The Way We Were

Vintage at Goodwood is one event I really want to go to next year. Here's what the Guardian has to say :

"Not many festivalgoers have £100,000 burning a hole in their back pocket, but that was the lowest estimate given by auctioneers at the Vintage at Goodwood festival for Sunday's auction of a battered wooden upright piano, scarred by coffee-cup stains and cigarette burns.

The instrument hails from Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles played it on Tomorrow Never Knows and Paperback Writer. Rumour has it that it also featured on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

If that isn't enough to excite collectors, a pearl necklace worn by Jackie Kennedy and an Eric Clapton guitar, propped up nonchalantly in a case near the auction tent's open door, are also on sale.

Kennedy might have felt distinctly underdressed at the festival in West Sussex, which celebrates all things British from the 1940s onwards. Vintage attire is virtually obligatory. From a row of bathing beauties in 1950s swimwear cursing the distinctly autumnal weather (above) to City gents in mutton-chop sideburns and bowler hats, a huge amount of effort – and hairspray – is on display.

Although the festival embraces music, film, art and design, the primary focus is fashion, with a pop-up high street and rows of tents selling everything from prim twinsets to vintage lingerie.

The event is the creation of the designer Wayne Hemingway, who said he was "underwhelmed by the lack of glamour" at the festivals he attended.

The ethos, though, is make do and mend, with workshops on everything from assembling your own Clothkits designs to sewing a 1950s swing skirt or even creating yourself in doll form using secondhand fabrics.

The Oxfam shop sold vintage pieces sourced across the country to an excited crowd – it made more than £1,000 within 30 minutes of opening – while the blitz spirit is alive at the tea dance tent: no plastic cups, only china.

Apart from the festival iPhone app, barely a sign of the 21st century has crept in. Even those who have sunk a few pints can get nostalgic over their curry in the flock-wallpapered Taste of India before a ride on the mobile cinema – one of a 1960s German fleet – to watch Bugsy Malone or The Ladykillers.

More adventurous types have been seen heading for the roller disco. No prizes for guessing the 70s soundtrack."

Sooooo want to go next year and bag myself a Beatles Piano!!!