POP fans can now relive the muddy memories of the great Bickershaw Festival of 35 years ago from their own living rooms.

Rare archive film of that wet weekend in 1972 is now available on DVD.

It contains extracts from the sets of the Grateful Dead, Captain Beefheart, Donovan, The Kinks, The Incredible String Band and more - and a backstage film interview with Jerry Garcia.

There's also plenty of crowd footage, and an extra bonus, a 2007 retrospective interview about the festival with Nik Turner of Hawkwind.

It has been produced by Cheshire-based Ozit-Morpheus Records and is one hour 36 minutes long.

The history-making festival which shook the quiet pit village was organised by later TV prankster Jeremy Beadle and Bickershaw resident and Wigan market trader, Harry "The Count" Bilkus.

In his autobiography Beadle admits to walking through the village with black bin bags full of money, which people thought contained rubbish, and that many of the fans managed to sneak in for nothing!

And a certain Leigh baker many years later admitted that his hopes of making a festival fortune selling pies to the fans was to prove just a pipe dream in the mudbath.

Although the organisers put together one of the 70's best festival line-ups of top UK and US rock acts and a host of mixed-media acts such as high divers and clowns, the necessary 100,000 audience figure for the organisers to be financially successful, did not happen. On the positive side the festival holds fantastic memories for both the artists and the audience who attended.

Elvis Costello stood inspired on a windy Sunday afternoon and evening watching the Grateful Dead - and Joe Strummer of the Clash said his favourite concert/ festival he ever went to as a member of the audience was Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band at Bickershaw.

One Leigh fan recalled: "Bickershaw. 1972. Ahh. The memories. Rain, mud, more rain, Hells Angels, campsite on a slagheap and the whole lot congealing together in the most almighty sodden mess. Strangely I remember it quite fondly now. Maybe I was more able to endure such experiences when just a kid."

Bickershaw would go on to inspire the organisers of Deeply Vale Festivals (the subject of another DVD in this series) - an annual North West music festival that ran from 1976 to 1979 just outside Rochdale.

Material for the DVD has been contributed by the North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University, Frank Rigby and Steve Houghton.

It is available at www.tractor-ozit.com or tel 01565 734066 01565 734577 07970 219701 now, or amazon.co.uk or play.com or hmv.co.uk and better shops over the next few weeks.

A second Bickershaw festival is expected to return next year after plans for a 2007 event had to be postponed.