Over four decades ago, rural west Wales was at the centre of the greatest drugs bust in history. The police investigation, OPERATION JULIE, resulted in dozens of arrests and the discovery of LSD worth £100 million. A brand-new musical play from Theatr na nÓg and Aberystwyth Arts Centre explores the story from both sides of the drugs divide – the police, and the hippies who settled in Ceredigion hoping to spread their ideals in a changing society. NICK DAVIES talks to those who were there, and those who know them, about a revolution that changed the world…
“There was a war on drugs, and I was a prisoner of war. Simple as that.” Alston Hughes – better known as Smiles – looks back on the events of Operation Julie without any hint of bitterness. Through much of the 1970s, Smiles was a well-known character in Llanddewi Brefi and the surrounding area, a good-natured LSD dealer keen to share his wealth with those around him. “It did generate a lot of money, most of which I gave away,” he recalls. “When I went into the New Inn, I was like ‘Bob un, bob un!’ and I’d buy drinks for everyone. They loved it when I turned up!”
In 1977, in the dead of night, a police raid involving a specially created task force of officers from eleven constabularies brought Smiles’ dealings in Wales to an abrupt end, along with two LSD rings running side by side.
Operation Julie was the biggest drugs raid in British history, and much of it centred on mid and west Wales. Just five miles from Smiles’ house lived Richard Kemp and Christine Bott, two more incomers seeking to create a sustainable lifestyle. Kemp though had found a way to cultivate the purest LSD ever known. It is estimated that 60% of the world’s acid came from these characters’ operations.
This summer, Theatr na nÓg and Aberystwyth Arts Centre are teaming up to create a rock opera remembering these events from both sides of the law. Operation Julie will open at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on 30th July until 13th August, before touring Wales.
Smiles served five years in prison for his part in the Microdot Gang. Now in his seventies, he seems to have lost little of the zest for life that made him a Twm Siôn Cati figure over forty years ago, the roguish outlaw who gave to his community. He talks to me in his idyllic farm cottage where he lives a simple life with his wife and two dogs. Nestled in a valley in deepest Shropshire, where B-roads become country lanes that soon become a wooded track, he seems a man happy in himself and his surroundings. Chopped firewood lines the trail from the gate to his house, and the land around is cheerfully wild, reclaimed by nature.
His surroundings epitomise his philosophy of environmentalism, which he says came out of the acid movement: “We were raising the flag and saying look, look, this is an emergency. We [humans] were spending the world’s capital, we weren’t living off the interest, we were spending the capital. And look at the state of the world now. They should have listened – they should have bloody listened.” It’s the only time Smiles shows any regret or anger. “Back then, there was still the time to change. We could have changed lots of things about society, and instead we went the other way. It just went into this global consumerism.”
It is a philosophy that was shared by Christine Bott. She and partner Richard Kemp lived a seemingly normal life in Tregaron in the seventies, with Christine a respected doctor and breeder of goats. Yet Richard Kemp was also producing the purest acid ever known from the cellar of a dilapidated manor house near Carno, with Christine driving him there each day before starting her shift at Bronglais Hospital. Kate Hayes was one of Bott’s closest companions before Christine passed away in 2007 and has since published her friend’s memoirs from the Operation Julie period. “It was about accepting people for who they are and accepting the need to respect values and to take care of each other – and the planet,” Hayes says. “I think about it in terms of COP26 and Extinction Rebellion today… They could see it as a very efficient and quick way of addressing environmental issues – they felt time was running out for the planet. That was the only reason she really engaged with it – the urgency she and Richard felt in what was unfolding around them.”
Writer-director Geinor Styles feels the Operation Julie story is too important to be delayed, despite previous postponements due to coronavirus. “I was astonished how relevant this story was to us living in a time where the effect of what we are doing and continue to do to the planet is a threat to our existence. It is as simple as that. Kemp and Bott knew this and wanted to do all that they could to save humanity. In light of films like “Don’t Look Up” and the continued denial of climate change, the message is still relevant and still needs to be told and retold,” she says.
Theatr na nÓg and Aberystwyth Arts Centre’s dramatized version of events tells the story from both sides of the law, with Geinor Styles meeting and interviewing a variety of people from that time, such as Smiles and also Anne Parry, the wife of the late Detective Sergeant Richie Parry who was part of the police operation. Styles reflects: “I feel that the story behind Kemp’s acid production becomes more and more relevant to a planet that is being destroyed by consumerism and capitalism.”
Smiles urges that environmental message: “It’s happening now! We’ve got this fault line and it’s called greed and it’s in all of us, but it’s how we control it. If the masses don’t control their greed for ‘I want, I want, I want,’ then we’re lost.”
Writer and expert on the acid movement of that era (and Smiles’ biographer), Andy Roberts, agrees this theatre production is an important one: “The whole Operation Julie saga is one of Britain’s main hidden histories that rarely gets talked about in any detail. It’s part of our cultural folklore, and the more people who are talking about it – even if it’s not strictly ‘the truth’ – means it will never die. This show will help this to happen.”
Why does Roberts feel Operation Julie was such a pivotal historical moment? “It was like the Establishment decided in the early seventies that an alternative society was forming around the use of LSD and the way to stop it was to stamp it out. It was basically a show trial between the Establishment and the hippies.”
Kate Hayes believes Christine Bott would be pleased her contribution is now getting more exposure: “This is why she wanted her story told. It ran very deep in her veins. Can you imagine taking that kind of risk with your life for ten or twelve years with the intention of changing the world – what that means?... They were set up by the court and the media as duplicitous, money-grabbing criminals. It’s such a massive injustice. There was nothing about her that was wicked or corrupt.” The judge gave her nine years in prison, eventually serving five. Hayes says Christine was hurt by the experience, but her commitment remained undimmed: “Did she maintain that belief in what they were doing? Absolutely, 100 percent she did.”
As well as an epic clash of beliefs, there was also plenty of comedy when hippies and drug dealers lived alongside the local community – like Breaking Bad in a sleepy Welsh village.
Smiles recalls escaping arrest when, unbeknown to him, a police team was on its way to search his house. Suddenly, Smiles received a knock at the door, and it was the local bobby’s wife: “She said, ‘is my husband here?’ and I said, ‘No, should he be?’ and she said, ‘Well, he’s going to be,’ so I said, ‘Ah right, thank you very much indeed!’” Quickly, Smiles hid any evidence before the police party turned up. Was it a genuine error or a tip-off? “We’ll never know, we’ll never now… But it was timely.”
Theatr na nÓg and Aberystwyth Arts Centre are confident this combination of drama, comedy and music will result in a truly memorable production when Operation Julie reaches the stage this summer. “Operation Julie will be a popular and important theatre production,” says Dafydd Rhys, director of Aberystwyth Arts Centre. “We remain totally committed to this uniquely Welsh tale that had an impact throughout the world. It also has the added bonus that the music will be fantastic! We know the audience will be in for a treat – a really good night of quality, thought provoking and popular theatre.”
Smiles hopes the play reflects the seriousness of the cause of that time, but also the joy of living through such an exhilarating period: “It was wonderful,” he says with a hearty laugh. “We had so much fun, you can’t believe it!”