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130 FANS CHARGED AT ROCK FESTIVAL. 
      by JEREMY BUGLER 

 


  THE outlawed rock music festival in Windsor Great Park started yesterday with thousands of fans running the gauntlet of road blocks, searches and, arrests by the police Drug Squad.  Police arrested more than 130 people. By yesterday evening over 40 of them had been charged, most of them with possessing cannabis , but there were also a number of cases of alleged theft. 
A police laboratory worked overtime analyzing Windsor 'substances' and also drugs from the rival, fee-charging festival down the road at Reading.

  A Thames Valley police spokesman said more than 70 fans at Reading had been charged with various offences. Many appeared in court during the day and 30 more were expected to appear before magistrates tomorrow. Inside Windsor Great Park the most popuIar drug was the sun, which shone steadily in defiance of the locals who had prayed for rain. An old fashioned drug was making a comeback in the heat. It was beer. 

The festival's organiser , Bill Dwyer, a hirsute Stationery Office clerk, was mainly pleased. "I deeply resent the  Drug Squad; everything else is great."  Few latrines were dug, despite promises, and most people made for the bushes.  Yet the festival has eight more days to go.
  The drug aid association Release ran a field station.: Dr John Guv, working part time, said he had a few cases of people with bad trips. One man threw himself on a fire. Firemen were called to put out several fires lit in some of the park's great old oak trees. Other people pulled down branches to make fires.

  This was at odds with the Festival's claim to be 'a festival of Ecology.'