Robert Stredder, 29, kissing at the Isle of Wight festival, 1970

I was living in Brighton, doing theatre acting when I met the band Hawkwind. They had about 30 drummers, and invited me to join them backstage at the Isle of Wight festival in 1970 as a sort of extra. I played a small African drum, a djembe, made of goatskin. We weren’t part of the official festival. There were two stages: the main festival stage, and the one behind it, which faced a hill where about half a million people gathered, people who couldn’t afford to get in. Hawkwind played when there were gaps in the show.

In this photograph, we’re on that hill. The woman was a girlfriend of mine, but I can’t remember her name. I was only with her for the duration of the festival. You lose friends all the time in a crowd of half a million, and there were no mobile phones, so it was hopeless. We had an understanding that if we lost each other, we would meet at the King & Queen pub in Brighton, and I think we did. She wasn’t the great love of my life, but she was good fun.

At the time, I remember papers such as the Daily Mail and the Sun were disapproving of festivalgoers, but it was a really mixed audience – you couldn’t generalise like that. Most people didn’t have tents, so we just slept in the open, under a rug.

It was a wonderful festival musically, and quite anarchic, but so unhygienic. Rubbish was everywhere. The toilets were awful – overflowing with shit, so most people would go up the hill, dig a hole, and go in the heather. The people of the Isle of Wight didn’t want another festival after that; this was the last one they did until 2000.

The day Jimi Hendrix played, people pushed the fence over and about 10,000 of us ran down the hill and followed them in. I got to 40 yards from the stage. He played the first note and I completely crashed out. I hadn’t slept in three days. My friend tried to wake me up, but I missed the whole thing.

A few weeks after the festival, I was in Gothenburg: we were in a nightclub and the DJ announced that Hendrix had died. There was nearly a riot, because the DJ said something like: “Hendrix has died, serves him right.” It went down like a lead balloon. I was very upset, and knowing I’d come so close but never really heard him play, I cried.

I first saw this photograph a week or so after Isle of Wight. My friends brought me the Observer magazine, stuck it in front of me, and said: “You’re famous!” It felt weird because I didn’t know the photographer had been there, but I don’t blame him for taking the shot.

I’m an actor now, living in Swindon. When I look back at this picture, I feel it’s quite naive and innocent. Despite the anarchy, we went there for the music. We were just having a good time.

Interview by Erica Buist

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