Was the world's first rock festival staged in Spalding?

Oakham 1966 was a flop, but Spalding 1967 was a big success. In fact, an article on BBC News (which links to a radio report) suggests it pipped the Monterey Pop Festival in the US to the title of the world's first rock festival.

Barbeque 67 was held at the Tulip Bulb Auction Hall, Spalding, on 29 May 1967. On the bill were:

• The Jimi Hendrix Experience
• Cream
• Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band
• Pink Floyd
• The Move
• Zoot Money and his Big Roll Band

If I recall rightly, the acts had been booked well in advance and had all grown in stature in the mean time. Someone had very good taste.

The Spalding Guardian didn't think much of Pink Floyd, but its report on the event was largely positive. You can go to UK Rock Festivals for a fan's-eye account of the day.

Regions of Britain: The Fens (1977)

Made in 1977 but feeling somehow older, this pleasant little film takes us round various Fenland locations and discusses the history of the region.

It's good to see Crowland Abbey included among the better-known locations.

The River Welland from its source to the sea

This is a lovely video that follows the Welland for 65 miles from its source at Sibbertoft in Northamptonshire, through Market Harborough, Stamford, Market Deeping, Crowland, Spalding and The Wash.

I once looked for the spring at Sibbertoft that is said to be the source of the Welland, but was unable to find it. The makers of this video seem to agree with the people behind the local rewilding project of 10 years ago: these days there is no sign of a flow above the village sewage works.

Don't tell Lord Bonkers, but the reason the river seems to shrink before it reaches Stamford is that water is pumped into Rutland Water.

Rediscovering the St Ives to Huntingdon line

Last week it was March to Spalding. This week it is St Ives to Huntingdon.

You can watch archive footage of the line from Cambridge to St Ives via another post on this blog.

Kenneth Clarke and Tom Brake to speak on Europe in Spalding

Kenneth Clarke and Tom Brake will be two of the panel at a meeting on Europe to be held at the South Holland Centre, Spalding, on Friday evening (7.00pm, 25 May).

It is organised by the European Movement under the title "The Brexit Dialogue: Explaining the Facts, Exposing the Myths, Exploring the Options."

The other speakers will be Amelia Womack, deputy leader of the Green Party, and James Torrance, one of the founders of the new party Renew. (Me neither.)

It will be chaired by that excellent Liberal Democrat George Smid, who chairs the European Movement in the East Midlands.

For free tickets, says Spalding Today, go to the South Holland Centre booking office or phone 01775 764777.

Or you can reserve tickets for a small charge on the South Holland Centre website.

Six of the Best 764

"By definition, once we have no campaigning in a majority of seats our organisation atrophies and we lose the deliverers, canvassers and all the local workers in those seats. Then, at the following election, the number of workers available to go to target seats dwindles away and the strategy doesn’t even work for target seats." Michael Meadowcroft argues that targeting has mortally wounded the Liberal Democrats.

Frances Coppola explains how Carillion used a British government scheme to rip off its suppliers.

A lost opportunity? Rail Magazine on the closed March to Spalding line, which I travelled on as a student.

"The song has been endlessly analysed; it’s intentionally ambiguous and the meanings are still up for debate.  But let’s take a stab at it line by line." Yeoman Lowbrow has another look at Don McLean's American Pie.

James Dilley, an experimental archaeologist and specialist in European prehistory, has been to see Early Man - Aardman’s latest animated adventure

"Moondial taps into that area of the brain which operates purely on instinct and won't rest until every square inch of your body is covered in goosebumps." Curious British Telly celebrates the 1988 children's series.

Recently lost railways 2

The second part of this film covers many lines, including a colliery branch at Moira filmed in the days when Leicestershire still had coal mines.

Two of the more substantial lines covered this time are Aberdeen to Fraserburgh and March to Spalding, I travelled on the latter line in 1979 of 1980.

Watch Part 1 (which includes the Woodhead route) on this blog.

The March to Spalding line

© Dave Hitchborne

The most substantial British railway line I have travelled on that has since closed is the Woodhead route from Sheffield to Manchester.

After that comes March to Spalding. When I was a student in York there was a regular service from Doncaster to Cambridge and I once used it to have an afternoon in Ely.

March to Spalding was closed in 1982 and all freight workings were diverted via Peterborough.

It was an expensive line to operate because of all the level crossings in the flat Fenland landscape. The photograph above, taken from Geograph, shows the signal box that controlled one of them being reclaimed by nature.

There is some chatter on the net about reopening it, but I don't know how well founded it is. The line from March to Wisbech looks a more likely candidate.

Simon Titley

When I discovered that a rock festival featuring Jimi Hendrix, Cream and Pink Floyd had been held at the Tulip Bulb Auction Hall, Spalding, in 1967, there was only one person I wanted to tell.

Simon Titley would have loved the Lincolnshire connection with the summer of love and, when he laughed, he would be laughing with the incongruity of such an event, not at it.

But Simon was already too ill and yesterday morning I learnt that he had died.

As far as Liberator ever had an ideological centre, Simon provided it. His favourite theme, expressed in this Liberal Democrat Voice article, was that the party had to build a core vote of people who were instinctively liberal on social issues.

This made impatient with both those who would reduce Liberalism to a question of free-market economics and also with those who believed that the answer was for us to work even harder to exploit local grievances.

As he would say, that fact that we have to work so hard to remind people that they voted for us last time round, is not a cause for pride but a sign of weakness.

I saw Simon in hospital in Lincoln a few weeks ago, but I shall remember the last time I met him in his pomp. We met in Melton Mowbray in October of last year and then had lunch.

And going through my photos from the day, I find that - quite unexpectedly - I have a couple of him that I took at the table. This is how I shall remember him.

Jimi Hendrix and the 1967 Spalding Rock Festival

This short BBC documentary, presented by Benjamin Zephaniah, tells an unlikely but true story.

Read more about the Spalding Rock Festival - rather wonderfully, it was held at the town's Tulip Bulb Auction Hall.

The River Welland at Stamford

Some 20 miles downstream of Market Harborough comes Stamford. The Welland is considerably larger by then, and beyond Stamford it was canalised in the 17th century - a century before the dawn of the conventional canal age.

Downstream of Stamford are Spalding and the Wash. There is more about the river on the Welland Rivers Trust site.

Water taxis in Spalding

In Spalding a couple of days ago I was keen to see how the River Welland was getting on. Spalding is the third substantial town it flows through, after Market Harborough and Stamford.

I was pleased to find that it is possible to take a boat trip on the Welland there. There is a regular water taxi from the centre of Spalding out to the new Springfields shopping centre on the outskirts of the town.

The boat starts off going upstream on the Welland, with roads and fine houses lining both banks. If I had known how low my camera battery was I would have made more effort to photograph these rather than the ducks.

Then it turns under a bridge and you find yourself on the surprisingly wide Coronation Channel, which is shown in the photo above. This is part of Spalding's flood defences and was dug after the floods of 1947 and, as its name suggests, was finished in 1953.

The idea behind it is that excess water coming down the Welland can be held until low tide and then safely released into the river without the town flooding. The Welland is tidal up as far as Fulney lock, which is just below Spalding.

I congratulate the people behind the water taxi service on their exercise. It's just that I am amazed that they are allowed to operate it in these days of health and safety.