Entertainment
 

Perfumed Garden

From John Peel Wiki

This article is about the the late night pirate radio show hosted by Peel on Radio London in the summer of 1967. For the blog focused on Peel sessions, see Perfumed Garden (blog).

Contents

[edit] Peel Remembers

(from Radio Radio, 1986)

As junior member of the team, I had to do two programmes. I had to do a daytime programme, which was just the regular Radio London fare, you know ... But I also had to do a late night programme, from 12 until 2. And initially I used to just do this as I had done the other programme. I mean, run all the commercials and do the weather and the news and all of the things that I was supposed to do.
Gradually it dawned on me that no one was actually listening to this programme – I mean, no one in the Radio London office, and certainly none of the people on the ship. So I started to improvise a little bit and gradually stopped running the ads and so on, and playing more of this music that I had brought back from America with me. And also adding a British dimension with people like the Incredible String Band and Hendrix and Pink Floyd, I suppose, Tyrannosaurus Rex, all these sort of people. I called the programme the Perfumed Garden.
And by the time I got round to calling it the Perfumed Garden, I’d entirely dispensed with the format and I was reading people’s poetry – extraordinarily badly – and people were writing poetry and sending it in to me. And it was the Summer Of Love, you know, and it became compulsive listening to anyone who was into that. And this was all over northern Europe. In fact, I still encounter people in Holland when I go over there, who go, “Ah yeah, we remember very well, we remember the Perfumed Garden, a big one!” You know, which is quite nice that they still recall all of that.
And the first inkling I think that Alan Keane had that this was going on was when, or so legend has it, when Brian Epstein phoned him up to congratulate him on having had the foresight to have put such a programme out. And of course he listened to it and was horrified. But by this time Radio London only had a few months to run anyway, so they decided they may as well leave things as they were.

(From 1970 Time Out interview)

You also need, somewhere in your day or in your week, a programme where the people who are listening are not treated as though they are totally moronic. I don't know why I called the programme 'The Perfumed Garden'. I didn't know about the book at the time, it was just a nice idea, wandering at night through a perfumed garden. As far as I was concerned it was a state of mind.
I would like to think that it was more than just a pop record show because it did, I suppose, try to influence people into at least sitting up and thinking about the ideas that I think are important. It doesn't mean that I thought that everyone had to believe in them, it was more a question of 'here you are - do what you like with them'.

[edit] Forum

Remember listening to the show back in 1967? Share your memories.

[edit] See Also

  • 1967 Including events, for historical and cultural background, and shows calendar (final Perfumed Garden on 14 August 1967)

[edit] Links

Retrieved from "http://peel.wikia.com/wiki/Perfumed_Garden"