Smiles and Operation Julie that will go down in History

On a cold morning in March, back in 1977, a small sleepy village in rural Wales was thrust into the limelight when a horde of police descended and executed part of the largest drugs bust in history. Operation Julie, which has since become the stuff of legend and inspired various media projects (including the classic song ‘Julie’s Been Working for the Drug Squad’ by The Clash), was the culmination of multiple points of enquiry involving a myriad of people from across the UK, yet the epicenter for all of it was situated in Llanddewi Brefi. In total, 6.5 million tabs of LSD and over a million pounds worth of cash, shares and bonds were seized in the raids making it the most significant bust in the history of the UK. Strangely though, instead of a dark, corrupted and vicious criminal gang, it appeared that some of the people behind the production and distribution of the LSD were held in high regard by the people who lived in the village with them.

Having read the official reports and one of the books based on the events of (date), it quickly became apparent that there was one name which seemed more prevalent than any others: Smiles. Smiles was the focal point of the investigation and the police who infiltrated the operation had to gain his trust to get on the inside. It struck me that all opinions of him didn’t fit the stereotypical ideal of a ‘criminal mastermind’, and everyone seemed to hold him in quite a positive light. Considering this was hailed as the ‘greatest drug bust of all time’, he was hardly portrayed as a vicious or violent Pablo Escobar-esque character and this was all the more intriguing. A little further investigation revealed that it was almost unheard of for his point of view to be taken into account and I struggled to find any official comments on his behalf. I spoke to a few people in the know and discovered that he was now, in fact, one of the brains behind ‘Big Head Seeds’ and this allowed me to establish contact. I sat down for a chat with him and quickly realized why he was called Smiles and why people had warmed to him so easily.

 

PSY: Hi, Smiles, thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

Smiles: No problem. Happy New Year to you.

PSY: Cheers. Same to you. I have to say that I find the whole story of Operation Julie fascinating. I used to live in Mid-Wales and it was the stuff of legend. People all seemed to have some different story to tell about what they had heard and there were a few different versions of the truth.

Smiles: I bet. I’ve heard a few versions myself.

PSY: How do you feel about the one-sided perspective of what happened? Does it differ from how you saw it?

Smiles: Well, when you read the copper’s book he says a fair few things I wouldn’t agree with. When he first turned up in the village, Llanddewi Brefi, there were two of them and one of them has brought out a book in the past year. He wanted me to go on TV with him to publicize the book but I disagree with quite a lot of what he says.

PSY: Yeah, I can imagine that would be the case.

Smiles: Ha ha. Yeah, well the strange thing is that he spends some time at the start of the book talking about how much he enjoyed getting to know me and how bad he felt about what happened when he betrayed me afterwards. But he didn’t really get to betray me because he learnt fuck all basically. The thing is, myself and my friend Buzz, who sadly died at the end of October last year, were touring around mid-Wales having the time of our lives: taking copious amounts of LSD, smoking loads of dope, drinking whatever we could get our hands on and generally raising a ruckus. Well, at that time there was a recession on and it hit especially hard in places like Llanddewi and other small villages in rural Wales. The local people didn’t have any money, but we had lots of money and we tended to share it around the local people, we could spend all night in a pub and buy everybody drinks. So there were lots of rumors about what we were up to, none of which were even close to being remotely true, and when the operation happened the world’s press descended on the village looking for the story. They expected all the local people to be talking about how terrible we were and how horrendous it all was but, strangely enough, they couldn’t find anybody who had anything negative to say about us. Which I thought was an interesting part of it.

PSY: I can imagine everyone was pretty baffled by the response of the local population. I bet the whole thing is like some strange epic adventure, which will live on forever in legend. Would you do it again?

Smiles: Would I do it again? Certainly. I would do it differently though. Essentially I was just a distributor, but I’m a big head (hence the name of the seed company) and I was putting myself out there because that’s what I do. I like people and I get on with people, mostly, which meant that I became genuine friends with most of the people I met during that time. It was funny because I went to Buzz’s funeral last year in Aberystwyth and some of the old boys from Llanddewi came along. We were chatting about the good old days and one of them was saying that they should have a statue of me and Buzz in the village square because Tregaron have one of Twm Sion Cati who was dubbed ‘The Robin Hood of Wales’. I think we felt like we were similar to Robin Hood at times and the people in the village were able to cope with some hard times because of our actions. If we knew someone was short of money we would post a few bank notes through their letter box, if we knew someone couldn’t afford enough food we would leave groceries on their doorstep. Even the town drunk felt the love because we would sometimes leave him a bottle of whisky on the doorstep next to his milk when he was short of money. We just liked doing nice things for people and we really didn’t care about the money we had – the money was just a bonus that came with our adventures.

PSY: I bet there are some great stories you could tell that didn’t make it into the ‘official’ version of events. I remember hearing all kinds of things from people round where I used to live including the idea that there was still a huge batch of LSD buried out in the fields somewhere. Any truth to that?

Smiles: Well, that’s the way the story goes. It would have been true but there was one of our group who ratted us out and it was found. A kilo and a half of pure LSD. That was a shame. It was worse because the person who decided to rat us out tried to blame it on someone else, but I suppose we are all flawed characters in our own ways.

PSY: Fair point. What did you do after the dust had settled?

Smiles: After I came out of jail, I got an eight and got out after five, I moved to India and lived there for several years and then ended up in Amsterdam. I got in a few scrapes but I can’t really say too much about them, even though everyone apart from me and one other are dead now through, shall we say, various devices.

PSY: That seems like a good way to put it. Have you ever considered doing a book?

Smiles: I haven’t, although a lot of people have suggested I should. I have put out a few feelers with the potential to doing something in the near future. I’ve been approached by the BBC and some others who want to talk to me this year but I’m not sure if I will or not. My friend Leaf wrote his book To Live Outside the Law and he was two steps above me back then. It’s funny when you consider how many people were accused of being involved because in court the chemist stood in the dock and looked down the line of accomplices, pointed at me and said, “Well, I made it and he sold it. Nobody else really had anything to do with it.” He wasn’t lying because essentially the LSD would be put in a hole in the ground, collected from there and moved to another hole in the ground, then another hole in the ground, then another and so on until eventually it came to me. Then it went out and the money came in and it was channeled back the same way. But there are lots of stories and anecdotes that would make for a good read. Even when the two undercover coppers first turned up in the village (on a day when myself and Buzz had been left in charge of the pub, The New Inn, because the owners were away) I remember watching them come through the door like a right couple of Herberts and I just smiled at them and said, “What will it be officers? Two halves? We are on duty aren’t we?” They were so flustered that from the off I knew I had hit the mark. I knew deep down that I was right but I didn’t trust my gut. That feeling never went away. They would have you believe that I was oblivious to the fact that they were policeman and when I did start accusing them of being undercover they say that one of them, Eric Wright, took me outside and threatened me. Well, I don’t get threatened – it doesn’t happen – if anyone tries to threaten me I’ll just attack them. It’s as simple as that. Add to that the fact that in the book they go on to claim that after it all happened there was a time when they came to see me in the cells and there was a point where we hugged and said there were no hard feelings…well, there fucking well wasn’t! I did say that it was a fair cop and it was all in the game, but that’s about it.

PSY: What was it like being locked up?

Smiles: It was very strange. They came and took us from our beds at 5 in the morning and then kept us completely isolated and separated from each other. It was very disorientating. Looking back on it is something I will always do, but even in jail there were some interesting events. When I was in Bristol we figured out a way of getting dope in that relied on watching the systems of the prison and finding the gaps. It worked well until one of our number brought in an additional person from the outside and they grassed us up. So they sent me to Dartmoor, which was the only institution where they still cut your hair; that was their way of getting at me because I had long hair. Now the BBC were about to do their very first overnight transmission of the proms and it was featuring a load of Indian Ragas, so I dropped a load of acid when they locked us up for the night (about 7.30pm) and waited for the Ragas to start at about 9pm. I was well away by the time they came on and I was tripping away when I suddenly heard this noise. When you’re in jail your ears become your eyes and you have to learn to interpret sounds. I couldn’t work out what the sound I could hear was and because I was tripping I was completely focused on it. I ended up spending most of the night naked, hunched on the floor by my door with the radio blaring away listening to this noise and trying to figure it out. It was going round and round in my head and I couldn’t identify it over the whole night. So, when they let us out in the morning I realized that there is a hole in the roof near my cell. What I had heard was rain coming through the hole, running along the landing, dropping down to the next level, running along the next landing, dropping down again and so on. Because of the irregular intervals I couldn’t place it at the time and I realized I had spent the whole night trying to figure out this bloody sound, only to find that it was just water. But that’s just how it was. Life was just a strange mix of fun and adventure in many shapes and forms.

 

PSY: I imagine you met some interesting characters and had more than a few scrapes on your escapades.

Smiles: Oh yes. Most of it was so bizarre that you couldn’t make it up. We spent some time in London at a friend’s flat while they were out of the country. What we didn’t know is that they were out of the country trying to do a scam cocaine deal and the drug squad were watching the flat in relation to our friend’s activities. We were oblivious to it and were more interested in the fact that there was a video player in the flat, because they were relatively new then and not many people had one, which we could watch while we got high. There was only one videotape, which was about spiders, and we watched it over and over again. When we left the flat to go back to Wales, the drug squad decided to keep tabs on us and sent an agent provocateur to follow us and see what our involvement was. This meant that there were two different groups watching us who then started working together to gain our trust. At one point they went off to Liverpool under the guise that they were going to look into importing cocaine and when they got back I decided to push them a bit to see if they would bite. I asked them to get me a couple of kilos of cocaine and the copper said he would try to get it. Now, in his book he claims that this conversation proves that I didn’t know he was a copper. But, surely he should see that I only asked him because I knew he couldn’t do it. It was all part of the game. And he’s supposed to be a detective! They tried it again with dope. They said that they had been to Morocco and I asked them to get me some. They turned up with Gack, which is made in Karachi, and tried to fob us off; another nail in their coffin. To be fair to him, he freely admits that they had no preparation for the job and that’s probably why they gathered no actual information or evidence of how the operation worked.

PSY: You definitely strike me as someone who likes to have fun. You seem like a bit of a natural prankster. Was it difficult to move away from all those crazy adventures and do something more legitimate?

Smiles: After I had done my time and tried a few more of my schemes out I needed to do something else, so I started Big Head Seeds with a few good friends. Basically, I don’t like doing ‘normal’ things because I’m an alternative. I felt like I could do that legitimately and still maintain my moral standpoint. With marijuana being recognized for the wonder-drug that it is, it’s a great time for us to move forward collectively. In case you have any doubts, the name Big Head definitely has more than a little reference to me and the way I am. I am a big head.

PSY: And you have new strains coming out to do with the anniversary of Operation Julie, correct?

Smiles: Yes. We have Buzz and Smile, in tribute to my friend Buzz, the other one is Trippy Gorilla, we did toy with the other spelling of gorilla, and then we are doing Julie’s Cookies, which is our interpretation of Girl Scout Cookies. We started working on them about 2 or 3 years ago. We took our Big Head strain and crossed it with some of our favorites. It’s been a long process to make sure that we get them right and do the memories justice. I’m sure people will like them and we look forward to getting more feedback.

PSY: I was talking to our Editor and she said that something amusing happened when you guys last met?

Smiles: That’s right. Funny story, when we went back to Llanddewi Brefi for the photo shoot for this interview we stood by the village sign and, blow me down, a police car pulls up and stops just beside us. They couldn’t have timed it better. Also, a few years ago I went back to the village and visited the pub, The New Inn (which was one of two pubs in the village – we were barred from the other one), and the people were so welcoming it was unbelievable. The policeman from back in the day still lived in the village, in the old police station actually, and the villagers suggested that I should go and knock on his door and ask if I could borrow a shovel. That would certainly get the tongues wagging. It’s amazing to think that the story has taken root and people in the village are still talking about it 40 years later. I wonder if it will still be spoken of in another 40 years or 100 years.

PSY: I’m sure it will. It’s just too brilliant. Legends never die as they say.

Smiles: I wonder if folk legends will evolve it into something more extravagant than it was – some great saga – or whether it will be forgotten.

PSY: Well, with the research coming out that there are a huge number of potential benefits to using LSD as a medicine, it could go down the same route as cannabis in the near future. Maybe if they hadn’t have busted your operation this would have happened a long time ago.

Smiles: Well, we were on a mission back then. The money was purely incidental. We wanted to turn the world on to this amazing substance which allows us to see our world for what it is. If people could experience it for themselves on a massive scale then we could reverse everything we are doing wrong and sort the world out. We’ve been banging on about this for 50 years and now, finally, it seems that those on the inside are starting to listen. But progress is torturously slow – glacial almost – and it really depends on what happens in America because they are often the driving force in terms of these things moving forward with any sense of pace. It can only get better, as they say. But, we’ve heard that before, haven’t we?

PSY: What do you think about the influence of big tobacco and big pharma on the blossoming cannabis industry?

Smiles: You can see that the big companies are eyeing up cannabis and seeing the potential profit and this is good in terms of pushing for legalization, but not necessarily for those who want to make weed their business. People should consider that this has always been the case and even back in the days when we were working with LSD we had to get it from America. It was dirt cheap to buy in the late 60s and we didn’t make much from each tab we sold (about 7 pence), but when you’re selling 100,000 a week it builds up. As I said before though, the money was just something that came along with all the fun we would have had anyway.

PSY: It definitely helps when you like playing Robin Hood.

Smiles: As I said, we knew the status of everyone in the village so it was great fun being a fairy godfather and helping them out in any way that we could. In amongst this volume of selling, we gave away a lot of acid and a lot of weed. It’s just the way it is. I’m just that kind of person. For us at Big Head Seeds we want people to have access to their medicine and if we can help with that then that’s great.

PSY: Thanks a lot for talking to us. I’ll have to come and see you some time so you can tell me more. Good luck with the new strains and all your endeavors.

Smiles: No problem. You’re welcome any time. Just one last thing: if any of your readers want to know more about Operation Julie, Big Head Seeds or anything else then I would like to maybe look at doing a Q and A in the near future.

PSY: I’m sure we can do something along those lines. Thanks again.

 

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed talking with Smiles and there is a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ about him that is instantly endearing. Sometime in the near future I hope to sit down and have a smoke with him so that I can relish in more of his memories, especially because it would be interesting to see what kind of things he might reveal when he is talking ‘off the record’.

If you have any questions for him then email them to us @ [email protected] and we can put them to the man himself.

Thanks again, Smiles, good luck to you and all your colleagues at Big Head Seeds and RIP to your good friend Buzz.

PSY 23

 

Originally Published in Weed World Magazine Issue 127