The Archive.               Last modified Feb 2008.

We are looking for the Film that was made of the Watchfield festival, can anyone give us information about its creation and current whereabouts ?

Film footage of Jonathon Kelly in concert is needed as there seems to be nothing in the vaults anywhere, contact his management if you can help...

The Watchfield Free Festival . 23-31st August 1975.

At Windsor ,the jaded press hacks and the police descended on two freaks who arrived with a sleeping bag , the plod quizzing the freaks about whether they were carrying a tent or a sleeping bag, because , as they pointed out, if it WAS a tent, it would have to be confiscated and placed in the police tent ( which was, presumably , an APPROVED tent ).    Apparently one of the freaks with the baggie was Steve Lucking, who was the stage manager of stage A at the 74 festival and who was a mate of Ubi Dwyer. He was one of those who had answered the call to attend and hold a picnic at the festival site. He also had details of the events that led to the luckless Ubi being incarcerated . He was photographed by an 'off duty' Thames Valley policeman at a festival at Stoke On Trent in the act of handing out flyers exhorting people to attend the 1975 Windsor insurrection , the act of doing being a heinous breach of the Thames Valley injunction taken out against the foresaid Ubi - which declared that he should NOT be actively involved in promoting a festival at Windsor in 1975 .

     If this was not enough , the fuzz then brought another nine charges against the civil servant regarding his infamous conduct at the 74 festival, including one where he was alleged to have broken the window of a fire truck whilst tripping .This was sufficient to have him thrown into gaol - thus missing the 75 festival season . But Ubi was not totally forgotten- amongst other luminaries gathered at Windsor was the playwright Heathcote Williams , who held up a sign which read, "hello Bill , wish you were here . Love from the Windsor Picnickers ."

Meanwhile before these events were unwinding at Windsor , preparations had been taking place to try to find another site and to avoid the horrid confrontations of 1974. A number of options -Old Windsor and Bramshott Common- were quickly shot down by determined citizens groups who wanted no part of a free festival in their neck of the woods. Eventually Watchfield- a disused airfield in Berkshire,(left )took the place of the bash at Windsor Great Park . Despite more opposition from the usual coterie of Tory MP's and local farmers, the site was finally agreed upon , after assurances it would only be a one off event , that a sum of 10,000 pounds would be set aside to clean up the site afterwards and some basic facilities would be supplied . Of course, as far as the Government was concerned the advantage of Watchfield was that it was a long way away from any Royal Castle- as the proximity of the festival site at Windsor to the royal abode was undoubtedly an embarrassment to the authorities . I mean we can't have hippies crapping near the royals back yard can we ?

     So the move was a win for the freaks inasmuch that they were given somewhere to hold their festival without it being illegal , but the straights also won because they had shifted the freaks and their noisy paraphernalia to an out of the way site which wasn't anywhere near as pleasant - or symbolic - as the Great Park at Windsor. After three years of festivals at the one site, it was a definite climbdown for the counterculture to move to a less convenient and meaningful site, but at least it wasn't on the same turf as the Thames Valley Police,who had become notorious for their anti freak attitude after the 1974 debacle.

Still, it must have been nice to know that the festival could go ahead without constant fear of the boys in blue swooping down at any moment , truncheons at the ready , looking to bust some heads - which would have probably always have been the reality at Windsor . Whilst most freaks were more interested in going to see the likes of the Floyd or the Stones at Knebworth , there was still a significant minority who were looking for a more transcendent experience from a festival- one which was less tightly organized- which to some extent they helped shape themselves -and which was far more intimate then the vast arena style shows that became de-riguer during the late 70s . Also the fact that the bands were giving something back to the community for free was another bonus. In fact it felt like these bands WERE part of the community, not on some ivory tower looking down at those who loved their music from the safely to some mansion in the South of France.     There were attempts to create better liaison between the festival organizers and the the local authorities and to create the democratic decision making processes that occurred at Windsor. 200 tons of firewood were provided and this helped minimize the usual damage to the local trees. Despite the fact that the police presence was lower than at Windsor there were 95 arrests, 66 for drugs. For all that , the relationship with the police was better than it had been at Windsor .

     There were still tense incidents though , a reminder that a lot of hostility had been built up after Windsor between the freak community and the police.

    A sergeant and a constable patrolling the site found an unattended stolen motor car (14 were located by police at the festival in all). Their examination of the vehicle to see whether or not it could be driven caused an announcement to be made from one of the stages to the effect that the police were searching cars on the site for drugs. There was an immediate assembly of people round the officers. Three other officers including a Chief Inspector, seeing the sergeant and constable in difficulties, went to their aid. The five officers then found themselves surrounded by about 300 people, some of whom were chanting, beating drums and demanding the exclusion of the police from the site. The Chief Inspector shouted to the crowd that the police were removing a stolen vehicle. He was joined and assisted by some of the organizers, the mood of the crowd changed and the people dispersed.

Convoy Steve recalls . . .

Aha - Watchfield, I remember the feeling of having won a very significant victory - we had been given a site by the government and this was a first which was something to celebrate. There was a large aircraft hangar on the airfield which the angels took over as theirs and also a 3 storey control tower which had a phone in it so any one who wanted could sit there looking over the festy and chat to the daily press , who kept ringing up wanting gossip or news of awful disasters and all we would do was tell them how cool everything was and what a groovy festival they were missing.

   I remember policemen walking around in two's and hippies joining hands and dancing around them in an anticlockwise circle to counterbalance their negative energies . we were camped up near a bunch of jolly folks who stayed up all night regaling everyone in the vicinity with tales of porridge and who had a huge flag emblazoned upon which were the immortal words 'The Hull Institute of Advanced Buggery' - whatever happened to them ?.
I remember listening to the Gong set and thinking how fucking good Steve Hillage was . . .

    I especially liked the daily site meetings where everyone sat around and said their piece and policy was made and site matters were discussed and it felt like real democracy in action !.
I also remember leaving the site at the end and feeling that I was leaving the real world and entering a horrible false reality .

 

We have news of the Hull Institute of Advanced Buggery , from one of their erstwhile members

I was at the Watchfield Festival. I'm originally from Hull and was with the group who were known as the Hull institute of Advanced Buggery. I helped make that flag in the back yard of my friends Bones house. Myself , nick traves, chris traves, danny traves, bones, bones wife penny, big pete, fleure, among others ( I can't remember the other names),were the ones who made it.bones came up with the slogan. He intended to drive down there on his motorcycle and sidecar but changed his mind as the sidecar was an old coffin he'd stolen from a funeral home. Thought he might draw attention to himself !. We drove to watchfield in nick traves ford transit, unfortunately it had irish number plates and we got stopped it seemed every 10 miles. We got arrested just outside Luton on the way back home. Police gave us a hard time.
We were all at windsor the year before and witnessed most of the violence.
They were great times. hope this gives you a smile. I live in florida now and miss hull a lot.
would like to go back to watchfield for old times sake.
regards
Phil Rose

However, if one was anywhere near the biker gangs , the festival had a different reality .

Yes I remember the Watchfield free festival. We tried to sleep in a big hangar but the Hell's Angels were really out for trouble and kept running over people as they tried to crash in their sleeping bags. The whole site was dominated by violence after a day or so of friendly hippiedom. I recall the Road Rats and Windsor chapter Angels were particularly hostile.

At one time there was a fire going made of tyres and milk crates which must have been twenty or more feet high. The whole site was shit. Hardly any bands played though Gong were good as ever. Generally a very weird one, though there weren't too many police about.
Bernard Boz

Perhaps Bernards experiences were not typical

    In 1975 I was 19 and I living in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. Working for an equipment supply company. One Friday we were sent to deliver electrical generators to the Watchfield Free Festival site. It was an eye-opening experience. The guy ( Martin ) who worked with me and I went back on the Saturday, and stayed there a week, much to the anger of our boss. I don't remember too many of the bands that played now, I do remember seeing Arthur Brown and Hawkwind.
Thanks,

ROSS.

Spike has this tale to tell     I was at Watchfield as well .I went as a punter and ended up working on the harry higgins stage as an announcer(everybody else was too wasted to do the job)     I still have my stage pass in my scrap book (see right )Memories of the festival include falling into one of the many trenches on site and landing very softly on Gimli- an old chum I hadn't seen since Glastonbury-and also some very very stoned policemen......

The Watchfield stoned policemen story.

Under the Harry Higgins stage we had a den of iniquity where where,shall we say a large amount of interesting substances were being consumed in very large chillums. At about 2 in the morning we were occasionally joined by 2 uniformed bobbies with a squad car who wanted a bit of peace and quiet and more than anything a nice cup of tea, (No we didn't do the tea although it was more than tempting,) Fortunately the atmosphere in the den was more than adequate to do the job and we were treated ,early one morning,to the glorious sight of 2 cops on their way across the site(going to sort out a bit of hassle)saying 'we don't want to wake the campers you sit on the bonnet an go dee dah and I'll drive with my head out the window shouting blue light , blue light.'

photo © Nick Day

    This they proceeded to do and were never seen again. And every body says there were no police on site at Watchfield. Ho hum its the blethering fool again I blame it all on driving to festivals at 2 in the morning having drunk intemperate amount of beer and smoked large amounts of Leba............you get the idea .......now where did I put that tent pole where's the fucking mallet .......WHAT YOU MEAN THE TENT PEGS ARE STILL IN LADBROOK GROVE......oh well the sun will be up soon,pass me the chillum................

photo © Nick Day

As to who played on the higgins stage I have no memory at all (I blame it on the drugs meself) What I do remember is going there with my girlfriend at the time by the name of Perry and not seeing her again for about 5 years (she went off to live with the tepee crew in Tally ) such was the heady days of festivals ,I would be interested to know if anybody can remember the bottomless bucket of creation at Stonehenge one year.Also at Stonehenge we used to run a badge stall y'know make your own on site.Would be interested to know if any of our original badges are still out there. Keep up this wonderful site I'll rummage through the remains of me brain for a few decent memories meanwhile I'll wish you love and peas Spike

Dave has this recollection of the bands who played

Having been living at nearby Amesbury that year in the squats (we had three houses) I remember it quiet well as to getting to the site was for the most part trouble free most of the time,my memory of the bands were as mentioned elsewhere,on the first Friday night a riproaring set from the fabulas 101ers,and finished two weeks later with Arthur Brown and Vivian Stanshall.

from dave now living in luton.

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From Stephen Budd

: Helping to rig the roof whilst Hawkwind were playing underneath me....all tripping
: 'the fabulous main stage joint rolling competition' which was really a con by the road-crew to get as many free joints as possible.
: Steve Hillage coming down about 3 or 4 days before the festival started with Miquette in his 1960's Cortina to see wether it was cool for Gong to play and ending up mstaying andf jamming around the campfire...
: rolling spliffs on the side of the stage during the Gong set to give to Mike Howelett
: Helping Nik Turner up when he fell over during Hawkwinds set
: Paul Rudolph of Pink Faries playing with Hawkwind (or did I hallucinate that..)
: The Global Village Trucking Company, Stray, Traffic, Spectre, Gong can't remember who else.
: when the Angels left the hanger (hooray !) and pissed of leaving us to have fun.
: the free Hari Krishna food
: Lord Melchett being very groovy
: Radio Free Watchfield !
: The first appearance of the rede, white and blue acid....

Edward Collier

Watchfield 1975 My first real festival. Threatened with murder by a Hell's Angel, who was probably off his face on some of the rather strong hallucinogens I recall. I had my picture taken by an Australian photographer which later appeared in Woman's Own magazine, to my mother's shame (I had very long hair, and was sporting a rather gorgeous turquoise velvet full length cloak with gold trimming). I remember Gong, stalwarts of such occasions, and Edgar Broughton Band, without whom no free festival was complete. A wonderful festival at a great venue. The police were cool too (as far as I was concerned - they certainly saw me with a spliff or two!)

From David Bailey

Hi I remember:-
Concorde doing a low slow fly over one morning to make sure we were all awake.
The only band i remember is Hawkwind who supposedly came straight over from playing the Reading festival.
Camped next to us were a group of guys with eastern european or russian motorcycles wearing denim jackets with "rainbow chasers" on the back.
Hell's angels didn't do anything to me but they must have done something because i've hated them ever since.

Jon Owen

hello

I remember playing a solo set at watchfield. it was just before Gong on the main stage. my main recollection is of having a field of people singing along to Give a little love, get a little love. I remember this specifically as watchfield was kind of scary in that there were many different camps of people- the ex Windsor freaks, bands of pseudo angels, sightseers etc. There was a hard edge it it all. I suppose I was also a bit nervous as it was the frst time I had done one of these things without the support of the rest of The Global Village Trucking Co. Sorry must go as my yougest child appears to be destroying his brother's entire lego fleet. Some things never change ay!

Jon Owen ex Glob

Hi I've just found your site - very interesting!

I was a roadie for Strife and can aim you in the direction of a couple of photos of the band at Watchfield - in glorious technicolour! They are at www.strife-music.co.uk (under photos).
My memories of Watchfield are pretty vague - when we arrived it was suitably chaotic - there was trouble with the PA. I remember that the band before us (sorry I can't put a name to them) played a pretty good version of Love's 'Alone again or'. We then decided to use our own PA in order to give some time to repair the festivals PA which was distorting badly. The guys played well and injected a bit of energy into the proceedings. (it was flagging a bit at the time) The bands were being filmed for the local cable television - is there still some footage available? I was in the centre of the crowd wearing my luminous green beany hat (a gift from the band - "where's the prat in the hat?) mixing the sound. The crowd were up on their feet and I had a job to keep people from stomping on the mixer! - a couple of encores and it was over. The festival PA had been fixed so we loaded the gear back into the van. East of Eden followed us on stage - kicked off with "Jig-a jig" I think. Rob (the other roadie) and I walked round the site for a while - it was going dark, and the camp-fires created a great atmosphere. Then it was back on the road - we were one of the hardest working bands at the time - no time to stop and watch.

All the best
Martin - The Bean

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I lived in the nearest house to the festival but camped there all week having to look out for mum and dad as they didnt know I smoked . Steve Winwood and friends not Traffic played in 75 there was no festival in 76 at watchfield. Thames water who I worked for had thousands of buckets in a warehouse to give out as they thought the loos wouldnt cope . They were in a right panick over the festival.
 
Dave (Watchfield)

Window panes, red white and blue blotters mountains of microdot, all known forms of hemp (we operated an informal swap club for eight days) Never saw a hells angel but anyone mad enough to try and kip in the same aircraft hangar with the Windsor Chapter, well...

the 'traffic' gig comprised of viv stanshall stevie winwood and the afro rythm section, who played til dawn and had everybody dancing more than ive ever seen at a free festival before...rebop kwaki ba was fantastic, as were viv stanshalls tights which kept changing from luminous green to vivid purple, though that might have just been me.

The free hari krishna food was so bloody brilliant i probably put on weight for the only time during the seventies, so good it made me a vegetarian Buddhist. in the middle of the day, during the middle of the week, when Watchfield got real quiet and only the hardcore remained, it felt more like living in a small village of freaks than a festival. Never saw the cops meself, fell into a lot of ditches though...

My mate Jeff drove us in a classic citroen safari estate, complete with small mary-jane plant drying on the bonnet, and that damn car didn't want to leave any more than we did, bless its little mechanical heart, for it refused to start when we tried to split. Watchfield was a real turning point, it captured the last dregs of the spirit of an era which almost choked to death on its own vomit shortly after, and has definitely never been the same since...The ghosts of all those battle of britain airman must have finally realised what they were fighting for...It was definitely 1975. ...

john...portsmouth

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Hi

Didn't think I still had this T-shirt, but went hunting for something else and found it.  Amazing after 30years!  However it certainly won't fit me these days. I used to have a vehicle sticker but goodness knows where that is!   I was at Watchfield and went down with a gaggle of friends in my big yellow Bedford van with 'BIG YELLOW TAXI' written on the front and rear.  The van was much in demand and I spent most of the daytime running here, there and everywhere for firewood (I think we went to a church some way from the festival site to collect a recently chopped tree) and food supplies (Bath, with a couple who must have been the originators of Harvest, the wholefood suppliers).  I know we came back laden with sacks of oats and flour and stuff.

Its odd because I can't remember much about the bands that played but I do remember our reaction when we first arrived really early one morning about 4 or 5 oclock with the mist all over the airfield and just a few vehicles and tents scattered here and there. A memorable sight.  One of our rabble had a camera and I think took plenty of photos, but have lost touch with her. 
 
I think 7 of us chipped in a fiver each to buy a mail order big green canvas tent which lasted for nearly twenty years and saw service at many festivals after Watchfield.  One night one of my mates had his tent pinched whilst he was in our communal tent and all his belongings replaced in exactly the same spot but with no tent covering them.  The rest of us fell about laughing at the the sight of no tent and his rucksack, food and socks in his boots all replaced neatly whilst he grumbled and moaned about 'those thieving bastards...'
 
Paul

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Watchfield-1975
Another long trip on the Ducati 250 from Cambridgeshire to Berkshire saw me arrive at Watchfield. I'd seen Gong twice that summer at the Hammersmith Palais. A nearby tent at the festival had been playing Gong non stop. I remember being half asleep in the tent one evening and hearing Gong again, thinking that doesn't sound quite right. I poke my head out to find they were playing live on the stage. The Watchfield airfield was really big and the festival quite spread out, which meant you could loon about on the bike riding up and down the runways. I spent one evening lying on the bike seat and tank watching the bands play on the Polyrhythm Stage. I think there were at least 3 stages playing most of the time. Another abiding memory is being hungry as I was broke and couldn't find any food. I guess I hadn't yet learnt how to enjoy Vegan muesli with apple juice in a paper cup.

Julian Bond

I seem to have gone the opposite way to history. During the early festivals I can remember, I seemed to be straight a lot of the time, but met a lot of groovy people; With Watchfield, it was almost oblivion.
This was the festival that took over from the infamous Windsor Free Festival, and was really all about making a free festival happen with little trouble.

My only trouble aside from hitching down there, which took ages,( it was hot, it seemed to take days was being hassled by the Thames Valley Police, en route at least 3 times; But once on the site I met more interesting people, and somehow missed a load of bands. The PA always seemed to be breaking down, there always seemed to be a guy called tall Steve on stage, and we finally gave up to go back to our tents, for more various forms of fun.

I met Rose and Aiden from Southern Ireland. Aiden told me all he had in the world was in his back pocket. When I pointed out his wallet was falling out, he exclaimed, "Jesus, that's all I have". I met another Rose who was an opera singer and belted out her arias every morning in the nude. Another time after once again giving up on the music at about 1am, we all crashed out only for a strange noise from the stage to reawake us. I think they were called Zorch (anyone remember them?) a kind of weird synth band;
Traffic were also supposed to have played, and I saw a couple of members from Hawkwind, but then again so what?

Yes the Hari Krishna guys banged out some great food, and there was lots of dope, overhead police presence, and a member of the Clergy from Reading(!) on stage.

I wasnt aware of any aggro, though some people did mention it, but overall there was a sense of being part of a community of people who wanted to preserve the festivals. It was less chaotic than some of the Stonehenge affairs, and was also remarkable for the "little scenes" , of artists, percussionists, acoustic guitarists, fab food, and some weird and wonderful people; Unlike just about all the other festivals, Watchfield seemed more about the event itself than just music. Oh yeah and I bumped into Scottish Frank, last seen being carted off to jail in Marrakesh!
Regards,
Pete Feenstra

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I was at Watchfield. I was 16. Got my O level results while I was there from a public phone in a hangar. The festival blew our minds. First time I had dope, (ate it in a Mars bar,) saw lots of people staggering around naked and generally dug the weirdness. I particularly remember watching a couple of slightly older girls on an acid trip one night lying on their backs gazing heavenward and giggling at the notion of the stars being God’s little peepholes. One more amusing recollection – they announced over the PA that the drug squad agent was the guy with “light” tattooed on one tit and “bitter” on the other.


Thanks for the site.

Tom Hickmore

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I was also present at the Watchfield Festival 1975…another great experience. I was one of the people who braved sleeping in the Hangar!! I didn’t sleep much actually…far too many people coming and going at all hours lol! I smoked lotsa Leb and dropped microdots…I don’t know how I found the energy to dance as much as I did (every day!!!!)…I can’t recall any trouble with Police or freaks. I was there for most of the whole 9 days (but I think I went to Reading for a few days too). All in all, an amazing time. I am glad I was there. I was LUCKY to be there. You know, it’s funny to think we were being a part of the ‘counter culture’, but we really were…coz we were all definitely looked upon as society outcasts (even if most of the people I met were actually middle-class types lol) Well, once again, thank you so much for setting up this wonderful wonderful place… They do say that getting older makes you look back to the past with rose-tinted specs…well, it’s kinda true. But all I know is I’m glad I lived my teens back in the 70s…and not these days.

Delores at Watchfield

Please can I say a big hello to Roy, from Wooden Lion, who helped me out with getting in touch with you direct…and to also say hi to anyone who I might’ve met at these festivals here…you can contact me via my music page on myspace:
www.myspace.com/foxyladydee
All good wishes from
Dolores

There are reports of a festival held in 76 but this is definitely innaccurate

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