Book: The Glastonbury Festivals
Marcus L. Endicott (mle@well.sf.ca.us)
Thu, 07 Oct 1993 13:43:33 -0700 (PDT)
"Glastonbury? Fantastic! It's the variety on the bill that does it"
Andy Kershaw
"Man I can feel those strong vibes. An amazing place to be"
Loudon Wainwright III
"It's good and it's real and people come"
Mike Scott (Waterboys)
"CND's links with the music industry must be one of the most important ways of
securing the support of younger people"
Paul Johns
"People come here year after year with their children. It's something to look
forward to, and for some it's the only holiday they get"
Billy Bragg
>The Glastonbury CND Festival is the largest of its kind in Europe - and
>probably the world. It has its origins in the simple gatherings in the early
>70s - the days of flower power and of hippies, and now attracts in the region
>of 80,000 people each year. This book traces in words and pictures the
>development of the festival to the present day.
THE GLASTONBURY FESTIVALS
by Lynne Elstob & Anne Howes
@ CND Publications Limited 1987
Gothic Image Publications & Cahlme
ISBN 0-906362-10-5
U.K.PoundS 9.95
[Distributed in the United States by New Leaf of Atlanta, Georgia.]
>Born in London, Anne is a State Registered Nurse and has lived in the West
>Country for 20 years, sttling in nearby Shepton Mallet in 1978. She is
>married to a local doctor and has two children, Catherine and Daniel.
>Together with her husband Chris, she has been involved in the organization of
>medical services at the Festival for the past seven years.
> Her interest in popular music began with the Stones and Beatles in the
>mid-sixties, when she worked as a secretary and fashion model in the West End
>of London.
> She is a member of CND, Greenpeace and the Medical Campaign Against
>Nuclear Weapons.
>
>Lynne comes from Southampton and spent her student years in Salford,
>Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Paris and the south of Spain before moving to Somerset
>in 1977.
> She lives in Shepton Mallet with her husband Colin and sons Christopher
>and Robert, teaching part-time at the local sixth-form college.
> For Lynne, a CND member and long-standing lover of rock and roll, the
>Festival has magical appeal.
>to our children Catherine, Daniel, Christopher and Robert
>
>If there is to be peace in this world, some hope lies in the younger
>generations and these festivals are for them just as much as for us older
>festival goers
>FORWARD
>
>Seventeen years ago the original Worthy Farm Festival happened here, and from
>that moment on the place has never quite been the same. Every year the thing
>gets bigger and more and more of our lives gets drawn into this huge machine
>of phones, bills, meetings, negotiations, post mortems, and plans and ideas
>for the future.
> I suppose I started it all partly out of boredom with years and years of
>just milking, but the influence of those late '60s festivals started me off.
>I thought there might be a way of combining the traditional country fairs
>with the ideals of the pop festival culture, where people could come together
>and have a good time in a more relaxed way that those huge stadium gigs! By
>adding theatre, drama, alternative politics and kid's entertainments it would
>broaden the scope of appeal and could become part of a regular midsummer
>festival of joy and celebration of life.
> Volumes could be written about the festival, but hopefully this book
>will give you an insight into some of the brighter and happier moments that
>have happened in these fields if ours.
>
>Michael Eavis
>INTRODUCTION
>
>As the sun disappears behind the ruins of St. Michael's Church on the
>mystical summit of Glastonbury Tor, the gently sloping pastures of the lush
>green Vale of Avalon take on more muted tones, and the last remaining rays of
>light fall on a strange metallic structure - the Glastonbury Pyramid.
> Erected as a farm building in 1981, it has since become for thousands of
>people the focal point of the Festivals which are now the largest fund-
>raising events for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
> However, the story of the Festivals at Worthy Farm really begins eleven
>years earlier, in the aftermath of Flower Power, psychedelia and the swinging
>sixties...
>A rainbow did actually appear in the sky on a hot afternoon at Glastonbury.
> I saw it, honest.
> We didn't have a religious experience, but in a strange way we found
>some kind of enlightenment.
> We discovered a confirmation that if our culture is left to itself it
>can survive.
> We are able to live in harmony with each other. Ten thousand or more
>people, living for nearly a week in tents and makeshift shelter, were able to
>keep it together through five days of hot sunshine, a torrential rain,
>laughing, dancing, sharing food, dope and shelter, listening to rock and
>roll and throughout maintaining a community that lived peaceably without the
>need for restriction or authority.
> Sure a few people has stuff ripped off, sure some trees were cut down,
>and people had bummers some got lonely and others got sunburnt.
> Nobody says there weren't problems.
> But they got solved; maybe the solutions weren't the best, but the
>problems were solved and the people came together and kept it together.
> The free festivals like Phun City and Glastonbury gave a glimpse of
>alternative ways in which people could live their lives outside the present
>death culture.
> This album is a memorial to what was achieved in those five days; that
>makes it valuable.
> The most valuable thing is not that the vision of five days in
>Glastonbury is only remembered, but that the vision is repeated and extended
>until it becomes reality.
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