Yesterday's Papers: Vol 6 - Life on the Isle of Wight in the 1960s

In the Sixties, the Island's steam trains puffed their last, the Army left the Island and J.S. Whites launched their last ship. Mews Ales disappeared, two castles were demolished and six cinemas closed down. But it wasn't all bad news. Musically at least, the Island came alive. It began with numerous well-known chart acts appearing at Ryde most Saturday nights during the mid-sixties, and culminated in two world-famous festivals that firmly put the Island on the map. In 1969, Bob Dylan headlined at Wootton, and the following year some 300,000 fans descended on Freshwater to watch The Doors and Jimi Hendrix.

"The world's press sought sensation and seemed disappointed that the patrons had been so well behaved. It is essential to explode the myth that all patrons of pop festivals are undesirables. The vast majority are perfectly decent, well-behaved youngsters," Sir Douglas Osmond, Chief Constable for the Island.

"A proportion of the faces were depraved almost beyond belief, and in many cases clearly drug-ridden; scores had such faces as might be seen in a criminal lunatic asylum," County Press reader.