BERKSHIRE BYGONES: Did you join first Reading festival?

The first ever ‘Pop Festival’ took place in Richfield Avenue on the last weekend of June, but it wasn’t a stand-alone event, it was being held as part of the Reading Festival. Many cultural and musical events were held around the town, including celebrating the 850th anniversary of Reading Abbey’s construction.

Prior to the pop festival the Chronicle began to print stories of readers concerns regarding the sudden influx of young people descending on the town.

One letter to the editor, with the headline “Stop Pop Festival”, rallied against the organisers and Reading Borough Council: “I don’t think the general public were aware that we were going to have such a thing inflicted upon us.”

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The first act performed at 6pm, the headliner being Arthur Brown (his hit single Fire reached No1 in 1968), tickets at the gate were available for just 50p.

On Saturday the price went up to £1.50 and for that princely sum you could see Sha Na Na, Lindisfarne, Wishbone Ash and Ralph McTell, then on the last day, Rory Gallagher, van der Graaf Generator and Osibisa performed.

The Chronicle’s two page spread the following week was notable for printing all the arrests and magistrate court appearances, held during the weekend, but virtually no mention (or review) of the musical performances.

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Despite all of the teething problems many local shopkeepers and publicans were full of praise for the fans, who (after seeing how much the on-site catering cost) walked into Caversham to stock up.

Glyn Martin, owner of the Bake “n” Take said: “I found the pop fans wonderful, nice, polite people. There was not a single incident the whole weekend, I stayed open till 1am and 2am on Friday and Saturday and did a marvellous trade.”

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Some fans were less generous with their praise, Peter Weddell complained that it should never have been called a pop festival and commented: “Traders on the site were out to rip as much money off you as they could.”

Several fans complained that it was the most uncomfortable and disorganised pop event they had been to, one Londoner, John May, saying: “The ground was muddy and water-logged, the police were breathing down our necks the whole time!”

BIRD’S EYE VIEW: The first festival was in 1971

Although the festival was a highlight of 1971, the museum is also expanding their remit to include the many other things that happened in the town during that year.

Reading Museum curator, Brendan Carr, is keen to hear form anyone who attended the festival in 1971 and he told Bygones: “For this exhibition we are interested in tracing memories and mementoes from the 1971 Festival of Arts, it would be great to hear from anyone that went to the first festival or were involved in organising this landmark occasion in Reading’s cultural history.”

If you want to send your memories of 1971 then please email: museum.collections@reading.gov.uk