Vicky Steward
“I personally navigate around the festival using 30 years of memories, which is of absolutely no use to anyone else at all. The main memory I think I will retain from 2016’s very muddy event is of the spot close to Arcadia (we’d just been to see the show which was fantastic) where we spent an hour on Friday night. We stopped by some litter bins and discovered the car-sized patch of mud in front of us was somehow more treacherous than the rest. About half of the people trying to get through it got stuck, fell over and lost their wellies. Being the helpful, kind people we are we started placing bets on who would go over next. The family next to us (who turned out to be from Pilton) joined in with an It‘s a Knockout style commentary. We then all started applauding: 1. All the people who fell over and 2. All the people who looked like they were going to fall over but didn’t. I did have a fleeting moment of guilt at not actually helping anyone, but actually, it’s hard to help when you are laughing so much you are crying. Besides, most of the people who went in to help fell over and lost their wellies too. At one point a group of security surrounded the mud and looked intimidatingly at it, but it defied their control measures and persisted in being sticky and hazardous, so they went away again.
I once got horribly lost by the Pyramid Stage, bewildered by a mass of signs, none of which pointed to where I wanted to go. I turned in circles looking desperately for the correct exit until a very concerned looking lady from the Samaritans stall opposite came over to stroke my arm and ask me if I needed a cup of tea and a sit-down. I have found myself in the same spot every year since. in my Festival memory bank it is labelled as ˜That bit where I always get lost”. Needless to say this ensures that I can never find the right route to where I am actually heading, but I just stride off confidently in a random direction for fear of looking like a middle-aged festival virgin.
Arguably the two histories of Glastonbury Festival and Glastonbury Town are inseparably intertwined, with the festival having a huge effect on the Town and vice versa. When I arrived in Glastonbury in 1993 many of the locals liked to ignore the festival, dismissing it as a bunch of stoned hippies in a field listening to terrible music. Much like the Glastonbury hippies tend to dismiss the Glastonbury Carnival as a bunch of burger eaters watching farmers’ wives in shiny tights on ridiculously power consuming floats playing ear-splittingly loud pop music. There’s a crossover though - many of the Carnival Clubs volunteer as marshals for the festival to raise funds for the carnival.
Goodwill towards the festival has no doubt grown, largely due to the fact that anyone in the local area who can make a toasted sandwich or brew cider realized they had a massive captive market of festival goers. Those who caught on early enough managed to grow their businesses as the event grew and many now serve the huge number of other festivals that happen all over the UK and Europe, but Glastonbury is, for many, their biggest earner.
No doubt the attitude towards the festival has improved amongst the local press and officialdom since it has become the preserve of the middle classes. Gone are the days of (Special) Brew Crew Crusties. Some complain that the event has lost its edge, become too safe, too commercial. This is a fair point unless you are the kind of person who has never found the thought of being mugged by Scallies exciting. Before the days of the Superfence I too used to applaud the fence jumper who successfully evaded security, but then cursed them when I was stuck in a scary bottleneck or endlessly queuing for the loos as the services became horribly overstretched.
Nowadays you do have to actually contribute something worthwhile to get your ticket, and as a consequence the quality of those contributions has grown. It’s no longer enough just to be a face painter or a juggler or push around a pram full of vodka jellies, unless you have joined together with other creatives and truly developed these things into an art form. A huge number of the creative people who contribute to the event – as musicians and performers, in production roles, as artists, build crew, healers, are drawn from Glastonbury Town, and of course, many of those living in the Town first discovered it through coming to the Festival.
People think if you live in the town you get a free ticket to the festival. This is not true. Only those living very close to the festival in Pilton Village, who are also on the electoral register, get free tickets. I have heard it said that the Electoral Commission were incredibly impressed by the political conscientiousness of the Pilton Village residents, all of whom registered to vote. They even considered a study to find out what they could learn from them to foster enthusiasm for our democratic system in other English villages.
Not so many years ago Glastonbury Town actively repelled Festival Goers from coming to the town before or after the event. It is rumoured that the Town Chamber of Commerce refused Michael Eavis’s offer of a free page dedicated to advertising the town in the programme as they didn't want “those sort of visitors”. Nowadays the townspeople put on a Glastonbury Fringe event to encourage visitors to the town during the Festival, and showcase local talent. I’ve never seen it as I am always at the Festival. Over the last (nearly 30) years I have got in through the Traveller Field in the days before the fence, as a trader managing a bookstall in the Avalon Field, as a band manager, as Gate Crew on Blue Gate, helping run the Tipi Fields and in recent years as Site Manager for the Glasto Latino Field. I find my enjoyment of the Festival increases the more involved I am.
In Glastonbury probably 2% of the residents wear wellies daily. At the festival it’s closer to 90%. Even in the years when the site becomes swelteringly hot and dusty (giving rise to the infamous Pilton Black Bogey) youngsters still sport patterned rubber boots, as if a massive mud bath could appear at any moment. Those Glastafarians in wellies often found them abandoned at a previous Glastonbury Festival. So much stuff is lunched out at the end of the festival that most of the locals have sheds full of tents, folding chairs, roll mats, cool boxes, sleeping bags etc.
Some people roam the site on Monday actively looking for quality items that just need a wash to be reused, a process known as ˜tatting”. I used to do it, excited by the prospect of finding expensive camping gear or rolls of banknotes (it does happen), but was rubbish at it. Many years ago I was ineffectually tatting (all I had found was a tin opener) when a particularly handsome stranger came up and gave me a kiss. I was so gobsmacked I wasn’t even able to ask his name. Nowadays I generally find the mess and wastefulness too depressing to face, though on a dry year I have been known to pick up an entire year’s supply of loo roll. I’d like to think this was me being Green but actually, it’s more me being really tight fisted.
Some say that Glastonbury Town is like an all year round festival. When I attended my first Glastonbury Festival (I think it was 1988 but I’m not entirely sure) I was struck by the friendliness and kindness of strangers, having been brought up in a Midlands town this was largely unfamiliar to me! In common with the many, many thousands of people who have been to the festival over the years, I was transformed by the experience of being immersed in a massive crowd of people having a good time and being nice to one another. I decided this was the life I wanted. Moving to Glastonbury Town meant I got to live in that same atmosphere of colour, vibrancy, creativity, anarchy and diversity that I had discovered at the Festival.”
Check out Vicky’s blog about life in Glastonbury Town! https://normalforglastonbury.uk/
Venetia Dearden
“I grew up next to the festival site, our house is walking distance from one of the entrances and in the early days the traffic went right past our front door. As a child, I loved the annual caravan of people who came by. They would often come to our house for eggs & cheese or to use the phone. My parents always had the door open and would help anyone. It was thrilling in so many ways. My family love the festival and I haven’t missed a year since I went at 8 months old in 1976. This has been helped by the fact the Eavis’s give tickets to all the locals which is wonderful. For most of the year, the valley is empty and its always incredible to see it fil up and become a huge temporary city.
When I was 17 I started working with friends, the Temperleys, on their legendary cider bus. I think working there is a wonderful way to experience the festival, and I did that for about 6 years. Then I got into the photography and I was inspired by the many interesting people I was serving over the bar, hearing their stories. I wanted to get closer to the individuals and was inspired to photograph them. I approached Michael Eavis with a project idea, inspired by Richard Avedon’s photo book ‘In the American West’, and he offered me a spot in the Avalon field to take photos against a white backdrop. He is really supportive of local artists and initiatives.
The first year I had a tipi, covered the back in white paper and set up some lights. I spent most of the festival taking the lights down and then getting them up again, because the Tipi wasn’t waterproof and it didn’t stop raining! It was a disaster. So the following year I took a tent, and the project grew from there. At first we would approach people, then after a couple of years, people were queueing up to have their picture taken ( I made all the pictures available to the sitters). I worked on the project for seven years, starting in 2003. I had an amazing team of friends who helped male this dream come true. Rich Hendry, Josh Lustig, Sarah Hulme, Jess and Buc Dennis, Simon Williams, Liz Ings, to name but a few. It was absolutely a team effort I could never have done it on my own!
We opened the studio day and night. I just loved meeting all the people – the stories were just amazing, and this is why I love this project of Emma’s! What makes Glastonbury Festival is the spirit of the people. The festival goers, and the workers. Glastonbury is made up of so many ‘families’ who have been part of the festival forever - all these families bring their own creative identities to their areas, and foster a sense of ownership, returning year after year with new and exciting ideas. I think it is also unique in its ability to keep circus arts and niche performance areas alive, as well as attracting global talent.
With the help of Art Director Candace Bahouth we started photographing the performers too. I was lucky enough to have a few moments with Shirley Bassey, Leonard Cohen, Amy Winehouse, Paul Weller, Lily Allen and many many more. The resulting book, Glastonbury Another Stage, was published for the 40th anniversary, with Michael Eavis writing the foreward. It captures some of the cast of characters who create, visit and perform at the festival every year. It was celebrated with a solo show at the National Portrait Gallery in 2010 and has been exhibited worldwide. ( copies are still available!)My brother now runs and off site camping called Pennard Orchard. For me, the festival will always be an annual gathering of friends and family, time shared with the people I have come to know who help create the festival. I will miss it so much this year!”
Check out Venetia’s Glastonbury photos at https://venetiadearden.com/
Robin Fox
“My first years at the festival were as a young 90s raver. Hitching rides and jumping trains were always the start of the adventures, meeting new friends along the way. Often I traveled with just the clothes on my back and the freedom of an open mind that allowed the mischievous hands of Glastonbury festival to lead me astray, very astray. I loved it.
Finding out the best place to get in through the fence was done tactfully and quickly. Sometimes you could just walk straight in but most years it was a scaling affair. The first 6ft fence was usually easy but one year, after consuming a bottle of Malibu in a car, I drunkenly launched myself and a carrier bag full of cans onto its spikes spraying larger everywhere. The second fence was always more daunting but the adrenaline was on full power by then.
It was almost a joy to be met by the many gangs awaiting our landing on the other side with their squidgy black hash (that was literally mud they had collected from the ground) The pills and powders, umbrellas for a tenner and no doubt some poor victim getting robbed the very moment they arrived.
Glastonbury often had a medieval feel to it. The mud fights, the mayhem, the magic, the revelling freedom and let's not forget the romance, fuelled by intoxication, euphoria and natural endorphins.
In the early 2000's performing as a Magician and Circus performer was a different vibe. On site parking, performers camping with hot showers, clean loos, our own catering and my photo in the program. I relished in the ability to venture out into the crowds and loose myself in the eye of the tornado and then flash my pass at the heavenly gates to escape back into the secret world behind the fence where all the loos all had paper with no fear of interruption!
My last visit in 2007 was not as a performer but as a guest of a well known actress.
We had barley stepped in through the gates when a photographer asked if he could take a photo of us. Perhaps he recognised her but it could have been my rather outstanding wardrobe ensemble consisting of a bright yellow fisherman’s outfit and top hat wrapped in a Mole Valley carrier bag that attracted his attention.Whatever it was he snapped away as did many people on our magical wanderings. The next day I awoke and switched on my phone, it went berserk with a flood of texts... we were front page news. TV, Nationals, all over the place.
My outfit, in preparation for one of the muddiest festivals on record, had clearly sparked the media's interest. Well, that and the company of a wonderful actress.”
Rosanna Rose
“Pilton where do I start? We were learning to walk and you taught us to run. Life lessons beyond anything outside the gates. I started my adventure as a toddler pushed along in a wheel barrow with a flat tyre in to family camping by my Dad. Mum made a flower painted toilet that felt like luxury . Not my turn to empty!
Then when the fence got bigger my festival mummy’s let me hide away and paint the kids field castle with octopuses and fish for days , printing T-shirt’s for a bit of hidden sanctuary off the muddy lane. You were hot and so dusty that year. Adopted by festival mummy’s I learnt to find my feet .
Theatre and circus the paint still in my hair but with a different festival family where we learnt to love but also lose. How many miles of fence to paint with everyone’s adventures! We were independent and free. Staying on for a month later to littler pick the magic back in to our pockets till we planned to never leave. Children learning to live.
You have to keep moving so I gave my hand to Arcadia when the big spider graced the south east corner and made the floor move. Late nights, late night, work, work, work… did I go to the festival?! A blur. You were a swamp that year, people kayaked to their shifts on the railway island .
Time to move again to find a greener sanctuary . Then I landed at my forever home Crossiant Neuf gate crew, O I do love you . Fiddle players at 4am and the smell of a forever burning fire to pass on the high vis to a warm chair. Backgammon on shift , did someone just walk through? How many backstage area bands can you get was the game, trading like cards.”
Tracie Hollingworth
“Our Glastonbury festival story starts in March 2007 when out of the blue a friend of ours asked my husband if he would like to help crew a bar on site.The answer was an almost immediate YES.
So he left me at home with a 4 year old and joined the T&C Green Room Bar crew. Every year he came back with stories while I watched the show on TV.
In 2013 when our daughter was more capable of helping out a little I was asked if I would like to join the crew. “Oh, yes please”. We have had some wonderful times since then. Driving in on the Saturday before the festival opens, helping build our small part of it, having fun with our wonderful customers, enjoying some great bands on our little but perfectly formed stage. The sun, The mud!, The Flood!, Yes we were 8 inches deep in water one year. And now that 4 year old has grow up, she is part of the T&C crew at the Café next door.
We do this for the incredible Children’s World Charity and for the love of our customers, performers and crew.I love my adopted T&C family and will miss them dearly this year. See you all in 2021”
John Firth
“I went there 1998-2005 minus 2001 which I think was fallow.
I think the proper fence went up in 2002?
We jumped in those first 3 years. Always confronted by someone on the outside wanting a fiver to go through the hole they’d cut but then jumping over just next to them instead. It was always the first buzz of the weekend not knowing if we'd get in or not, even if we knew we would!
Possibly the best times of my life.
That last year before the fence went up, I read anything from 200 to 400,000 people were estimated to have been on site with I think official ticket sales still at around100,000. Was definitely on the edge, fine as a single bloke in my 20s, kinda sketchy at times at night for girls and kids. But probably that mix of people from really all walks of life gave it that completely unique feeling. Impossible to really convey what it was like in words without sounding all cheesy and ‘it was better back then’ to people you weren't there with. With those people I was there with we just have to mention the festival to each other and not really say anything else. Very special times.
The photos here are either 1999 or 2005. I can probably find and scan the original of the flood one if you wanted it and I have more of them. Either way it was wet! We always camped up from the Glade on a 'hill' but had mates camped down the bottom. It as crazy to see the rivers flowing down where there were paths and our mates' tents fully submerged under a few feet of water. I remember seeing a bloke diving underwater and coming back up clutching a bottle of vodka he'd retrieved from the tent!
So much good music but often didn't know who I'd seen when people asked me afterwards. I'd have to check the programme and pick a few headline acts out to tell people in the office. Not sure I ever saw a headline act, for me that wasn't the point, more to just wander and be led wherever felt right. We'd often find ourselves dancing to the tunes between DJs in the dance tent, probably just a CD, often joking the next day that "'Phil Inn' was decent last night". The fill in DJ. Could've been anyone, often having no idea who we actually saw or didn't! And talking shit around the fire when coming back up to the tents between forays off down into the magical world below. I was came to dancing to the 'beat' of a generator next to the Hare Krishna tent (used to hang out there in the day a bit), not my finest moment...
Just floating around listening to anything and everything. Afternoons in the Glade and at the Cider Bus, nights in and out of the dance tent, getting lost in Lost Vagueness, into the Tiny Tea Tent talking to so many different people, ‘Yop Yoghurt’ tent for some early hours dance music, up to the Stone Circle for sunrise, a couple of hour’s kip before it became too hot and then start over again! Used to take a full week off work afterwards and disappear into the Wye Valley, the crash back down to reality was full-on and needed to be managed carefully! Mates who went back to work straight away would burst into floods of tears randomly in the office or be hallucinating in meetings.
Pretty much none of us had phones back then as well. No need to mention that made it even more special looking back. Hardly any photos either which is the only downside, but avoiding the logging everything for social media was special. Like the '90s all over. Last non-digital decade of partying. Look at me, now I'm getting all 'it was better back then' like I said!
Oh and the pigeon on a stick, only way to find mates while we were there. That or "see you at the back left of the mixing desk" which became the 'guaranteed' can't-fail meeting point, rarely happened but when it did such a buzz to 'bump into' your mates in amongst 1000s of others.
Not been back since, I'm 42 now and have 2 young kids. Really want to take them but not sure if it’s changed too much. Like I said, best days and memories of my life. I so want them to somehow experience what I did and really hope they can one day.”
Jayne Protheroe
“My story begins with meeting Tracy Harrison asking me to help .. she amazed me with her kindness .. and everyone being amazed by her .. she welcomed you in with a love I never known before .. she soon became friend and godmother to my one and only daughter.. I became a member at Tracy’s hygiene crew doing admin at Glastonbury and the event opened my eyes to a city of wonder ! And the friends I made and will never forget and family!
We’re still kids !! what hedge could you jump through to the secret roads , our playground !!
Shush it’s a Glastonbury secret . 3am meet right off the oak . Tranny in a bin . Everyone’s Glastonbury secret ❤️ My Glastonbury homes are many and the special friends and memories are rich . Blessed this is my world !!”
Helene Trans-It Schnitzer
“After moving to the UK in 2001, I was invited to join the Wheel of Astrologers in 2003. After that year’s ‘test run’ at the then Big Green Gathering, I joined The Wheel in Glastonbury’s Green Futures field in 2004 and have been going ever since. We are a group of astrologers aiming at empowering members of the public by bringing them real astrology, through readings, free workshops and our beloved ‘astro-babble’ sessions around the fire.
When we’re not at work, we do get to walk around the site and enjoy some of the performances - spoiled for choice, really. Most memorable to me, among many others, is the evening Leonard Cohen got me crying by the Pyramid, after which I went to the Acoustic Stage, only to run into Joan Baez. Old hippie, me...
There would be many, many little stories to tell, as the festival has become part of my life and the people I meet there part of my extended family. The year when I woke up to a river rushing through my tent, or the year we had to drive through a lake to get to Green Futures and wade through several others to reach the Meeting Point. The day the Dalai Lama visited, or the night I sang folk songs (!) with Nik Turner in the Moonbeams Cafe. The year Arcadia opened or the year I found a complete wardrobe for a couple of tenners on a Monday. Every year, it has been like moving to a different planet, where creativity, humanity and love are running the show. I feel rather blessed to be part of it”
Hannah Stoyle
“I have so many special Glastonbury memories of my own... but these last few years I have really enjoyed being able to share this amazing place with my daughter (sequence of images with daughter as she goes from bump to older)”
Andy Driscoll
“If you see someone without a smile give them yours’ I learnt this loving 25 Glasto’s over 35 years and carry this through every day. I have stories.. just have to remember them… oh feck…”
Dasha & Nick
“I (Nick) went first with my friend Matt. I never wanted to go, hated camping, and only agreed because I thought we would never get tickets! We did of course and I had the time of my life.
Two years later I was living in New York and met Dasha on Tinder. We soon found we enjoyed a common love of music and I jokingly said; “Let’s go to Glastonbury”. We landed tickets but having known each other for only two months and still seeing other people, I worried we might not last. We booked separate flights to the festival and then waited to see what happened next. Of course we stayed together and headed to England in June 2015. My family and friends frustrated at the separate flights to ferry us to and from Heathrow!
2015 was a great festival, my third and thanks to Matt I knew my way around, strangely the only place on Earth I don’t get lost! Dasha, with no expectations, was stunned at the sheer scale of the festival and sense of freedom that Glastonbury promotes. Lionel Richie was and is still our best set of Glastonbury and any other event or concert they’ve attended. Dasha was in awe of the British crowd singing along to all of Lionel’s songs, as was Lionel himself!
2016 was wet, very wet, but once you’ve been to a good Glastonbury the weather can’t get you down. Dasha met Kate, a friend of mine, through Matt and some others from around the world, closing that loop of friendship that had brought me to the festival originally. We saw both of Caravan Palace’s sets and have since seen them twice back in New York.
2017; we took a bunch of American friends and unbeknownst to Dasha, I took her engagement ring. We had discovered the Deluxe Diner in 2016 and Dasha was not suspicious at the large group of friends that sat down to dinner, and who eventually witnessed my proposal and her acceptance.
2018; for the fallow year we went to Burning Man. We would like to officially ask for the fallow years to be cancelled, I do not want to go back to Burning Man!
2019; we wed in November 2017 but with family spread around the world eventually married four times, in LA, Russia and finally England. What better way to celebrate your wedding and start your honeymoons than Glastonbury? Everything was arranged around the dates of the festival. In Russia we were blessed with a perfect full moon for the canal trip in St Petersburg and the weather in England was just right, it had been raining the previous weeks. Both serendipitous events only happened thanks to Glastonbury, so we went back to diner in full wedding garb to celebrate!”
Gilly Baker
“My friend and I had a plan to run the most helpful but also most hilarious campsite crew team at Glastonbury (and we did. She still runs it, at South Park). We wanted maximum silliness to make people smile, so Buttercup was born and became our mascot. One year she went on tour before the gates opened and had her photograph taken all over the site, including with Julian Temperley, farmer and cider-maker to the stars, who was a bit taken aback but got into the spirit of the thing. Every year we hear exhausted campers coming up the hill and telling each other ‘almost there … I can see the cow!’ Buttercup is getting old now, but still has some life in her. Last year she turned up with a baby at foot, young Daisy. She has also done guest appearances at birthday parties. Dear old girl.”
Tor Webster
“My first Glastonbury Festival was 1998 I was a 21 year old film student in Farnham, I was friends with a young family that invited me to go with them and another family. So I just went along for the journey. They were seasoned Glastonbury goers and knew the drill, so, after we had performed a military style operation through a hole under the fence at the dead of night with all ten of us including kids under 5, we made our way to the camp that the dad had set up for us. We were their pretty early and one thing that stood out for me is was the sheer mass of everything , It was amazing to see this sea of tents that came in from nowhere fill the space around us.I don’t remember much from that first time, mostly hanging out at the tent drinking cider and following our group to various random events, mostly for the kids, I don’t even remember what bands I saw that year, I think I saw Portishead. Then I remember being just as amazed as how quickly the tents around me disappeared.
My 2nd Glastonbury was the year later, 1999, it was a whole different experience it was just me and a mate from college. We got there and paid a scally £10 each to squeeze dangerously through a gap in the iron wall that he had wretched open with a crow bar, I was pretty freaked out as I squeezed through as if the crow bar came out I would get squashed and arrested, but there was no wimping out because I had thrown my bag over the fence. We got through and I thought I was in, but I found out there was a Harris fence to climb over also. So I ran and clumsily throw myself over that too, I realised the the local news were filming us so we ran. My parents had moved to Glastonbury town that year and I found out, when I got home, that my mother and sister had seen the back of me on the news running away from the fence, they knew it was me by my run.
My mate and I had quite a marathon time, in complete contrast to my first we went from band to band fuelled by cider, at one point I fell asleep in the crowed in front of the then Jazz World Stage, we spent most our time trying to figure out who the band on Jazz World, I generally didn’t have a clue my friend seemed to know a lot more, I just went along with it. I do remember seeing REM, Manic Street Preachers and Kula Shaka which became one of my favourite bands of all time.
2000 I graduated and with the same friend we repeated our last experience, as it worked so well, it was a spiritual experience to watch David Bowie even though I was a bit put off by the close ups, where you could see how much makeup he was wearing. The other highlight of that year was the Asian Dub Foundation, we were kicking up the mud.
After a fallow year I had moved into Glastonbury Town with my parents coming back from working a year in New Zealand as a tv editor, I had got involved with the local Somerset Film and Video people in Bridgewater and they put me on one of the crews filming for Julian Temples film ‘Glastonbury’ that was a blast walking around capturing the madness and interviewing people.
The next year on I had made friends with Tara who runs the Tipi field, which was and still is an extension of Glastonbury town at the festival. So for many years I was part of the tipi field crew living in various ‘live in vehicles’ and tipis over they years, I loved to hang out with my old friend Adrian Beckingham ‘the man from story mountain’ in his painted tipi, we spent most our time in the smaller stages like Sunbird’s Eartheart Cafe and Pony’s Small World stage.Over the last few years my work as tour guide and operator has clashed with the festival, I’ve been one of those stuck in the traffic. I couldn’t miss the Rolling Stones in 2013 though, so my wife Julie, dog Nettle and I had this plan to sit on a hill overlooking the festival and watch them, we parked up and walked as far as we could sat in a field over looking the festival and we herd them start up in the distance. We got questioned a few times but we were left alone, sadly we couldn’t see the stage, so I got my phone out and we watched it live on the BBC.
Last year I was back in the tipi field being one of four holding the opening, closing and daily ceremony’s, it was a great honour. I was invited back for this year but then we were hit by some strange plague, but I’ll be there next year for the 50th doing ceremony in the tipi field. Come and say hi. I hope to be holding that role for the rest of my life, if not that I’ll be there and find some way in to help hold the magic.”
Cover photo by Zeena Mozzaic”
Kyle Harrison
“Going to Glastonbury has been a huge part of my life, a large majority of my family and family friends have been apart of this festival for years! And like many I know I have my nan to thank for that, Glastonbury is a welcoming place for people of all walks of life. I cant wait to go next year and for many years to come. Thankyou to my nan and everyone else who helps the festival run, from the litter pickers to the site managers. See you soon.”
Janetta Morton
“I first took my daughter to the Festival in 1998 as she was rising 5. She is going to be 27 this year, her Birthday being 29th June it's like a huge party every year for her. Although the 29th fell on a very muddy Monday leaving day in 1998 and she remembers being carried by a stranger as we struggled out to my old converted ambulance. She opened her presents in a layby on the A303 on our way home. We came to live in the West country in 2001 and got smuggled into the festival under blankets in the back of an old fire truck belonging to the swing boat guy and my partner worked as a DJ in the bar solar in the Avalon field.
I started going as an astrologer with the wheel of Astrologers back in 2003/4 can’t quite remember! We are a collective of professional astrologers who offer readings and workshops in the green futures field. Some of us camp in Undle ground which used to be the old travellers field. It’s full of old timers and the crew that manage the traffic and steward the cross roads where the main drag through the green fields meets the railway line.
I adore Glastonbury festival, just up the road from the Town of the same name where I live. Most of my friends work the festival, the whole Tipi field is full of them. The astrologers are like family and our camp is luxury. With a communal fire and all our kids growing up year on year having adventures. I almost cannot separate one festival from another its one long memory stream of sunshine, heat, thunder storms, deluges, mud and wellies and dancing and outrageous outfits and music, theatre, comedy, high emotion, sometimes tears and fears, sometimes laughter and ecstatic highs. But always the fire, the tribe, family and love in the light of a rising Sun over the best most beloved festival in the World. I shall miss it and celebrating my girls 27th there this year.”
Nora Stewart
I first went to Glastonbury in 1981 for the CND festival. It was also the first festival I'd ever been to. I am from South Africa.
It was an amazing experience. At the time I was working with the Ockendon Venture. We borrowed 4 large canvas tents from the Army in Aldershot and with a bunch of about 20 refugees from Vietnam including several children and 10 workers from England, NewZealand, Canada, and South Africa set up camp.
In those days it was small but seemed enormous with much the same excitement and inspiration as today. Music everywhere, Kids Field, clothes stalls and veg food stalls. I remember Jackson Brown giving a really moving show at the Pyramid Stage (See Photos we sent.)
One of our refugees had a man of about 25, had arrived from Vietnam 2 days before he soon disappeared and we didn't see him till the following morning when he collapsed in bed. then woke and was gone again . The same happened the next day so on Sunday concerned about him, Malcolm via a translator asked what he had been up to.
He explained that he looked for the guys with the most alcohol (this was a gang with motorbikes supporting HawkWind) he sat at the end of the line and said" Me Vietnam". They said that was okay and handed him a drink. He then spent all his time with them consuming everything that came down the line.
Very early on the Sunday morning having not slept I went for a wonder. Near the Pyramid stage there was a small fire and a group of about 30 people gathered around it with a Druid calling up the sun . Much slow drums and chanting. I joined in with the others then me and the people on either side felt these balls of energy hitting us. It was the most extraordinary thing and something I had never felt before or since. they were about 3 inches in diameter and went right into you but felt light and good. and lasted well over an hour until I left to go wake the campsite and get them in on the action! No Chance !! It was like energy dancing around us. One of my strongest Glastonbury and life changing moments ever!
It was many years later and long after our Children went, that I went back. This was thanks to our close friends Timmy and Sophi Knock who took the Peace Dome to Glastonbury for the festival every year.The Dome held the flame from the flame, from the flame etc without stopping from the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. See Glastonbury Peace Flame, Peace Dome and also Malcolms clip on Glastonbury festival and the geometry of the peace dome www.open-mind-forum.com.
This was the first of many times Malcolm and I went back to the Festival meeting up with friends, other Peace Dome staff and often our children. We did our 4 hour shift in the peace dome which I loved doing and my shift was usually with Timmy Knock between 12 midnight and 4 in the morning though like many others I would drop in during the day for a psychic boost and recharge. People would drop in light candles, meditate, sleep, relax, bowls and a harp would sometimes be played.
During the day I spend a lot of time drifting around mainly between the Pyramid, Other and West Holt stages, in festi spirit.
The festival had grown beyond all imaginings into a huge meta-society of music, culture and inspiration and it still held onto its magic and hippie vibe. There were so many times we gathered and The Peace Dome in the King's Field was a sanctuary to all who visited it.
There is so much to say about magic Glastonbury moments including getting in the front line to see Amy Winehouse, Having 2 "angelic elfs" popping into the dome and playing the crystal bowls, a heavenly symphony, singing 'Hallelujah' it seemed the whole festival joined Leonard Cohen in the early evening. Looking down on the festival from above the tipis blissed out. singing and talking around our tents. watching the sun dry the rain on Thursday. Many more ...
Jen Wiseman
“I don't know what year! Jonny is a legend! He has been since 2003 I think? He is an indie kid! He leaves his wellies home EVERY YEAR! So then we have to queue (or he does - I'm in a beer tent). He nicks aviators off Richard (the hairy one). He's always disorganized chaos! He loses his ticket! He loses everything! Sometimes it's payday at Glastonbury and he buys all the drinks and then regrets it! He forgets the tent poles! He turns up on a Thursday at night because he's failed to organise himself! So then he has to carry his shit all night because we are not going back until 2am🤣 Best turn up ever- 2017? R had a movie on in the Groovy Movie - Jonny found us, in white trainers, with his stuff, stacked it in the mud! Oh how we laughed 🤣”
Joe Greenwood-Hau
“I first went to the festival in 2007, the summer after I finished my undergraduate degree, hoping to have some fun after the stress of my dissertation and final exams. Unfortunately, I was not ready for the experience and found it difficult to relax and enjoy my time there. Getting into the right mindset for something like Glastonbury comes more easily to some people than others, and I struggle with it. The past few years had been particularly stressful because a close relative with chronic mental health issues had been hospitalised after suicide attempts on two occasions whilst I was at university. I had never really processed these experiences and just returned to my studies one or two days after visiting the hospital on each occasion, perhaps as a way to avoid the grief. Additionally, at the end of my degree I was infatuated with one of my fellow students, who also went to the festival, but the feeling was not mutual. On top of that, I volunteered for Oxfam, which felt like a big responsibility and meant that I often went to bed early (missing out on great experiences) in order to be ready for my shift. Also, it rained a lot. So, I saw lots of great bands and comedians but was always drenched and covered in mud. I did not find that enjoyable, and came away with the view that the considerable expense would have been better spent on going to gigs (followed by sleeping in my own bed and enjoying a warm shower in the morning). I found the prices of many things on site (e.g. food and drink) to be offensively high and a source of additional stress given that I am from a poor family without savings or resources to fall back on, and had very limited money at the end of my degree. Indeed, I still think that the cost of the festival is prohibitive, exclusionary and, therefore, politically questionable. Still, that's not the end of the story.
A few months short of ten years later, as I was approaching the end of my PhD, some friends who were planning to go to the festival in 2017 emailed to see if I was interested. I'd always regretted not enjoying it in 2007, and felt my circumstances were much better: in a happy long-term relationship with my now wife, Katie, slightly more financially secure, and with the prospect of finishing my PhD (which was a difficult experience but ultimately rewarding) worthy of celebration. So, I seized the opportunity! Fortunately, by the time the festival rolled around I was in full-time employment so had some money to spare and could properly throw myself into the experience. Most importantly, I went with an absolutely lovely bunch of friends: Ric, Alys, Sarah, Adam, and Sophie. The evidence is the photos, which speak for themselves! I'm so glad that I gave it a second try, and would certainly consider going again in future.”
Lys Wild
“It was funny to realise that considering I have been going to Pilton aka Glastonbury festival since I was 22, I have very few photos. The illusionary world that is the festival, set up year after year only to disappear again in a few short weeks, has it seems stayed firmly in my memories and not my photo collection.
On one year very early on, I somehow managed to walk through the gate without a ticket, to this day I have no idea how I managed it. Somehow I seemed to become invisible to the security. But then such is the magic of the story at the festival. Another year I climbed over the fence with my friend who firmly believed a bin liner, gaffa tap and a bit of string were all she needed to survive there. I think she had a good time! In fact, that was the year the fence came down and the festival was utterly packed. I remember feeling like a sardine in a tin every time I ventured out and not going beyond the railway track into so called Babylon beyond. Another year I dressed up as a gypsy and sold hash flapjacks in the stone circle, and got the recipe wrong though, they were far too strong, it all turned into a bit of a disaster. Then there was the vodka jelly year! That was hilarious, with my friend Seano using his inimitable Irish charm to make a mini fortune.
In the early years I was also a part of the whirly gig crew and helped set up and run the show, camping was at that time rough and ready and very hedonistic. I had by that time become more of a purist and would head up to the healing field to do some yoga each day. On one particular morning I arrived at the yoga tent only to find that the teacher hadn’t showed up. A group of people were gathered and chatting about what to do. I had a daily yoga practice of about 2 or 3 years and so I offered to run through the sun salutation that I did each morning. I was a bit nervous, but it seemed to go ok and I had fun. As I was leaving, a man came up to me and introduced himself as Jacob. Turns out he ran the field. He said I could come there and teach yoga the next year. He put me in touch with Wendy Teasdil and so the healing field became my Pilton home and has been ever since.
Each year I go now, I set up my bell tent equipt with burner in the air circle in the healing field and offer shiatsu and yoga, it’s such a great place to be at the festival and I have had some wonderful times in that field. My most enduring memory though, aside from the amazing bands, circus performances and general shenanigans was from the year that Michael Eavis lost his wife. I went out on the Saturday night with my then boyfriend who was a djembe drummer to dance around a fire to the drumming group that had congregated in the field that used to be the tipi field adjacent to Undle ground. I was the only dancer that night and as they drummed I got lost in my dance to the fire. I guess everyone else was out at the big stages, it was quiet on the field aside from the thump of the drums behind me. At one point I looked up and saw a man put a chair just in the shadows and sit to watch us. The drumming concluded and off we went. The next day I was doing some yoga in the craft field, in a standing wide leg forward fold pose. I was looking at people from my upside down perspective and noting how many of them seemed grounded, when I spotted a man walking so gently and fluidly on the ground. He seemed to sink into the earth with every step, contemplative and kind in his manner and look. I stood up out of the pose and turned away, the next thing I know the same man had come up to me. He took my hand and said, ‘your dancing last night really gave me some peace. You are always welcome at this festival, thank you for what you bring’ I was speechless and open mouthed and a little confused, until a friend touched me on the shoulder and said ‘that was Michael Eavis, he lost his wife this year.’ What a blessing.
You see Glastonbury festival is so much more than the hedonistic beast that it’s been listed as. Sure it has that potential and there are elements of this crazy side but each year has brought me the most amazing gifts and blessings. Its set me on my yoga teaching path, given me a space to develop my shiatsu. Somewhere that you can watch a group of African acrobats create a human pyramid, see the most incredible music and be blessed by the Dalai Lama all in one day. It’s a place that the wider alternative community comes together to connect and be inspiring. And mainstream people can find something life changing. Youngsters can discover their individuality. People can find profound healing, or love or new friends. The magical illusionary city in the fields that is Glastonbury is a very special place to me and to many others.”
Adrian Beckingham
“The first time I ever heard the name Facebook, it was down the phone from my best friend Tor Webster (you can also see his story here as part of this project)
“Hey bro!” he chimed enthusiastically down the phone, “Glastonbury Festival are using a photo of your tipi as their Facebook profile picture!”
“Face what?” I said. I took a look online. There was an image of my painted tipi, with my then very young twin daughters dancing around in front wearing in fairy dresses. This remained the official Glastonbury Festival Facebook profile image for some years to come. Not some global star picked from their burgeoning stable of guests – my tipi. That’s Glastonbury Festival for you – a community.
This must have been in 2005 or soon after. I only know this because I can Google when Facebook first arrived in the UK. Any other dates regarding the festival have become a blur, except for the first year I went - which was 1993. 1993 was the first summer I was living back in the UK, having left at the age of 3 on an ocean liner for Australia. So I didn’t waste any time getting involved in Europe’s largest festival! Glastonbury was my first festival ever. Nothing like leaping off the deep end is there?
I first heard of Glastonbury the town (not Glastonbury the festival) as a teenager reading the novel ‘The Mists of Avalon’ by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It is a testament to just how much that novel influenced me at that tender age, that having not thought of it in decades, I can instantly recall the author’s name right off the top of my head. Recalling is not usually my best of talents – unless it comes to stories. At the time I read that book, the notion it portrayed of Glastonbury and the enchanted Isle of Avalon was really my first step into mythology. I had little idea at the time that mythologies would become not just my bread and butter, but the central core of my lifestyle as a devoted single father and touring performer.
It was fatherhood that stopped me in my tracks to live in the UK. Previous to this, I had been campaigning to close a dodgy nuclear reactor called Trojan which was built right on top of the world’s largest earthquake fault line - the San Andreas Fault in the United States; prior to this, I was a national coordinator of Greenpeace Australia. I had spearheaded campaigns that successfully turned back the entire Japanese whaling fleet one, among other stories.
All this fitted in perfectly with the hippy ethos of Glastonbury the town – as well as Glastonbury the festival. When I heard that my new home in Dorset was a stone’s throw from this legendary site, I was keen to get involved. I contacted the festival organisers as a nobody, and got myself and my pregnant partner tickets in return for me helping to steward at a ticket entrance. I worked three shifts of eight hours each. That first year as a festival virgin, I must have heard every blag under the sun as one after the next punters tried their luck with me, hoping to talk their way ticketless through the gates. My team leader instructed “If you believe them, let them through. If you don’t -they can’t come in.”
Having never been to a festival before, the exploding creative talent that oozed from every corner of the expansive fields below an army of gaily blowing flags, really opened my eyes to a new world of possibilities in the arts. This was despite there being limited time to explore. After all, I was balancing work with trying to care for my pregnant partner (carrying my son Sage who has like myself never missed a single Glastonbury since that time - although I cannot claim his privilege of having been to every Glastonbury Festival in his lifetime, including in the womb!)
My first time down at the Pyramid Stage I was mightily impressed to see banners flying for Greenpeace and WaterAid – this instantly felt like home, my tribe!
I can remember those years when we would turn up and park in the public car parks, and having found a suitable site for our tent, I would march backwards and forwards between campsite and carpark, often loading our piles of gear onto whichever unlucky pram we happened to have at the time. More than once the pram after several routes up and down would give up its ghost and lose a wheel, leaving me to carry the rest of our kit by hand. With a growing family – expanding to four children (including twins), the mountains of ‘stuff’ seemed relentless. The prams may have given up, by I never did.
Far from giving up, Glastonbury was for me a crucial melting pot in which my own expression through the arts grew - not only as an audience member, but as a performer. By my Glastonbury Festival number 2 I was no longer a steward on the gates. I earnt my ticket (actually OUR tickets) telling stories to entertain the Litterpicking Crew on their private campsite. It was leaving this field that I one day saw a rainbow and the name Iris came into my mind – looking this name up (in a dictionary – this was long before Google) I saw it was the name ancient Greeks gave to the Rainbow Goddess of Peace. This became the name of our eldest daughter.
Glastonbury Festival did not begin my unexpected career as a storyteller – this began in Portland Castle. But it was very instrumental. Having been looking for paid work while living in Dorset, I stumbled upon a storyteller by the name of David James, an elderly fellow who picked me out of a crowd and became my first storytelling mentor. I was a reluctant student, having avoided any interaction with active drama like the plague. But it won through, and once I had done several castles for English Heritage, I decided to try getting entry to festivals and summer camps for my family, in return for a modest fee and some storytelling. I picked up a leaflet which spread out wide like a map, called the Campscene Directroy. Most older festival folk will remember this publication, it was a free handout available at many UK health food shops etc. I contacted every single phone number in that long list, offering my services – but only one responded. It was from Sid Rawle, who had been instrumental in the very first ever Glastonbury Festival. According to Sid, the first every festival was one year before the official one – a gathering of hippies in a field at Worthy Farm. Sid had parked up in his caravan, Michael Eavis attended, as Sid used his caravan stove to cook snacks and brew hot drinks. Thus Glastonbury was born.
When I rang around those few hundred phone numbers offering to storytell at camps, only Sid responded – hiring me for £100 to perform at his Rainbow 2000 camp. This would have been in 1994, and set me in good stead to have the confidence to storytell also at Glastonbury. This was in the days when storytelling was almost a dead art – whenever people asked “what do you do?” I would say “I am a storyteller.” The common response was “What is that?”
“Pretty much as it says on the tin” I would reply. As storytelling has grown, that question has disappeared. I was honoured to be a good friend with Sid, indeed I had his last supper with him. Literally, I had turned up at the end of a long summer tour, to say hi the Rainbow 2000 crew. They needed someone to pull down their tipis. I offered to do it, alone, and Sid afterwards asked me to share lunch with him in the camp café. Following a friendly catch up chat, I left the site. Sid left the café, picked up a mallet to dismantle a marque, and fell flat on his back with a heart attack. The Observer published his obituary under the title “King of The Hippies” noting his legendary role “giving away food at the 1971 ‘Glastonbury Fayre’.
One particularly muddy year 1997 or 1998 as these were both very wet I heard word during packdown at the end that a tipi was for sale. I was keen for a tipi as a storytelling venue. It was a brown wet mass covered in mud. The only way I could retrieve it was to collect my old car from the public carpark and risk the drive through a quagmire of bogged down vehicles and slippery tracks. I went for it. This was the first time I was allowed to drive a vehicle on site – something which would now become my privilege every year. I had no idea that this tipi was entirely painted in native American designs until I got it home and washed the entire canvas off. What a find! Then some years later, with my tipi up in the Tipi Field, a Blackfoot Native American woman entered it and said “This is a Blackfoot design tipi. And because it is all painted, it is called a ‘medicine lodge’ and should be used for storytelling. The medicine is in the stories.”
A perfect match? That is what Glastonbury Festival has always been to me. No matter how many times I go, it never loses its fascination. It is even part of the fabric of my children’s lives, all now adults who know the site like the back of their hands. As the festival usually falls on the same weekend as Father’s Day we have a family tradition-to meet near the Tiny Tea Tent and grab a pizza as my Fathers’ Day treat at 1pm. It was, as any parent will grasp, a chance to touch base with all four of my offspring, to make sure they were happy and well in this jungle of activity that is Glastonbury Festival. Though this is a junglewhere we were indigenous , having been so many times. Oft at other times during the five days of celebration I would go with my brood and find quiet moments in Sacred Space or Green Futures with a favourite being just down the lane in the fabulous Circus tent, watching ground breaking trapeze and rope work. This tradition carried on as soon it was my grandchild I would take here instead!
Like any familiar town or city centre – you know where every shop and entertainment venue is, every favourite café or set of public loos. Across the vast site, the same structures appear in the same place year in year out – with always a few changes, like a shop changing hands in your local high street. I have been crew as a storyteller for the Litterpickers crew area, for the Poetry & Words tent, Kids Field, Healing Field and in Green Futures - but for over a decade now you can find me pitched as Master Storyteller in the Tipi Field, right behind the large totem pole.
And as for music? What band have I not seen who used to be a pin up in my bedroom as a teenager myself? Favourites? The hypnotic David Bowie, flying in to sing with laryngitis while his 9 month pregnant wife waited back in the USA; the impressive Bruce Springsteen – only act I ever saw walk the entire front bar in the front row; enforcing his name as The Boss; Rogers Waters blew me away; Pet Shop Boys had the most amazing troupe of dancers with a set of giant building block; my wildcard favourite was Cyndi Lauper who played a Sunday night and after all sound systems closed, sat there with her legs off the stage and played us an intimate set of old favourites and little known songs.
Has covid brought an end to this era spanning just under 50 years (actually it IS 50 years if you count the first Glastonbury Fayre!). Only time, and change, will tell….”
Bruce knight
“My first festival was 1990. I was a teenager just going to watch some bands. I discovered amazing people, a celebration of life itself and a feeling of freedom. I had no idea how this festival would change my life.
It took me 3 days to get home that first year. I left the site in a hurry, in the back of a van full of people I didn’t know. A pitched battle was going on between travellers and security, stuff was on fire. It was saddening to witness after the beautiful days I’d just had, days that definitely changed my view of life. The Festival also changed a lot in the following years.
During a rainstorm, in the mud fest of 1998, me and my girlfriend ran into the Circus Big Top to take cover. That’s when it happened. I fell in love, with Circus and Theatre. I remember watching one particular act, a man dancing in the air, doing tricks on a trapeze and I thought, “I wish I could do that. I’d love to do that.” Back in daily life, I started spending every spare moment, and every penny I had, on learning aerial circus skills, acting, dance, clowning classes and workshops.
In 2002 my wish came true. That year I performed for the first time at Glastonbury, on trapeze, in the very same Big Top where I had watched and dreamed. It was mind blowing and overwhelming. At the time I couldn’t imagine doing anything better, but it was just the beginning.
As part of the Swinging Elvises, a tongue in cheek tribute trapeze act, I became one of many regular performers in the Lost Vagueness Casino & Ballroom. I loved it. Lost Vagueness was like Bugsy Malone meets Bacchanalia; a glitter packed, dressing up, wild rumpus where everyone became part of the show. One year the Elvises were the warm up act for Fat Boy Slim’s “secret” gig in the Ballroom. Nearly the whole of Glastonbury turned up. People couldn’t get in the field, let alone the tent, it was so packed. Lost Vagueness, was always brilliantly chaotic and hilarious, no matter how many hours of organisation went into it. It eventually came to an end, but, in my humble opinion, it changed the course of festival history and inspired all sorts of theatre and pop culture.
I went on to do various work in the Circus & Theatre Fields. It was great but I missed those amazing vagueness nights. Again, I couldn’t imagine doing anything better. Then in 2008 I started working with a new theatre company, Copperdollar.
Copperdollar became the most incredible arts project I’ve ever been part of. The Artistic Director, Katie Simpson, had been involved with Lost Vagueness and knew the many magic tricks needed to create a great festival venue. Copperdollar’s ‘Back of Beyond,’ a late night fully interactive venue based on the Mexican Day of the Dead, became a regular feature at Glastonbury, in ‘The Common,’ up until 2017. More than 30 cast and crew, would run the show, all in character, for six hours solid every night and we loved it! It was one big amazing circus family. The Back of Beyond was theatre at it’s best and the best party I’ve ever been to, all in one. More than a show, it was a non stop night of surprises and the audience were actively encouraged to become part of it. Words cannot do it justice.
I have so many hilarious, beautiful, magic, messy and treasured memories thanks to the greatest arts festival in the world. I shall forever be there in spirit. Thank you Glastonbury and the Eavis family. Congratulations on your 50th! Glastonbury has the ability to open people up to possibility. When it returns it will undoubtedly continue to be a life changing event for many, many people. May the story never end…”
Guy Hornsby
“When I think of my best mate Tom Jenkins, he IS my Glastonbury story, really. I've been to the festival in 2004 & 5 then 2013, 2015 and 2016, and I have so many amazing memories of emotional sets and muddy expeditions with a cast of festival legends including Mel, Paolo, Tayo, and so many more. But it was Tom that was there every time, because he's been every year for the past 25... A proper pro. I already knew him well from playing records and dancing across London in the early 00s, and we often got each other into (the best sort of) trouble. But Glastonbury was a massive playground for us!
On my first visit in the biblical 2004, he sprayed my head with paint in the Friday afternoon sunshine at the Pyramid, only to pronounce it was car paint and took days to properly come off. He fell through the bar in the Lock Tavern. We got very lost in Lost Vagueness. And we saw the sunrise most mornings at the Stone Circle with a cast of thousands. We survived the deluge of 2005, just, but its floating tents and lakes of mud scarred me enough to mean it was 8 years before I returned, however much fun we may have had along the way.
In 2013 we spent a LOT of the festival drinking extra strong cider and ending up in the wonderful vortex of Beat Hotel in dressing gowns and slippers until chucking out time (we blame Giles), only to wake up in pieces then do the same all over again. 5 days running. We shrugged at the Stones, so far back we could barely hear, and wished we'd seen Public Enemy instead. But then most of the best fun was at West Holts and the dance stages those years. As it often was.
And in 2015 & 16 I spent two amazing weeks working with him at the Glade, with some of the loveliest people you could ever hope to met. It's such a family there, and being part of it raised the experience to another level. We even got to DJ together - as our rave outfit SonOfBangers (see pic) - so even my parents finally recognised somewhere I played after 18 years trying to convince them I was - sometimes - a DJ!
He was there when I cried my way through LCD Soundsystem at the Other Stage in 2016. He pitched my tent for me before I arrived and made sure every one of the crew knew who I was. We drowned our sorrows at Casetteboy and DJ Rubbish together after we woke up to the Brexit vote in 2016. Away from the farm, he even flew in DJ at my wedding despite not living in the country at that point. In the end, I can't imagine being on the farm without him chuckling within earshot, even though he now lives in Ibiza and I moved to Manchester since our last time there together. We were due to reunite at the Glade last year and this but Covid did for that of course. Somehow, I know the tides will reunite us under the spider at Arcadia in 2022. I can't wait. It'll be the best of times.”
Elizabeth Burchill
“Mike and I met at Glastonbury 2015. Sunday night at the Rabbit Hole. I remember Mark Ronson played a secret set about 2am.
I was there with Emma. Mike was there with a big group of boys. Em and I are both pretty small and it was busy and were getting jostled a bit while trying to dance. The group of boys near us felt sorry for us (or maybe fancied us) and invited us to join their group. And that's when I got chatting to David, Mike's best mate. They were seasoned Glasto goers, all having been 10+ times. We ended up dancing with Mike, David and their other friend Kevin til the Rabbit Hole closed, then we wandered down to a bench and watched the sun come up. Total Glasto moment.
At some point during the night, we clearly all became 'Facebook friends'.
Em and I left to get the bus back to Edinburgh about 6am, and Mike, David and Kev went back to London. And that was that. To be honest, the next day, I couldn't even remember which one was Kevin and which one was Mike!!
Fast forward a year. Glasto 2016. The year it rained! Em and I had tickets again. About a week before, Mike messages me to say that he and David were going again, and it would be good to meet up. Em and I thought we were pretty cool now, having friends we meet up with at Glasto...!! We met up for LCD Soundsystem and then, of course, it was Sunday night at the Rabbit Hole. This year we swapped telephone numbers. Then once again, Emma and I left and went back to Edinburgh and they went back to London.
Fast forward a year. Glasto 2017. Emma is pregnant and she doesn't think she'll be up for late night partying! So, I message Mike and ask if I can party with him and David after Emma goes to bed? His answer, of course! The four of us actually end up hanging out quite a lot that weekend, seeing bands during the day, getting food together, and when Emma headed to bed about 11pm each night, I would hunt the boys down and the three of us would head to Shang-ri-la or Arcadia or Glade. A few weeks before Glastonbury, I'd been offered a new job which was 50% Edinburgh and 50% London starting in the July. I didn't have any friends in London, so I asked Mike and David if I could be their friend and hang out with them sometimes when I was down... After another Sunday night down the Rabbit Hole, Emma and I headed back to Edinburgh and they back to London, this time promising we'd see each other soon (especially as 2018 was to be fallow).
I started my new job, and started meeting up with Mike and David when I was in London; then one fateful night, David couldn't make it. Mike and I had never spent any time alone...turns out we quite liked each other... and the rest is history! We did long distance for two years, between Edinburgh and London, but now live together in Edinburgh. There was no Glasto in 2018, but in 2019 we were there together, ending the weekend at the Rabbit Hole, of course (although it moved so not quite the same).
My first birthday after we got together, Mike bought me a Rabbit Hole t-shirt. And we have the Glasto 2015 poster framed on the wall in our home together.
Glastonbury is the most magical place, and it's even more magical for us because it'll always be the start of our story. We hope we're still going when we're 80!
Attached are some (fairly grainy) shots of us over the years from our first meeting to Glasto 2019! We don't have tickets for 2022 but have our fingers crossed for the resale!
Thanks
Mike & Liz aka Beardie & Blondie xx”
