Wigan Album

I remember going to that , not the whole weekend, but Sun afternoon.. What a mess, it had rained a lot, knee deep in mud, and the people, well, I'd never seen anything like it before.. No trouble though, at least I don't remember any.. It was a experience to say the least..

As Maurice Chevalier sang, (but not at Bickershaw Pop Festival), ...."Ah, yes, I remember it well". We went on the Saturday night, just for an hour, and it was chaos....just mud and loud music. I remember the rag-bone man with the horse and cart, too. You could hear his cry of "RAAAAAGG BOOOOOONNNNE" all over the place!

Saturday night was the highlight: Ray Davies visibly drunk, delivered a decent set, with Dave Davies keeping it all together (for once). Family was so loud that they broke a microphone. Captain Beefheart woke us up around 2am to welcome in Sunday morning. I missed the Dead. Cold and hunger drove us all home.

Irene. It was something I (jouell ) will never forget..not my thing at all, but I'm glad I went.. Do you remember who played / sang that weekend.. I have the Kinks in my head, but to be honest, I don't remember much about it, apart from the rain, mud, noise and open toilets.. I remember the rag and bone man, the fish man and so many other things and people.. Wigan when it was bustling, where you could buy anything , from fishing line to clogs. dance dresses to art materials.. anything you needed or wanted you could buy in Wigan.. As you know I don't live there now, but I miss those old days... Stay well Irene..

Jouell, we only went for a look round for about an hour and I can't recall who was on the stage; I think I was too busy looking where to put my feet in all that mud! It hardly seems possible that, you, Jarvo and myself were ALL there on that Saturday night so long ago. Computers and Wigan World were way in the future but here we all are again, sharing memories via those computers and the brilliant Wigan World. You couldn't make it up! But at least we're all still here remembering it, and, as sung by Frankie Valli a couple of years later, "Oh, What a Night"! So lovely to hear from you. x.

Was Rag & Bone man, one of the artists at the Bickershaw Festival ...

I was also there that Saturday night. spent most of it discussing with some Children of God the merits of giving up work and letting the Good Lord provide. I was almost convinced until I looked at the weather and came to the conclusion that the Good Lord wasn't going to provide me with shelter without a bit of effort on my part.

The rag n boneman with his Peaky Blinders attire now looks cooler than the hippies.

Stuart, I imagine the rag-bone man would have thought, "'Oo the 'ell's this bl**dy daft lot?", and carried on shouting "Raaaaaggg Booooone!".

I can't believe YOU were there too, DTease! This must have been the beginning of The Wigan World Gang! x.

The 'Hippie' in the striped robe looks as if he is auditioning for Monty Python's 'Life of Brian'! Bet he would be embarrassed seeing the photo now with his pipe and slippers!

Veronica, I never had a pram; with my brothers being born in 1933 and 1940, (19 years and twelve years before me), my Mam carried me in a shawl, in the old-fashioned way, as she did with them. At The Bickershaw Festival, on that long-ago Saturday night, I wore the shawl round my shoulders, with my Dad's tie round my head......how DAFT were WE?! But I still have that shawl in my wardrobe. xx.

I think it's lovely that you still have the shawl after all these years but it must be nearly threadbare and needing careful handling. Something you wouldn't want to part with- and we all did daft things Irene. I remember my dad grumbling about that festival you would have thought Sodom and Gommorah had returned in triumph to Bickershaw.

The happiest experience of my growing up was being a hippie. I went from phase to phase until I thought this is who I am. Today, many scoff and laugh at this era , like guys who had a perm, or later a pony tail, but this was a very special and wonderful time for me and my friends. What was your time?
If it was as much fun we had being hippies then you will know what I mean. Thanks Frank for the moment in time.. PS Bet Gio knew the hippie girls from the Grammar Schools..

I remember being able to hear the sounds in Hindley coming from Bickershaw on the Sunday.

Their likes had never been seen in these parts before. They came, they saw, they got slopped up uptert thighbaws in Bicky slutch and then left, their likes never to be seen again. There were some strange sights, aliens from another planet included motorcycling hells angels wearing German Stahlhelme. Remember this event being described on tv as "escapism" by one of the old village locals Mr Eck, he was spot on and having the opportunity to witness some of it live as a youngster was brilliant!

I believe that the striped garment is a Moroccan 'Djellaba', from the Maghreb. Superbly suitable garment for such an occasion. I had one that I purchased in 1960's, and still wore it into the 1990's. By then, it fitted my other half better than myself, and she ended up with it when we later parted. I have searched for a replacement ever since the nineties, to help keep warm in winter in my unheated house, but never have found one of the same quality as the one I formerly had.

Albert Cleworth had a yard off Leigh Rd in Hindley Green,still see skips with the name on.

The juxtaposition of Albert Cleworth and the two young men is like something out of Monty Python...Michael Palin, have you anything to add?

You know it's alright getting all nostalgic and gooey eyed over memories of the Bickershaw Festival, BUT there was but and it was a BIG but and it's a pity some of those older folks in Bickershaw, were not alive today to tell their story about what it was like to live in Bickershaw at the time and what it was like to go through living with a pop festival on your doorstep.

First of all if you asked any if the older Bickershaw residents at the time, what they thought about the hippies and bear in mind that was the generation, that had fought in and won the war ….

Long haired layabouts
Drug addicts
Thieving scumbags

That was some of the more printable comments they came out with, because those hippies, broke down wooden fences to make fires with, to keep warm and worse they pinched chickens and ate them, I knew one lad from Bickershaw and his dad had a 'pen' and a pigeon loft at the back of their house and in the 'pen' he kept his chickens and a couple of gooses and one morning during the festival, he found that his 'pen' had been broken into and all his chickens, bar one had been stolen and he reckoned that chicken would have been taken too, except that, that particular bird was quick on it's feet.

Drugs!,,,, apparently they were on all-sorts, not just smoking a bit of weed, cannabis, but they were on the hard stuff and lets face it to walk around Bickershaw wearing that Arab frock like garment, you would have to be on summat …..

A couple of gooses, indeed...Ha, ha, ha, ha...Wally!

The older generation must have been aghast at the goings on,as Stuart says they had never seen anything like it and must have wondered what on earth they had fought a war for. The music, the culture , the dress was alien to them and the use of drugs no doubt and the couldn't care less attitude. I know one of my father's mantras was 'you don't know you're born'. We just thought how old fashioned they were but with age comes wisdom - and you realise their youth was spent conforming and doing their bit and having to grow up quickly. We had never had it so good!

Saint Naylor, I can assure you that the drugs, long hair and thieves had arrived in Bicky long before these kids did. The older Bickershaw residents or residents from anywhere in the UK thought that of that and previous generations anyway, knowing people from Bicky around that time I would have suggested they had looked nearer to home for the thieves and vandals. "Drugs!,,,, apparently they were on all-sorts, not just smoking a bit of weed, cannabis," so where many who frequented pubs/clubs in Wigan and surrounding areas in 72. Lighten up, man! I mean like grab yourself a brace of "Gooses" (Geese you fool) and a funky chicken dude. Oh, Wear your hair long, man you can't go wrong. Peace!

Woodstock
Matthews' Southern Comfort
I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
When I asked him where are you going
This he told me.
I'm going down to Yasgurs farm
Think Ill join a rock and roll band
I'll camp out on the land
I'll try and set my soul free.
We are stardust, we are golden
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.
Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel just like a cog in something turning.
Well maybe its the time of year
Or maybe its the time of man
And I don't know who I am
But lifes for learning.
We are stardust, we are golden
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.
By the time I got to Woodstock
They were half a million strong
Everywhere there were songs and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation.
We are stardust, we are golden
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.

I'm with Joseph and his funky chickens. A weekend to remember i'm sure. Beats getting dragged around Sainsbury's shopping on a Sunday man.[ and ladies ]

When the Bickershaw Festival was on my parents kept the Platt Bridge Inn which was packed to bursting with Hippies and others attending the Festival. I was helping out and carrying Pints over the road because there was no room in the Pub and people were sitting on the pavement opposite. My mother in her innocence commented that the herbal tobacco seemed very popular. On the Monday morning when I went to work I had to move bodies away from the gate so that I could get the van out. On the Saturday night I went yo see what was happening and found that the Platt Bridge'Mafia' were in charge of security and one of them asked if he could borrow my coat because his own coat was stuffed full of notes. The organisers may not have made a profit but some locals did.

I remember hearing that some shopkeepers in Bickershaw were charging extortionate amounts for everyday things like bottles of milk.

Listened to that song on Ytube Dtease it took me back - and what a baby faced singer he looked.

The 1960s/early70s was the height of the Cold War and M.A.D (Mutually Assured Destruction). The Hippie Movement began, in part as a reaction of young people against this kind of nonsense. Now it seems that some people who should know better want to take us back to those days. this generation of young people should refuse to be a "Cog in something turning" and not let it happen. Who knows, maybe THEY will "Get back to the garden".

As mentioned, I was happy to be a so called long haired layabout who did not work , but walked about all day stoned , saying Peace and Man, if that is how they saw it .
It was a time of great change where politicians where sowing the seeds of madness . Did the name flower people arrive because of those who chose to put a flower into the barrel of a gun ? Pete Townsend said he hated Woodstock because if you fell into a puddle you came up stoned. This from the writer of My Generation .
Young people, when growing up ,will always move towards something that matters to them or something they feel good with . This could be clothes, hairstyle, music or a movement like the hippies . But , also when we the hippies where around , the teddy boys and girls hadn’t died , there also mods , rockers , Hells Angels and skinheads . I am surprisingly not shocked or upset that like then , still now , some people still regard the hippies as drug taking layabouts who contributed nothing .
If you look at/behind everything , you will find a reason . The hippies came to be because of a political vacuum , combined with young people wanting to express themselves . It came out in music and dress , any form of revolt . They wanted change .
I will bet this young people revolution will happen again in the future , we see the seeds in Hong Kong. One thing you will never stop , is those wanting change !
PS , please , before you judge , take a step back and ask why first . The hippies were a massive why in human understanding .

Say (or type) what you like, but there is no excuse for taking drugs …

M.A.D. (mutually assured destruction) kept the peace between NATO and the Warsaw Pact Countries for over 40 years and brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union, because the Soviets ran out of money, trying to keep up with the West and you can thank US President,,,, Ronald Reagan for that …

I never had anything against hippies, except for the fact that they stunk, cos they never had a wash, they had a soap phobia and the ones who wore a sheep skin 'kaftan' must have had no sense of smell, I mean have you ever smelt a wet sheep skin 'kaftan' jeeze,,, they were disgusting ...

Peace and Love, Stuart Peace and Love.

Stuart Naylor: Please forgive me if I am cooking my own goose here Stuart, but was it not a couple from the Naylor family interviewed on TV in May 1972, after having their wooden fence removed by a handful of sodden chicken rustlers, amongst the masses camped in the Passchendaele type conditions of Bickershaw ? I recall in recent years seeing some old footage of the Bickershaw couple complaining about the damage and theft of their property at some cost to them. They certainly did suffer from bad behaviour of the minority and their negative experience no doubt still fuels the emotions of their relatives many years later, but as there were no camcorders, mobile phones or video for folks in those days and on a positive note, may I suggest due to their unfortunate experience in 1972, the available film footage taken of those victims 46 years ago, could now be absolutely priceless to their descendants.

Regards TD.

I've been reading my navel DTease and the story is if we were all made of the same stuff there'd be no belly laughs. Power to the funky chicken all!

Stuart Naylor, you do realise that the second world war was fought on drugs by all involved. British troops used 72 million amphetamine tablets in the Second World War and the RAF got through so many that they said “Methedrine won the Battle of Britain”. The Germans used Pervitin and Meth coated chocolate or Panzerschokolade for the armoured units, Flyer's Chocolate more Meth with the same chocolate, Standard issue to Pilots. Russians used a drug called Vint (Screw) as did the Japs. As for saying all these people smelled is silly, I knew some very nice smelling 'Hippie' girls by the way.

The two lads on the left more than likely settled down had a family and are now retired.We all did daft things in our youth.

Trafalgar was won on grog. How else can you explain the working classes fighting against Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité?You have 3 hours to complete your paper. You may start now.

I think that's a girl Pw on the left- I remember those PVC macs at the time.

Having said that it looks like a man's watch on the wrist!

From the load on the back of Albert Cleworths cart it appears he has just acquired a collapsible spring bed to settle down on.
Without further reference to the Hell Angels can anyone explain when and why the old place name of Bykershaghe was changed to Bickershaw? Believe it may be old Norse for marsh beside a village. Excellent choice for a music festival Mr Beadle, the rest is history. Jeremy has long gone, but some people may still recall the organisers theme for the Bickershaw festival ‘Jesus loves you’

TD:

"I am cooking my own goose here Stuart, but was it not a couple from the Naylor family interviewed on TV in May 1972, after having their wooden fence removed by a handful of sodden chicken rustlers, amongst the masses camped in the Passchendaele type conditions of Bickershaw ?"

If you mean Naylor Farm on the main road through Bickershaw, there is no connection, not related or if we are they are a distant relatives ...

I know someone once knocked down their fence with a car and they weren't best pleased about it ...

On about drugs and winning a war when on drugs, I am thinking that the hippy lot at Bickershaw were on LSD and stuff like that, if you gave a hippy soldier a gun when tripping on 'Acid' after 'shooting up' (injecting himself) he would probably shoot his own troops and then shoot himself (wit gun) ...

What's an Hippie soldier?

Joseph, the tank driver played by Donald Sutherland in Kelly's Heroes was a fine Hippie soldier. Fictional character maybe but I bet there were tons like him in Vietnam.

GW, have you been at my Wacky Baccy again? Where has this Funky Chicken come from? I thought you was a Sheep Rustler by trade? (When not at sea that is) Don't tell me you've been reduced to Chicken Rustling instead?

Stuart Naylor:

“If you mean Naylor Farm on the main road through Bickershaw, there is no connection, not related or if we are they are a distant relatives”


“On about drugs and winning a war when on drugs”


My goose is safe Stuart and I never mentioned 'drugs' The farm fence you refer to had geese behind it at one time and a Billy goat bearing some resemblance to Colonel Parker, according to one local report from a very reliable source. Across the other side of the road was Mr Sutch a shopkeeper full of praise for the festival folk when they first arrived, but he soon changed his mind when thieves struck his business. Apart from the bandit getting robbed at one of the village ale houses and the toilet having to be removed for emergency repairs, it was also discovered another local farmer (Adamson?) was having his cows interfered with, by some desperate hippies roaming about in the fields......they took the milk! You and all may still be interested in finding out for sure if you have distant relatives from Bykershage or other places in the commonwealth, free of charge over the bank holiday period 30th March to 2nd of April. Have a goosey gander on Ancestry.co.uk this weekend folks.

Regards TD.

TD leave my Billy Goat out of it - he's been retired now many years!

Veronica, I hereby solemnly declare the old goat will never be mentioned again.

Billy' Goat's gone to pastures new- a field somewhere in 'Howfen' the grass is greener there and peace and love dwells therein - no more worries from the rabble rousing hippies of yesteryear.! I did think of sending him to San Francisco but as usual the Colonel put a stop to it!

Peace in ‘Howfen’ with respect to all cowyeds. Alas the traumatized cows of the Bykershaghe festival have also moved on, horses belonging to the travelling clan now take up their pastures. Sadly you may have missed the opportunity to leave your heart in San Francisco all those years ago Veronica. Your heart throb actually appeared coincidentley at Cow Palace, San Francisco in November 1976.

Where have all the flowers gone,
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone
long time ago.
Where have all the flowers gone
Veronica's goat's eaten every one.
When will we ever learn ,
when will we e..ver learn.

The King didn't reign much longer after Cow Palace - a mere 9/10 months TD. So sad! Goats have to eat Gdub and if it's flowers that tickle their fancy who could deny them!

Poet, you are quite right Oddball was a cool hippie type, I apologise, but that Stuart making with all his negative waves was bringing me down, man. I mean who needs these vibes it's a drag, definitely an antisocial type but it's cool to see the WW chicks getting down with this thread. Stay loose and righteous dudes, peace and love. Woof woof woof!, that's my other dog impression.

I'll have you know Veronica and I were Children of the Universe in 1969, Our Joseph! Kaftans and love-beads, (but we put our thick tights on if it got a bit nippy!). xx.

Now, Our Irene, I had you down as a mini skirted, white patent leather knee length boot type with a Mary Quant bobbed hair style, a sort of a Irene a Go-Go.

Joseph

Never mind havin a go at me and coming out with your "Hippy Talk"

You sound like that stupid rabbit off 'Magic Roundabout'

Dylan

...

Mini-skirts went long ago, Our Joseph, but I wear knee-length skirts.....I'm not tall enough to carry longer ones! But still got the "bob" hair-do. It never goes out of fashion. So nice to talk to you again after a long time! xx.

The bloke carrying a handbag and wearing the striped garment in Frank’s excellent photo could well be a Moroccan wearing a 'Djellaba', from the Maghreb. However although the photo is in black and white, I believe it is a similar coat to the one nicked from Andrew Webbers washing line in 1972 and the person wearing it in Bykershahge could be………. Joeseph! But not necessarily the same Joeseph who has created such a good impression of the scene, at least one of the contributors to this far out thread, believes he can actually hear him. Cool dude…. who spiked the milk man?

It's nice to talk with you too, Our Irene. Hope all is well with you and yours. Happy Easter to you all.

Thats the view from my living room window, literally. It's not changed at all .