Flashback

Writer Laura Croker, 66, on being a starry-eyed teen at Isle of Wight’s ‘Woodstock of Europe’ 26-31 August,1970

Writer Laura Croker relives the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival

I was 16 years old, post O-level euphoric, and besotted with pop music. The summer of 1970 stretched ahead and, unbelievably, my parents let me go to the Isle of Wight Festival, assuming I would be safe with family friends. Unbeknown to them, my friends were working on the food stalls, so during the days, I was on my own, just soaking up the vibes.

The festival had been running for two years, but island residents had contested it and the organisers couldn’t make it profitable, so this was to be the final year. It was billed as ‘the last great event’, attracting an audience of 600,000 and acts including The Who and Jimi Hendrix. Indeed, now it is widely recognised to be the music festival of its time, bigger than Woodstock, the year before.

I remember travelling from my home town of Weymouth, catching the bus along the coast road to Freshwater and passing hundreds of people shuffling along, laughing, laden down with tents and sleeping bags. The bus spilled us out at Afton Down and we camped in a stony, ploughed field. In the arena Amazing Grace was playing.

Just a couple of weeks before I had been hunched over a desk in the school gym, translating passages from Caesar’s Gallic Wars. Now for five glorious days, I was one unwashed hippy among half a million, melting into the scene in my headband and tie-dyed grandad shirt. Starry-eyed with ephemeral friends, some who enthralled me with memories of Woodstock, I shared tins of stew, blankets, toilet paper and the most memorable music of our lives. Each morning we made the front pages of the newspapers, with headlines such as ‘Rocktopia!’ and ‘Popsville from the air.’

But when the first band came onstage I felt a lurch of disappointment – I couldn’t see them. I was expecting them to be giants! Luckily someone we knew had binoculars. There was so much music: Joni Mitchell, Ten Years After, John Sebastian, Sly and the Family Stone, Free… Just once I was afraid. While The Doors were playing, people climbed the lighting towers to get a better view. The towers began to sway and lean over the arena. After entreaties from the stage and a barrage of cans from the crowd, they got down.

New supergroup Emerson Lake & Palmer bombarded us with classical melodies and rock histrionics, shaking everyone wide-awake by firing two enormous cannons that boomed across the island. The smell of the cannon smoke nipped the cold night air, and we made a fire from cardboard boxes. It gave a blaze of light and not much heat, but it kept us busy and awake until the announcement at 1.30am: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, our own lads from Shepherd’s Bush – The Who!’

My favourite band. They brought the house down with See Me, Feel Me, Pete Townshend wresting tortured riffs from his guitar; Roger Daltrey imperious and stamping. The arena was bathed in green spotlights that flashed across the downs and lit up cross-sections of the hill behind. I was wrapped in a poncho, never wanting it to end.

On my last morning, as I joined the queue for the bus, my dream took hold: I had to stay in the world of music. I had no idea how. In 1970, career guidance was scant and conventional. Back home in the shower, my festival dirt may have washed away, but the memories of that perfect blend of love, peace, sunshine and music never diminished.

Five years later in London, I found a way and started to work for Elton John, where I was involved in many huge concerts. Fifty years later, I am still a massive music fan. For me, the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival was not the last, but the first, great event.

Above The Who on stage at the Isle of Wight Festival. Below Croker at the event