I don’t know why, or how, it has come to be that a partially disused psychiatric hospital is hosting a rave. How an enormous sound system could be set up in a vast hall that once previously played host to wounded soldiers during both World Wars and people with mental illness during peacetime. One that, while out of action, is connected to rooms still full of wheelchairs and bedframes and is situated not far from patient quarters that are still occupied.
What I do know is that word has got out and several hundred young people have trekked in the dark for a good night out at this legendary local building – and it is near where we live!
Whilst considered therapeutic in design, there are elements of Park Prewett we’re glad we can’t see. The tall white chimney, fluted towards the end, is rumoured to be for the hospital’s in-house crematorium and we do not want to get caught trespassing and put in the oven – we stick to the path and huddle tightly as we head towards the crowd of people at the end of the queue.
This is my first rave, and I don’t really understand what will happen. Rave culture as such exists to me whenever John Peel decides to showcase a tune – I remember the first time I heard The Party by Kraze but don’t know the nuance between what makes the charts and what goes down in the clubs.
‘Do you think they’re going to play KLF or Prodigy?’, I ask a friend. The derisory laugh from a guy behind me confirms that they most definitely will not.
Easing my embarrassment by puffing away on a Marlboro Red which I hope makes me seem older (note to self – doormen at illegal raves don’t give a shit about ID); my friends and I greedily gather up brightly coloured flyers advertising raves up and down the M3. If you have £5 and access to a car you can be off your tits in a warehouse in Southampton or Guildford next week – but given we’re too young to drive, we settle for putting them in our pockets to later pin them on our bedroom walls.
Edging closer to the entrance with a sense of trepidation, our excitement and lack of commitment to a ‘look’ shows us for the novices we are. My combo of Miss Selfridge playsuit and cheapo monkey boots is more than slightly at odds with the tribal hoodies and dreadlocks favoured by the crusties, and a long way off from the bare-chested guys wearing whistles and girls in bikini tops, but I don’t mind. Someone’s opened a wrap of whizz and we’re bouncing off each others’ conversations as the bouncers wave us through – we’re in!
Spilling into the hall we’re met with a twin volley of heat and noise. The strobes cast their liquid light up and down the crowd and it suddenly feels elemental – vital – that we place our hands in the potent mix of dry ice and electric blue. The room shimmers with each bass vibration, the walls stream with sweat and our senses react as if kicked into the pool by a teacher in a swimming lesson; it’s time to sink or swim.
After what feels like hours of dancing at a 130 BPM, we make a break for the toilet. Here it is cooler. Here, someone has opened a window. Here….it smells of…Vicks!! Why does it smell of Vicks? And why does this person keep telling me it’ll be ‘really amazing’ if I smell some when I haven’t got a cold? The offer is leapt upon by someone gurning their face off on e’s, and a bottle of poppers is passed round instead. I inhale deeply, walk back into the hall and feel my head expand until it meets all four corners of this huge, ornate room that is filled to the gills with people. A friend floats up to me, holds me by both hands and says ‘Toni, this is mental’. She’s not wrong.
Like the flyer? Check out the original image here and find loads of equally nostalgic rave flyers here: Evolution Paw Print 1990 The Return – Early Rave Flyers (phatmedia.co.uk)>
*****
This is an extract from my current work in progress: Absolute Scenes. A book that will aim to capture what it was like to grow up on a council estate in the ’80s and ’90s and reclaim and reflect some of the joy of working class culture.
All scenes are based on real events that took place in my life. Names and some of the details are changed to protect the identities of those who really *don’t* want to be identifiable in the recollections of someone with a history of sharing too much information.
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