But today I am mainly going to talk about music and in particular about a little known festival from 1969 that I have come across due to a Hethersett connection.
I recently met up with Chris Poole who lives in Hethersett. Chris had a 40 year plus career in rock music both as a journalist and then as a pr guru, working with some of the biggest names in rock music. Following the interviews I have submitted a feature to the Eastern Daily Press newspaper and it should be appearing in the near future. There will also be a feature in the next edition of my Hethersett Herald e-magazine.
Chris told me about a little known 1969 rock music festival which was quaintly known as The Sam Cutler Stage Show. It was organised by the Rugby Rag Charities Appeal (that's Rugby as in the town in the Midlands and not the sport). Many of us older people will remember when University and college students held rag weeks - weeklong celebrations with events usually held in aid of charities. They were a chance for us all to let our hair down (and in those days we 1/ had hair and 2/ it was of sufficient length to let down).
The event was held from September 12th to 14th at Rainsbrook, Ashlawn Road, Rugby. I Googled Rainsbrook and all I could find was details of a crematorium.
To put this "stage show/festival" into some kind of context. The famous/infamous Woodstock Festival took place from August 15th to 18th, 1969, that's a handful of days before the Cutler event.
Sam Cutler was the road manager for a little known band by the name of the Rolling Stones (ok they were well known at this point) and went on to have a long partnership with the Grateful Dead.
Apparently it rained all weekend. The event broke even despite the fact that at its height there were only about 2,000 people on site and at times this dropped to as low as 200.
The intriguing thing is the list of those taking part. Just look at the bill at the top of this page - Free, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, The Groundhogs, The Strawbs, the Nice. This was rock royalty at its height. But the point is that most of these classic rock bands were in their infancy. Pink Floyd were about to release their album Ummagumma but King Crimson's debut album "In the Court of the Crimson King" (in my humble opinion one of the greatest albums in the history of music) wouldn't be out for another month.
But what a line-up there was for the three days. The days had different themes. Day one was jazz tinged, day two was progressive rock and compered by the incomparable John Peel and Day three was a real mixture with the emphasis more on a folky feel.
Chris told me that he still gets messages from people who braved the rain and the mud and remember the festival fondly. It must definitely have been one of those "I was there" events.
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I know I have a number of readers who have joined via the Norfolk Family History Facebook page. They are scattered throughout the world and many have never been to Norfolk but have ancestors from our county. So I like occasionally to feature some local history.
London Street in Norwich was the first shopping street in the UK to be pedestrianised. This was back in July 1967. I have lived in Norfolk virtually all my life and would have been at the Norwich School at this time which is just down the road. But I have no recollection of London Street having vehicles moving along it or of the day when it was pedestrianised. But thanks to the wonderful internet I was able to relive that day and you can too.
To start with the Norwich Society produced a leaflet to mark pedestrianisation day and this is available free on the internet at:
https://www.norwich.gov.uk/downloads/file/3997/booklet_on_london_street_history
And there's a film from the East Anglian Film archives of the closing/opening ceremony and this is available at:
http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/9406
Within three years, 20 other shopping streets in the country had been pedestrianised and the idea went as far as Australia where a street in Perth went down the same route.
The idea of pedestrianised shopping streets was not without opposition, however, with some shopkeepers feeling it would see their trade drop. Today the idea is universally accepted but the change in attitude on the subject is just one of the things that makes it fascinating.