Festival of the Flower Children

Woburn Abbey. August 26th-28th. 1967.

    An almost forgotten festival. Yet it was held at the height of the Summer Of Love and was one of the first festivals to challenge the established National Jazz and Blues Festival held at Windsor. Perhaps it was the lack of overseas name bands in the line-up that has caused it to be overlooked.

    It really appears to be more of a tin pan alley Pop/rock festival rather than a truly psychedelic Festival , judging by the line-up that we have at the moment , apart from legendary psych bands Dantalion's Chariot and Tomorrow. Wheres the Floyd for a start ...... and who in hell booked the bloody Bee Gees ? I mean, really....... theres a distinct lack of credibility in the inclusion of those sort of acts.

     Not wishing to insult patrons, but the vibe given off from archived images and footage tends to reinforce the feeling that this wasn't a true expression of the underground , but more of a commercial event .A lot of the attendees look more like weekend hippies than the real thing, many dressed in the latest Carnaby street threads bought off the rack rather than having assembled their costume themselves from op shops and their grandparents cast offs.

    However, one must also remember that this was 1967 and people did wear some pretty naff stuff then, by the following year a lot of the paisley and beads had vanished as the blues boom took over and the look morphed into wearing slightly less psychedelic materials . When i attended Woburn the following year in 1968 the look was far more subdued.

    Estimates of how many attended range from 12,000 to 20,000 . It appears the event was profitable as it was repeated in 1968 ( albeit under a different name- no mention of flower children ).

Right: It was all so very beautiful maaaan, even the car parking was beautifully unlimited .......

Poster courtesy Stroff

© David Hatchell

Intrepid camerman ventures into the mosh pit with the flower children

© David Hatchell view his film of Woburn here

 

David Black remembers this incident

As I remember the incident. Marmalade, during their set, threw lighted sparklers into the audience, the crowd of course tossed them back at the stage, some of which landed on the canopy. As I recall, all the canopy was burned down. I also clearly remember John Peel appealing for the crowd to move back from the stage. My first encounter with Mr Peel.
           Keep on Rockin'
                         David.

   The first thing that happened was a balloon came over from which hundreds of flowers were thrown (red carnations if I remember rightly). Jon and I fought over them in a rather un-hippy fashion. There were loads of photographers around to whom we paid no attention (more later) I don't remember much of the actual festival. I can remember Marmalade and was a big fan of their hit "I hear the Rain" (or something). (I hated "Obli-di obli-da" - their next one I think). I recall thinking afterwards that Marmalade were the best band there (or 'group' - we didn't call them bands, did we?). Was Tangerine Dream there? Was White Bicycle?

   I remember sleeping under a tree and waking up several times during the night to hear the Doors (record) "Light my Fire" - every bloody time I woke. I can't hear that now without thinking of waking up at the Festival.

   I can recall hoping that 'free love' would be available. It wasn't. Not for me anyway.

The Dream onstage © David Hatchell

The flowerchild fight

   Later on there were some TV programmes - "All Our Yesterdays" or "The Rock 'n' Roll Years" or something which featured the Pathe news material - according to friends who phoned up saying "You were on telly last night - did you know?". I never saw it.

   One day I'm going to dig out the Daily Mail and the other newspapers with my picture in. Now I've got the date from you I will, anyway. I had them all pinned up on my bedroom wall for ages, but they went yellow and got thrown away.......
That's life.

John Prior reminisces

"I can't remember too much about the Woburn Abbey gig , except that it was hot - I'd joined the Royal Navy a few weeks before, and can remember being there, thinking - what the f##ck have I done!! As I said, I think we were only there for one day - did I see The Small Faces there, and miss seeing Hendrix?? I definitely saw Tomorrow though! "

Steven Chibnall

I went to with a small group of (feuding) Bedford mods on, I think, the Saturday (possibly Sunday). I remember Marmalade, who I considered far too poppy and uncool, Eric Burdon singing San Francisco Nights and, best of all, Dantalion's Chariot in white robes and white backcloth and the most amazing light show. I believe I also saw David Hemmings and Gale Hunnicut sitting quietly under a tree, again in white robes (I could be mistaken, but it looked like them).

© David Hatchell

Dicky from oz

I went there with a couple of my mates -we had an old Bedford van and was picking up hitch hikers on the way. I remember a lady refusing to serve us in the village pub because we were " beatniks".

Can you remember the strobe effect on Zoot Money as he floated in the air ? Didn't Eric Burden have a guy called Fagin that played the fiddle in a version of Paint it Black?. If I remember rightly there was a problem with the Small Faces and they came in by chopper.

Line-up .

Small Faces , Eric Burdon and the New Animals , Jeff Beck Group, Dantalion's Chariot, Family, Al Stewart , The Bee Gees , The Alan Price Set , Marmalade , Tomorrow, Blossom Toes , The Syn ,The Dream , Zoot Money and the Big Roll Band , *Breakthru, Tintern Abbey.

There may well have been more artists performing over the three days ,can any one help fill in the gaps with press reports, pix or personal recollections ? Contact us

   Eric Burdon's set was filmed and the number "Hey Gyp" ended up in a film called Rock City . He also played "San Franciscan Nights" and "House of the Rising Sun "at Woburn but these are probably not included in the Rock City film which is a bit of a ragbag collection of clips from 1964-73, some of which have been seen regularly on video shows (Cat Stevens , Joe Cocker ) others being much rarer to find.

       Rock City : directed and produced by Peter Clifton; photography by Richard Mordaunt, Peter Whitehead, Graham Lind, Michael Cooper, Peter Neal, Bavin Cook, Ernest Vincze, Ivan Strasburg, Charles Stewart and Bruce Logan; edited by Thomas Schwaln; a World Film Services Ltd. production; a Columbia picture. Running time: 104 minutes.
WITH: the Rolling Stones, Eric Burdon and the Animals, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Otis Redding, Peter Townshend, Cream, Steve Winwood, Blind Faith, Cat Stevens, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Donovan, Joe Cocker, Tina Turner, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, Pink Floyd and Rod Stewart and the Faces.

AKA :Sound of the City and Popcorn

Press comments

The festival was quite widely reported by the conventional press as it was seen as a bit of a novelty , being the first of its kind, most of the coverage was condescending , even the music paper NME was critical, calling the event "WOE-BORE."

" a three-day frolic billed as the world's largest love-in, admission $2.80 per day, hot dogs $2:50 each. More than 12,000 tinkling hippies and mods made the sad scene, went away unloved (boy-girl ratio: 5 to 1), unstoned (200 constables prowled the premises in search of pot), and unmoved by the 15 jangling psychedelic bands. Though the flower children wilted, the duke got a large charge ($14,000 net) out of the love-in, and the duchess was pretty jolted herself. "I was away from Woburn," she said. "I thought these people were holding a flower festival."

'The three day 'Festival of the Flower Children' faded out at Woburn Abbey, home of the Duke of Bedford yesterday, to the tinkling of necklace bells and cash registers ringing up more than £20,000 profits.' (Daily Telegraph, 8/29/67)

'It has been the pop festival of the year. It has been wonderful.' -(Mr. Cyril "Flower" Power, Daily Sketch)

'It is not a 'love-in'. It's a 'cash-in'. A hot dog is costing 1/9d...We are disgusted.' (Hippie spectator , Sunday Mirror)