I was there …. and other stories … from The Isle of Festival …. 1970 … on the wireless

So yesterday that event I was at combined with the stories of some of the others who were there in the August of 1970.

I was there on that hill, 1970

That was the Isle of Wight Festival, and it was remembered on BBC Radio 4’s The Reunion on Sunday and available online. 

And as these things happen over twenty years later Wythenshawe in casual conversations I discovered to work colleagues who were there and since then there have been plenty more.

“Three young brothers from the Isle of Wight - an estate agent, a publisher and an art student - turned their parochial island into the world centre of counter-culture by staging two huge music festivals in 1969 and 1970.

Bob Dylan hadn’t performed for three years after a serious motorcycle accident and yet the Foulk brothers convinced him to become the headliner for their 1969 event.

Me too, 1970

In 1970, despite ferocious local opposition, they put together a second Isle of Wight Festival with 50 acts including many of the biggest names in music – Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix. 

The stellar line-up attracted 600,000 fans – six times the population of the island. But a militant cohort insisted that the event should be free. In the end the promoters let them have their way, and lost a fortune.

Joining Kirsty to relive those historic events are Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues, who found the size of the crowd nerve-wracking, Jacqui McShee of Pentangle, who was thrilled to see her idols Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix live, and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, who believes the 1970 event marked the “tawdry end” of the peace and love era.

Also in the programme are Richard Williams, then writing for the Melody Maker, and Terrii Telfer, an island resident who slept in a sleeping bag with a bit of plastic underneath. 

Also joining us are two of the main organisers. Youngest brother Bill Foulk remembers five days of virtually no sleep in the run up to the 1970 festival trying to get everything ready. And Ray Foulk recalls how three of the Beatles came just to hang out with Bob Dylan and ended up playing tennis in the grounds of the farmhouse where Dylan was staying.

Producer: Karen Pirie

Series Producer: David Prest

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4”

That Poster, 1970

Location; The Isle of Wight Festival, 1970, BBC Radio 4

Pictures; Pictures; me in 1970 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, the poster, 1970, and at the Festival, 1970, Roland Godefroy, who granted permission to use the image under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 

* The Isle of Wight Festival, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_fourfm