A big idea, star-studded line-up and the battle to get them on stage.
Fifty years ago this week, 50,000 people and some of the biggest names in entertainment descended on a rural village in Lincolnshire. The Great Western Express remains an unforgettable one-off for those who were there and left an indelible mark on its hosts. But it almost never happened at all.
The Great Western Express' promoters could see there was demand, but to find a venue they had to overcome fears of litter and drug use.Festival chief Stanley Baker was a target of some abuse over his plans for the festival In Essex, protesters threw effigies of chief organisers Stanley Baker and Lord Harlech on to a bonfire. So Bardney it was.
"Even my Land Rover got bogged down in the mud and needed towing out," he says. "It was the wrong time of the year to hold a festival.""In the middle of this field was this giant haystack," he says. "Well, some clever so-and-so thought they'd build themselves a little shelter, using the hay, to keep dry. Someone else saw it and thought they'd have a go too. Over about four hours, these little hay huts started popping up all over the site.
Despite the fierce opposition, the organisers had done it. They had brought some of the country's most popular acts to an unlikely, unwilling location in the Lincolnshire countryside. "All seven pubs, as we had back then, ran dry," says Barry Newlove, owner of Bardney Heritage Centre, which still displays memorabilia, including posters and photographs from the festival.
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