1960s Hay-on-Wye was not the well-known town it is today, writes Bridget Ashton.

Yet while the newly released Bob Dylan film A Complete Unknown set in the USA captivates the present-day audience, Hay-on-Wye was right there too.

Hay was our Newport Film Festival. We would meet at the Black Lion inn, at the Warren and under Hay’s new bridge with our instruments, and we sang Bob Dylan’s songs.

Bridget’s newly published book Hit the Road, Gals tells of those free-wheelin’ days. She and her friends were students at the all-girls Hereford College of Education, and they sent messages to their network of friends in Newcastle upon Tyne, London, Birmingham and Ireland to meet at the Black Lion.

Her book includes these extracts from October 1965:

Mr Beattie, the owner of the Black Lion, is a Scotsman who christened his two children Elspeth and Ian, and he has a genial reputation. We feel that we might be welcomed there. We have little money and not much food, and no planned accommodation.

Jenny and I arrive first. As we look around the interior of the Black Lion, we notice two rucksacks. Ralph with his friend Steve from London roll in through the door. Now there are four of us, and we’ll have to wait awhile to see who else turns up. We soon become friendly with the Hay boys from the Black Lion darts team, Flash Keylock, Ian Beattie, Des Price.

By 2 am we four were wandering around with our bags by the castle looking for somewhere to sleep. I remembered that there was a barn on the fields behind the castle, and there it was. Empty of straw but enclosed and wind-free.

Next day we sat by the lovely River Wye and waited to see who would turn up. As we sat in the sun under Hay bridge, along came a great gang of scruffy hitchers. First were Jean and Janet from Hereford. Then Rosie and Alicia from the north, Len and his friends Gar and Leo from Ireland, all with sleeping bags and guitar. A little later along came Brian from Birmingham, Nino and Garnet from Hereford, Geoff from London, Philip from Cornwall, Dick the Ban the Bomber.

Len likes to sing Bob Dylan songs. It Ain’t Me, Babe. The words remind me that this handsome songster isn’t looking for girls like me. Oh, no, no. If we give our hearts to a travellin’ rogue, our love may be thrown back at us.

Strange how it is possible to love a place, to feel a sense of knowing and belonging, to feel that this indescribably beautiful part of the country belongs to us, and we sing that the answers are blowin’ in the wind. Joan Baez, too, reminds us that the joys of love are but a moment long.

Now we are at all at the Warren. Len from Dublin is dressed in a top hat and a black duffle coat. On the diving board, Scott is playing his banjo and I play my tin whistle to the sound of silent moving water, echoing birdsong, grass whispering a little, waving buttercups. It’s the warm earthy smell of soil and grass, all bursting fertile life.

That evening, we all went to the Black Lion again and we practically filled the pub with people. At the pub closing time, it was difficult because no-one knew where to go. In the end some went to the empty station to sleep, and others including me took our backpacks and slept under Hay bridge.

On Sunday morning, in Bryne’s shop in Bear Street, we buy milk and lemonade and drink it outside the closed Black Lion. The boys buy their Sunday papers at the Half Moon inn. We make our way through the quiet town to the river, and along the path through the woods. We sit by the water watching the fishermen, Mary and I singing and playing hymns on our various instruments.

The music and lifestyle of the 1960s is captured for the new 2020s generation in the film ‘A Complete Unknown.’ But let’s remind ourselves that it happened in Hay too!

Bridget Ashton’s Hay-based memoir of the lives of young people in the 1960s, Hit the Road, Gals, is part of the Hay Girl trilogy, available on Amazon.