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The cry of "Wally" at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival came about due to him (“Wally”, a nick name) getting lost after going to get us some chips. "Wally", real name Walter Potts, was an apprentice at the English Electric Rugby along with myself. Four of us had travelled to the festival and it was during a break in the bands, whilst the equipment was being changed on stage, that Walter decided to go off and get some chips, the other two we had travelled with had gone down to the beach. As Walter had been gone quite some time I began looking around and saw him way off in front of me looking around for where I was sitting.. After my solo attempt of waving and shouting his nick name "Wally" to try to attract his attention a group sitting behind me asked what was the problem. I explained what the problem was that “Wally was lost and could not find his way back so we decided it would be better if we all shouted together. It started with around 6 of us shouting "Wally". I see a remark from a Peter Bishop on the BBC Hampshire & Isle Of Wight page refers to this so he must have sat quit close and may have been involved in this and also HD who quotes Roger Gray on the Pseudodictionary.com page who also almost got it right. Anyway this number of people shouting “Wally” still had no effect on attracting his attention so another group to the right also joined in. By the time the numbers shouting around me had increased to 50 odd “Wally” finally started looking in our direction but just as he recognized me another cry of “Wally” went up from across the other side of the arena then another from the front which left “Wally” pirouetting around wondering what was happening. He finally made his way back to me but by this time the chips were cold. The arena then constantly resounded with the cry of Wally and those who had been close by acknowledged him by everywhere he went.
He later left English Electric and the last I heard of him was that he worked in a Christian Aid bookshop.
I verify this to be the true account of where the cry of “Wally” originated at this event.
Colin Harris 90.199.87.70 (talk) 18:54, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Origin of the Wally chant at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970
editI can confirm Colin Harris's story. I was about 10 yd's in front and to the right. I was 18 and had hitch hiked down from the West Midlands, I got a lift to the site with a van full of students It was Late Saturday morning and very hot and sunny, the bands were taking forever to set up. There was no music being played by DJ's between bands so you had total silence coming from the stage for a long time, after a while everyone became restless i.e, several thousand hot and bothered festival goer's, some people started shouting Wally behind me, I could see they were trying to attract the attention of their friend who was carrying a cardboard box up ahead, about 60 yd's away, he was looking around for his friends, they could see him but he couldn't see them. The people around the people shouting and waving their arms also seen what was going on and joined in as did the people around them, including myself, within moments a few dozen shouting, laughing people had turned into a few hundred all jumping up and down and going nuts and shouting "wally, over here". I seen Wally staring with amazement at the sight of what looked like thousands of festival goer's going wild and shouting his name, people around him put him on somebody's shoulders and he was paraded around like Julius Caesar returning from the conquest of Britain for a while before being returned to his friends. It was epic comedy and quite something to see how the occasion created a ripple that went way beyond the event itself, as if the whole world wanted to help someone find their friend before the chips got cold! --78.151.53.211 (talk) 18:16, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
The Isle of Wight location needs a reliable secondary source
editI have removed the following text from the article:
In fact the location was the Isle of Wight Festival either 1969 or 1970, at which a real person named Wally was carrying food/drinks and trying to find his friends amongst the audience who were mostly seated on the ground. His friends called his name repeatedly (no loudspeaker) but he failed to see them before others in the crows also started shouting his name as a joke. The joke took off and swept throughout the entire festival crowd and became part of festival folklore from that point on.
It was added by Pjburrows1 at 20:26, 17 May 2017, who stated in the editorial comment Have added section identifying the Isle of Wight Festival, based on having witnessed the event - in either 69 or 70. As I said in my editorial comment WP:OR (the original research policy) states "Do not add unsourced material from your personal experience, because that would make Wikipedia a primary source of that material".
What we need is a reliable secondary source (see WP:SOURCE) to state what is common knowledge for the tens of thousands people who were there. -- PBS (talk) 16:59, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
50 years later
edithttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10217997167623968&set=gm.10158756364594357&type=3&theater&ifg=1 Note the comment of Glenn Showler here. I myself was one of the Germans he recalls who joint into the first shoutings. RX-Guru (talk) 09:23, 1 September 2020 (UTC)