My 60’s is a work in progress. It’s a personal evocation of the time using drawings from my eccentric diary of a 3 month period in 1969. I was between jobs in animation and making the diary helped to keep me occupied.
Each day I wrote a page about what had happened that day and also made a drawing which might relate to the text, or not. It was intended to be read out to the hippy commune which I then lived in.
The film will use the diary and also still photographs from that period of my life which I have recently collected from some of the people who used to be in the group.
Below are a couple of the drawings and two of the text pages. These have not been corrected so the punctuation, typos and mis-spellings are all intact. I typed as fast as possible on a very old typewriter which had keys that missed or stuck. For some reason part of the intention seemed to be to ‘let it be’ and if all these mistakes changed the sense then so be it. Obviously when I was reading it out myself I knew what I’d meant.
The 2 entries below describe my days when I was painting the house rented by my friends, from a professor at London School of Ecconomics. It was a side line for which I was paid by the professor. Reading this now I can’t imagine what sort of a job I made of it. I am Mrs Pig in the text.
8th December, 1969
Mrs pig will not discuss the angry Scotty terrorizing Margaret in the night which was an unhappy affair causing everyone to lay sleepless wondering for quite some time.let us hope things are happier today john and Margaret said mrs pig.
Todays magor event was mrs pig going to work which john delivered her up to on his way into town.First mrs pig washed the toilet walls. She started in the doewnstairs one first. And tom had said be sure and wash the walls so that is just what she did to the first toilet although she might not do it to all the other ones. Then she stirred up the paint and started to spread it all over the ceiling. Then she spread it all over the walls and the door and the floor. Then she put her head against the wall as you can see by her white hair. Then colleen made her some coffee and they discussed the work of mr William blakeAt least Colleen told mrs pig exactly his manner of working.Colleens manner of working seemed to be as follows. She walked op and down the stairs many times singing a little then she put some things away and got some things out and rang up a lot of people on then phone and answered a lot of people who phoned her. Then she went out at two aclock and that was the start of her day. Mean while mrs pig dropped her honey biscuit honey side down on the floor and pretened she hadn’t dropped it because she did not want to clear it up. Then she finished the first toilet at least one coat it did not look too charming to her as she was already suffering from white eye which meant every brush stroke shone out brightly at her however many times she tried to smooth it. Thenshe started the kitchen walls and painted a good deal of the nice natural wood. That was not very satisfying so she called it a day and went home.
Today mrs pigs eyes were very wet generally perhaps it was something in the paint. As she sat at home thinking about the day so far it seemed that it would be possible to drift away into nothing and never be seen again it really would be nice to have some acid or some real freaky trip that would knock you right out although I am feeling rather knocked out thes daysanyway. she reflected slowly.
This morning mrs pig met Michael and he had inspected her work and given her a kiss to show it was alright so far but it was Tom who mrs pig was most frightened of and he was not there yet.So the morning started much like the others, Michael went off to work with a very nice lilac coloured shirt on and Colleen run up and down stairs and even today in and out of the house looking for her lists of paintings.and names. Why said Colleen did you paint my knickers and not david fucking coates towel mrs pig wondered why indeed she had not actually moved colleens knickers since all the time she had been painting shehad been worrying about dripping on thembut she said sorry as I am about your knickers you are rong about david coates towel because I did p
aint it and then I turned it over hoping that he wouldn’t notice.At that colleen laughed and went on her way to the british museum.Mrs pig started to gloss the wall she glossed the bathroom walls and the walls of the two toilets, one toilet was bigger than the other.And she glossed the taps in the bathroom and the two toilets and the kitchen, and she glossed the handles of all the doors, the bathroom door and the two toilets, and she glossed the light switches of the bathroom and the two toilets, and she glossed her legs,and her hair, and her dress and her feet, and she glossed both lavatory seats and the floor in the kichen and the floor in the downstairs toilet and the carpet in the upstairs toilet and in the bathroom. That seemed to be enough glossing and during that time her mind had been occupied with the word suicide. She said’with the word’ because while the word had been in her headshe had said to herself’what am I thinking about suicide that is innersing and all that it seemed to be was the word suicide suicide going through the mine.And that is how agreat deal of mrs pig thinking came about She would leap into conversation saying o yes I was thinking about that yesterday.What did you conclude asks the fasinated listener -? And then mrs pig would realize that suicide suicide Or heaven heaven or love love had been drifting through just to attract her attention with their existence yes said mrs pig comfortingly I know you are there and this is what she said to suicide and went on with her painting.