Obituaries

When I was a child, I read the Guinness Book of Records, and marvelled at the stories of the people who, in ancient times, removed themselves from everyday reality, like Saint Simeon Stylites, a Christian ascetic who lived on a tiny platform on top of a pillar in Aleppo, Syria for 37 years in the […]

Recently, as I began my 49th year on this earth, I was ambushed by questions of mortality that had not troubled me for nearly 20 years, when both my grandmothers died in swift succession, and I, as a generally chaotic twenty-something, had to grapple with loss, and with questions of old age and memories of […]

So farewell, then, Sid Rawle, who passed away, aged 64, at the end of his annual SuperSpirit summer camp, overlooking the River Severn near Rodley, on August 31. The “King of the Hippies,” as the press dubbed him — although it was never a title that he claimed for himself — Sid played a major […]

As I sit here trying to come to terms with the death of Faraj Hassan Alsaadi, who died in a motorbike accident on August 16, it seems to me that nothing can throw us as much as an unexpected death. In Faraj’s case, it is deeply distressing that he leaves behind a wife and three […]

I’m saddened to report that on the night of July 14, Charly Gittings, the most tenacious opponent of the Bush administration and its crimes, passed away at the age of 57. I had never met Charly, but we had been in email contact since November 2008, and I had been aware of his work before […]

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Battle of the Beanfield, a notoriously violent, one-sided confrontation between 450 unarmed travellers and green activists, and a quasi-military police force of over 1,300 police and MoD personnel, which crippled the New traveller movement in the UK, brought to an end the annual Stonehenge Free Festival, and marked […]

I have just been informed that Sarah Meyer, a wonderfully supportive friend in the struggle for a better world, recently died of cancer. A retired UK registered homoeopath, Sarah had studied Jungian psychology for 30 years, while simultaneously studying Tibetan Buddhism, and, after retiring, worked as a freelance researcher, investigating human rights abuses worldwide from […]

Happy solstice, everyone! As an estimated 30,000 people descend on a field in Wiltshire and its ever-inscrutable ancient stones, I’d like, first of all, to pay tribute to John Michell, English mystic, iconoclast and provocateur, who passed away on April 24, aged 76 (see obituaries in the Fortean Times, the Guardian, the Times, the Independent, […]