Treebeard and Lisa, the wake of Septimus, the George and Pilgrim, Glastonbury High Street.
I heard about the first Glastonbury festival in 1970 after Phun city in Worthing and found myself in the front room of the farmhouse at Worthy farm, talking to the farmer Michael Eavis . I told him I could get him some funds to do another festival and duly hitched to London. I had been going to a number of festivals that year.
Finding Andrew Kerr and friends I got him to phone Michael and we went back to Worthy farm. The 1971 Glastonbury free festival was created. Not only Andrew funded it but so did Michael. I came back in 1971 to help build the festival.
After the first festival I went to doss in Glastonbury. There where a few of us and we got named after characters in the Lord of the Rings, we fitted the part. Leaving our sleeping bags and getting fed at the café at the bottom of the High Street, in the corner of a car park. The town was well different, no head shops, no bookshops and no veggie café and not that many tourists. Just us and some refugees from King Arthur’s dreams.
We used to visit John Shelly the potter who lived at the bottom of the Tor. I went to the town after the Glastonbury Fayre in 1971 as well.
In 1972 I hitched and walked to Glastonbury in bare feet and got involved in a a star tumble of nakedness with a local esthetes, this involved three dossers they’d got picked up and one naked young woman, who on getting involved looked frightened, so I left this Carry On film of a ritual and went into the town and dossed about for a few weeks.
By 1973 I was sectioned to an workhouse/asylum for jumping bail and talking to the prison shrink about pyramids and ley lines didn‘t help. Just like that Wally Hope who created the first Stonehenge free festival.
Forcibly medicated and plugged into the mains for escaping, I left the bin after a year with no support.
By 1978 I came of my medication, I got fed up of the indifference and a needle in the backside every three weeks. I volunteered for a Community Transport charity and then after six months got a job in London as a manager of a Community Transport. and then decided to go to Worthy farm again.
I don’t think a festival was planned, people just turned up. I wasn’t well and some small confusion led me to climb one of the pylons that crossed the farm, in my bare feet in the rain. My money was stolen but they left my boots and I made it back to my squat in London. Becoming catatonic, I lay still on the mattress on the floor and drifted away. My boss came to see me, but I ignored him and then my brother and sister turned up and took me home.
Another three months in the asylum, where I had a camera. It was back to bed-sit land with a giro and medication. I didn’t go to Worthy farm until 1984.
I hitched to the Free Stonehenge festival and then made it to the Glastonbury festival. Walking into the farm, no fences or security, I curled up to the right of the farmhouse next to a man who had a hut surrounded by a fence, a large flagpole with a Union Jack, a fire and a settee. I pulled my coat over my head and went into a much needed sleep. On waking, chummy was watching me and said that a lot of people had walked over me and then he didn’t even offer me a cup of tea!
All I remember about the festival was Ian Drury getting mud thrown at him and then stopping. He went into Spasticus Autisticus, you could have heard a pin drop, he was that good.
Joining National Mind after they’d helped me get onto oral medication instead of depo injections, I got elected as user rep for the West Midlands for Mind and then helped set up Survivors Speak Out. This was very good for my mental health.
Coming back to my last festival at Glastonbury in 1987, I collected entrance money for my ticket and then deposited it in a room full of carrier bags, stuffed with £20 notes. There was no lock on the door and no security, different times indeed. I have visited Glastonbury a few times since I got married and settled, it’s always been fun. It’s not Hebden Bridge but Glastonbury that is the Freak capital of the UK.
I have two webs up.
http://sunshineonarainyday.netfirms.com Poetry.
http://beautiful-birmingham.com Photography.
http://sunshineonarainyday.netfirms.com/b.%20Stonehenge%20free.html A poem.
daytripper