play power that would be acceptable in a child but is intolerable in an adult serves the same purpose as play does to a child. I have a vague memory of the Oz magazine editor, Richard Neville, referring to "play power" in relation to sixties culture and I’m sure it is a description that Robin would have approved of. This reversion to a childlike state is just the same for a so-called "schizophrenic" as it is for an infant. It’s just the tracking down of values by play. Such was Robin in his public disrobing and his conning of Shepperton Studio’s. A beautiful mind gone wild and no longer with us.
Guy Legge
DOCTOR FARQUHARSON'S RADIO
However, Robin is now dead. I have been told he died in a house fire. I always shy clear of any attempt to glamorise madness. It is too destructive to the individual and their environment. On the other hand I denounce with great vigour any attempt to drug dysfunctional people as "mentally ill "and in need of "medication".
The somewhat childlike nature of "disturbed" individuals that was so observable in Robin gives a clue to what is really going on. This adult play power that would be acceptable in a child but is intolerable in an adult serves the same purpose as play does to a child. I have a vague memory of the Oz magazine editor, Richard Neville, referring to "play power" in relation to sixties culture and I’m sure it is a description that Robin would have approved of. This reversion to a childlike state is just the same for a so-called "schizophrenic" as it is for an infant. It’s just the tracking down of values by play. Such was Robin in his public disrobing and his conning of Shepperton Studio’s. A beautiful mind gone wild and no longer with us.
Guy Legge
DOCTOR FARQUHARSON'S RADIO
by Frater
Choronzon
http://freespace.virgin.net/ecliptica.ww/book/chaosinvocation.htm
http://freespace.virgin.net/ecliptica.ww/book/chaosinvocation.htm
The late Dr
Robin Farquharson was one of the most gifted individuals it has ever
been my privelege to know. His doctorate for original work on the
Theory of Voting (psephology as it's called in the trade) was awarded
by the University of Oxford in 1958, and he won the Monograph Prize
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for related work in
1961. At the time when I met him in 1968 he had recently been
stripped of his post as a Senior Research Fellow ("Don") in
Management Studies at Churchill College, Cambridge.
I first encountered him at a meeting of the 'Anti-University'. This was a loose knit structure which operated from a series of short term addresses. Its primary function was to promote serious academic work into subject areas which were considered to be neglected by conventional Universities.
Among the assembled Anarchist Philosophers, Situationists, Astrologers and Crack-pots there was this eminently respectable gentleman, neatly tumed out in a business suit. He presented a complete contrast to the tie-dyed majority of the delegates, and they were a little suspicious of him; Police Spy? CIA Agent? His contributions were succinct and positive however, and I was struck by his ability to cut through the periphera of an issue and apply his thinking to the critical elements. He was a tall man, maybe 6 ft 2 inches, fortyish with greying, thinning hair and that wild-eyed look which comes across, for example, in some portraits of Beethoven.
Robin's fall from academic grace was occasioned by his mental balance. He writes in the preface to his book Drop Out: "I am a manic-depressive. When I'm up, I have no judgement, but fantastic drive; when I'm down, I have judgement, but no drive at all. In between I pass for normal well enough."
One evening he turned up at the Westbourne Park Road flat which I shared with some friends, carrying a large portable radio receiver under his arm. The door was opened and he seemed agitated. "You don't trust me", he said, the speech tumbling out in a flurry, "you all think I'm a spy. Well, I'll prove to you that I'm not!"
With that he assumed entry. Seated on the floor in the front room he started singing a song loudly; with imperfect pitch, but recognisable. All the while he was fiddling with the tuner dial on the portable radio, but with the set switched off. We couldn't figure out what he was up to, but suddenly he turned the radio on loud and the song he was singing came forth over the airwaves, exactly synchronised with his voice.
He roared with laughter as we scratched our heads, not completely taking in what we were witnessing.
He switched the radio off and lapsed into a learned sounding commentary on a topic of current news interest, all the while twiddling the tuner dial. After a further ten or fifteen seconds he switched the radio on and the commentary programme he had located continued what he was saying.
Next Robin started speaking in German. He tuned the radio again, switched it on and out flowed the Deutsch, absolutely contiguous with what he was saying.
"I told you I would prove that I wasn't a spy."
We thought it was a conjuring trick, some stunt with a tape recorder. But no, he really did appear to have some bizarre ability to pick up radio waves in his head.
In later years, having got to know him better, we occasionally discussed this offbeat talent. He explained that it only occurred infrequently at a particular stage in the progression of his manic state, and it seemed that the drugs administered interfered with it. I asked if he had ever done any scientific analysis of the process involved, and he said that he generally kept the ability to himself, because he appreciated the sort of pressures and experimentation he might be subjected to if he admitted it or demonstrated it to the wrong company.
The proof was accepted. There was no way that a spy with that sort of talent could possibly be assigned to check up on the Anti-University or the Human Zoo in Westbourne Park Road.
Robin was delighted and carried on with his party-trick for some hours. Suddenly he became very sad. He picked up a news flash that Yuri Gagarin, the Russian who was first in space, had died in an air crash. It transpired that Robin had a deep personal admiration for Gagarin and he was genuinely moved by the sudden news. The date was 27th March 1968.
Robin Farquharson would not have thought of himself as a magician, nontheless in the eyes of his beholders he certainly appeared to be able to exhibit what might pass for a magical power.
People on the verge of mental instability frequently 'hear voices'; Robin's talent was in being able to recognize what it was he was hearing.
I first encountered him at a meeting of the 'Anti-University'. This was a loose knit structure which operated from a series of short term addresses. Its primary function was to promote serious academic work into subject areas which were considered to be neglected by conventional Universities.
Among the assembled Anarchist Philosophers, Situationists, Astrologers and Crack-pots there was this eminently respectable gentleman, neatly tumed out in a business suit. He presented a complete contrast to the tie-dyed majority of the delegates, and they were a little suspicious of him; Police Spy? CIA Agent? His contributions were succinct and positive however, and I was struck by his ability to cut through the periphera of an issue and apply his thinking to the critical elements. He was a tall man, maybe 6 ft 2 inches, fortyish with greying, thinning hair and that wild-eyed look which comes across, for example, in some portraits of Beethoven.
Robin's fall from academic grace was occasioned by his mental balance. He writes in the preface to his book Drop Out: "I am a manic-depressive. When I'm up, I have no judgement, but fantastic drive; when I'm down, I have judgement, but no drive at all. In between I pass for normal well enough."
One evening he turned up at the Westbourne Park Road flat which I shared with some friends, carrying a large portable radio receiver under his arm. The door was opened and he seemed agitated. "You don't trust me", he said, the speech tumbling out in a flurry, "you all think I'm a spy. Well, I'll prove to you that I'm not!"
With that he assumed entry. Seated on the floor in the front room he started singing a song loudly; with imperfect pitch, but recognisable. All the while he was fiddling with the tuner dial on the portable radio, but with the set switched off. We couldn't figure out what he was up to, but suddenly he turned the radio on loud and the song he was singing came forth over the airwaves, exactly synchronised with his voice.
He roared with laughter as we scratched our heads, not completely taking in what we were witnessing.
He switched the radio off and lapsed into a learned sounding commentary on a topic of current news interest, all the while twiddling the tuner dial. After a further ten or fifteen seconds he switched the radio on and the commentary programme he had located continued what he was saying.
Next Robin started speaking in German. He tuned the radio again, switched it on and out flowed the Deutsch, absolutely contiguous with what he was saying.
"I told you I would prove that I wasn't a spy."
We thought it was a conjuring trick, some stunt with a tape recorder. But no, he really did appear to have some bizarre ability to pick up radio waves in his head.
In later years, having got to know him better, we occasionally discussed this offbeat talent. He explained that it only occurred infrequently at a particular stage in the progression of his manic state, and it seemed that the drugs administered interfered with it. I asked if he had ever done any scientific analysis of the process involved, and he said that he generally kept the ability to himself, because he appreciated the sort of pressures and experimentation he might be subjected to if he admitted it or demonstrated it to the wrong company.
The proof was accepted. There was no way that a spy with that sort of talent could possibly be assigned to check up on the Anti-University or the Human Zoo in Westbourne Park Road.
Robin was delighted and carried on with his party-trick for some hours. Suddenly he became very sad. He picked up a news flash that Yuri Gagarin, the Russian who was first in space, had died in an air crash. It transpired that Robin had a deep personal admiration for Gagarin and he was genuinely moved by the sudden news. The date was 27th March 1968.
Robin Farquharson would not have thought of himself as a magician, nontheless in the eyes of his beholders he certainly appeared to be able to exhibit what might pass for a magical power.
People on the verge of mental instability frequently 'hear voices'; Robin's talent was in being able to recognize what it was he was hearing.
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