RARE - 1969 ISSUE No2, GANDALF'S GARDEN, Magazine

£ 26

$ 34

£ 26 Sold For

Apr 29, 2007 Sold Date

Apr 19, 2007 Start Date

£ 20 Start price

4 Number Of Bids

Great Britain Country Of Seller

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Description

GARDENING IN CHELSEA

by Darroll Pardoe

Gandalf's Garden was a shop down by the World's End in Chelsea, run by a commune of flower-children held together by Muz Murray. It flourished for a while at the high end of the Sixties, but eventually they found Chelsea too constricting and moved out to Norfolk or somewhere. For all I know they may be there still (see update below): there was a documentary on TV about them a few years ago. I never visited the shop (I was living in America at the time) but I did read the magazine. Gandalf's Garden - the magazine - was a fascinating mixture of way out and mystical stuff (which nowadays we would call 'New Age') with down to earth items and contact addresses. It was printed in different colours of ink and paper, and some of the combinations could have been better chosen (orange on gold, for example).

I imagine there was quite an overlap between the community of people who tuned in to John Peel in his Perfumed Garden, Radio London days, and the people who read Gandalf's Garden - they were both addressed to the free spirits. And so it is no surprise to find in issue 2 an impassioned plea by Monni Aldous for the perpetuation of the Perfumed Garden idea, coupled with a short nostalgia piece by John Peel himself.

The same issue had an enthusiastic write-up of a short lived group "Junior's Eyes", fronted by Mick Wayne, who did a couple of sets on "Top Gear" and then vanished into obscurity. Later issues featured the "Soft Machine", the "Third Ear Band" and "Quintessence" whose names have lasted rather better.

Everybody nowadays has heard about the Glastonbury Zodiac (the idea that the signs of the Zodiac were carved on the landscape in Somerset and survive in the field boundaries) but GG must have been one of the first places to popularise the theory. Among other mystical topics featured in the magazine were the Aetherius Society, Aleister Crowley, Atlantis, the Hari Krishna movement (which had only just started), and Selene (an early Pagan community). There was certainly plenty of variety!

One of the strangest things to appear in the magazine was an article (in issue 5) on trepanning, and the virtues of drilling holes in your own head. This was a bit much even for Gandalf's Garden - they put a disclaimer at the end urging readers not to actually try it but to take up some less demanding spiritual technique, such as yoga.

GG was very much a creature of its time. I can't imagine such a magazine having been possible anytime but then. Perhaps that's why it didn't last very long - only a half dozen issues. At the end of the Sixties the culture of the flower people, the Diggers and the free fragmented into the wider underground. But I still have a soft spot in my heart for Gandalf's Garden - and I imagine that so do quite a few other people

_______________________________________ CONDITION: The mag is in great shape...EXCELLENT With no tears Writing Etc...See scan... I will be pleased to answer any questions you have concerning this item... Postage Costs: UK = £2.00...First class Postage

EU = £3.00

USA & ROW = £4.00

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This item will be sent flat...in a Brown Envelope...With cardbord...Happy Bidding & Good Luck....Cheers Chad. (electricpenny)

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