Five hundred students on the original battlefield

On 14 October 1966, 500 students from Kent and Sussex universities staged the first re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings, marking the battle's 900th anniversary on the same fields outside Battle in East Sussex where the original clash happened.

The English side wore belted sacks and carried swords and axes made of wood and hardboard painted silver, brandishing spears and shouting for Harold as they awaited the invading army of William the Conqueror.

• •The mock battle was delayed by 20 minutes because the actors playing the Normans were held up in traffic on the A27 from Brighton.
• •About 30,000 highly partisan, anti-French spectators looked on.
• •A bemused French foreign minister attended, Queen Matilda was played by Miss World, and health and safety was a far-off dream.

A 'God-almighty punch-up' between rival students

Peter Sampson, then a Sussex fresher, signed up because he was promised a grand day out and free beer. He said the rivalry between the two universities was real, and once the sides met, the re-enactment turned into what he called "a God-almighty punch-up", with "actually a lot of real pushing and shoving, a lot of fighting going on in there". The battlefield itself, he said, was edgy.

Sampson also remembered his friend John being struck hard on the head by the end of a fake spear, an injury that hurt John's face quite badly.

Sampson said hostilities ended after 25 minutes of fisticuffs, and things became much more convivial. When the promised free beer failed to materialise, he and the others "took matters somewhat into our own hands" and, as he put it, "liberated a couple of beer kegs from the back of the refreshment tent". The two sides cracked the kegs open, sat down together in the warm afternoon sunshine to discuss the day's events and, by his account, it became very friendly at the end of the day.

How the colour film resurfaced

The film was shot by Alan Wootton, an electronics manufacturer who lived in Hastings, after Hastings town council invited him to capture a film record of the celebrations. It surfaced when his son Cliff, who helped out on the day as a 12-year-old, visited Battle Abbey and mentioned to a volunteer that he had 300 reels of film of the event. Battle Abbey is the medieval foundation built on the site of the battle and is today overseen by English Heritage.

English Heritage has now acquired the rare colour footage of the inaugural event and condensed it into a 12-minute film. The result is described as Monty Pythonesque, although that comedy did not air until three years after the re-enactment.

James Witcombe, site manager of Battle Abbey, said: "When Cliff showed me the footage, I was blown away by it, it was really, really impressive."

A tamer battle this October

The 1966 staging spawned an annual event that still attracts thousands of visitors each year. This year's Battle of Hastings re-enactment will be held on 10 and 11 October, with a full battle run-through each day, and the result does not change. Witcombe said 1,000 combatants are expected.

The mood has moved on from the knitted outfits of 1966: Witcombe said re-enactors today take the event very seriously, focused on authenticity and experimental archaeology. The film, he said, shows a load of amateurs getting together and really having fun, and English Heritage wants to preserve that atmosphere while "just making sure we've got a few more sort of boundaries in place and nobody actually gets hurt".

Crowds still tend to back the home side, he said, though "it's a bit less partisan than it used to be". English Heritage is expecting bumper crowds, with the Bayeux tapestry's presence in London having driven up interest in all things Norman, and it is inviting anyone involved in the original 1966 event to attend.