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For
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updated Jan 2007
Festival of the Flower Children Woburn Abbey. August 26th-28th. 1967. |
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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 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 . 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 ). |
Intrepid camerman ventures into the mosh pit with the flower children © David Hatchell view his film of Woburn here |
© David Hatchell |
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Breakthru onstage at The Festival Of The Flower Children, photos kindly provided by John Prior. |
I (Jerry Hibbert), my friends Simon 'Yid' Medalia, Jon Owen and Jerry Hughes, decided we'd go. We were sort of hippy-ish, (Art students in Oxford) so we borrowed my Mum's Triumph Herald convertible (No plate XMO 1 which I still own - the plate not the car), borrowed some of her cheap beads because we were a bit short on beads, and sugared off. We arrived very early. We must have been some of the first there. Jon was wearing a kiss-me-quick hat which pissed us all off because it was so un-cool. It was a white sunhat from Margate or somewhere with little pockets all round it with labels saying: 'beer money' 'lunch money' 'bingo money' etc. He knew it was uncool but insisted on wearing it as a rebellion against hippydom.
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. |
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But finally - in the papers next day: certainly in the Daily Mail (when it was a broadsheet - and my photo was nearly full page) but others too - my photograph appeared from just after that balloon had dropped flowers. I am sitting hunched up with a carnation in my hair smoking a Number 6 but in the photo it looks like a spliff - with a title something like: "Look at the folks you meet at Woburn these days" and a lot of blurb about "it's probably disgusting but the reporter couldn't actually SEE anything disgusting going on". "Britain's going to the dogs" - that sort of thing. And Jon got his hat in the papers too. And we were on the Pathe News - Jon and I fighting over the flowers.
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....... |
John Prior reminisces
Steven Chibnall
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© David Hatchell |
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Line-up .
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Eric Burdon at Woburn 67 |
The Small Faces topped the bill on Saturday night , and the stage caught fire at the conclusion of their set . Eric Burdon headlined Sunday and Jeff Beck was the final act on Monday according to Ron Woods timeline. Alan Price also probably played Monday.
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New Animals Bassist and lead guitarist at Woburn |
Eric Burdons 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. AKA :Sound of the City and Popcorn |
Dancers get it on at Woburn 1967 |
It really WAS a festival of Flower children |
*Breakthru
were a professional band from Brum during the period 1967 to 1969 but never
made the breakthrough in to the big time.They did get a recording contract
with Mercury Records and released a double A sided single. Ice Cream Tree
by Tom Loach and Julius Caesar by yours truly. The band were very popular wherever they played being exceptionally good live, they were one of the first live bands used on Radio One's Lunchtime Club which was very popular for a time. Their musical direction was heading very into a very progressive period and the band members were writing some very good songs. An album was planned but the group broke up in late 1969 with financial difficulties. Most of the members stayed in music in one way or another, to this day. Lead Singer Gary Aflalo Lead Guitar Keith Abingdon Bass Bob Booth, later Frank Farrell. Hammond Organ Geoff Garrartley Drums Richard Thomas I was their manager throughout their professional time. Russell Thomas |
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) |
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More photos of the festival here