British Police Raid Vagabonds’ Camp, Divide Their Ranks

A scruffy band of vagabonds who combine the life style of 1960s dropouts with Gypsy ways is on its annual pilgrimage through southern England, angering mainstream Britons.

More than 500 police officers raided a vagabond camp in the New Forest in Hampshire on Monday, impounded 129 ramshackle vehicles as unroadworthy and split the 200 or so people into at least two groups. They sent half by bus in one direction while about 100 others set off on foot another way.

Home Secretary Douglas Hurd last week likened the group to a “band of medieval brigands.”

The convoy’s activity was prominently reported in British newspapers as it grew in numbers while meandering through southern England, heading toward the ancient Stonehenge monument on Salisbury Plain, where its members hope to hold a rock festival on the summer solstice, June 21.

The festival had been held for 12 years, growing annually into a counterculture mecca, until it was banned last year because of damage to the area around Stonehenge. Last June, police fought a pitched battle with the vagabonds at one encampment, arresting more than 500.