Open Space

As open space goes, Worthy Farm probably doesn't mean a whole lot to most people, and strictly speaking might not even qualify as an open space at all for 95% of the year. Situated in a valley at the head of the Whitelake River between two limestone ridges on the southern end of the Mendip Hills, Worthy Farm is the lush, 900 acre grassy home to a large herd of Somerset dairy cattle.

Worthy Farm - before...

Then for a few weeks every year at about this time, the cows move out and the open space is transformed into the instant township we all know, and many of us love, as Glastonbury - or Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts to give its full title.

The festival has been held in local farmer Michael Eavis's fields since 1970. Fifteen hundred people turned up that first year in response to Eavis's attempt to hold an event that would both boost revenues for his farm as well as provide a rallying point for the increasing number of alternative lifestyle families who had been moving into the area around nearby Glastonbury Tor in recent years, in a counter-cultural attempt to escape the rat race.

This week-end, an estimated quarter of a million people are at Worthy Farm, enjoying three days of music and so much more - camping (or glamping) obviously, plus cabaret, circus, comedy, dance, film, mime, poetry, theatre as well as various craft and well-being workshops. Glastonbury has become as much a part of the British summer schedule as the Proms and Wimbledon. It is still overseen by Michael Eavis with assistance from his daughter Emily and a trusted production team. Apart from core technical and security staff, it is run entirely by volunteers who give their time freely in the spirit of the enterprise (stewards, medics, lawyers). Food concessions and catering are contracted out to local businesses and all the bars are run by the Workers Beer Company who recruit volunteers from the local communities for the long week-end.

Worthy Farm - during...

In keeping with its green credentials the organisers try and encourage festival-goers to use public transport where possible. Extra trains are laid on to stop at the nearby Castle Cary station and extra buses and coaches ferry people to the site from Wednesday onward and away again on the Monday afterwards, but there are also fifty-five separate carparks around the site and these must be pre-booked. 

The transformation as in excess of two hundred thousand people arrive is spectacular. The three days of music across nine stages is now given extensive media coverage on radio and television. I believe the BBC shows many of the top acts live, though I must admit it's been a long time since the Glastonbury line-up included anyone I'd particularly want to see - not even the Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney in their respective dotages, thank you very much. I suppose my fantasy Glastonbury line-up would consist of the following: Jason Isbell, Rose City Band, Bedouine, Hoodoo Gurus, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Blue Aeroplanes, Howlin' Rain, Courtney Marie Andrews, Richard Hawley, Kula Shaker and The Coral... and there's as much chance of that happening as of Lapland winning the next FIFA World Cup.

But that's not the point is it? It's all about being there, the occasion, the community, which is why tickets sell out in next to no time every year. Glastonbury has become a world famous cultural event and  Michael Eavis is able to donate the majority of the festival profits to good environmental causes these days. 

On Monday, the massive clean-up begins. All festival-goers have to sign a 'green pledge' to take away any structural items they brought with them (tents et cetera) and to dispose of all rubbish in the bins provided. It takes a team of volunteers about three weeks to clear the 900 acres of farmland (the stages, the temporary concessions, the portaloos, the rubbish bins and general debris) so as to restore the open space and make it fit for the cows to return. It's a practised and impressive routine.

Worthy Farm - after...

Michael Eavis grew up on Worthy Farm, inheriting it at 19 years old on the death of his father, who was both farmer and Methodist local preacher.. For a while, farmer Michael also worked in a nearby colliery in order to supplement the Worthy income. Diversifying into holding a music festival on his land, after the examples of Woodstock in the USA and the closer to home Bath Blues Festival, effectively ensured the long-term viability of his dairy farm.

Eavis, full name Athelstan Joseph Michael Eavis, will be ninety next year. A Labour Party member and former parliamentary candidate, he invited Jeremy Corbyn to address the festival crowd in 2017 and has more recently been pressing Labour to take a leaf out of the Greens' eco manifesto. Michael Eavis was knighted earlier this year for services to music and to charity. In common with his parents and his second wife (Emily's mother), he remains a practising Methodist "not really bothered" about the existence of God.

This humorous poem, just dashed off for the occasion, is dedicated to Sir Michael's herd of atom heart mothers. (The usual caveat applies - if I can see ways to improve it after posting, I will make tweaks.). 

Worthy Farm Cows

are not big party animals.

Yes they're partial to a little Mozart

in the milking parlour

or the strains of Beethoven's 

Pastoral Symphony

but they're not really festival goers.

Oh, they'd cope well enough

with the herd mentality, the Hare Krishnas

and the mud - it's just the music,

pumped out pop at top wattage

from hundreds of speakers

on nine stages, and all that flag-waving.

Quite frankly they'd be spooked.

And it's not as if their favourite tunes

would ever get played: "No Milk Today",

"I Can Hear The Grass Grow", 

or something by Cud,

"Love In A Hollow Tree" for instance.

No, best to get away 

for a couple of weeks

to some restful foreign field 

across the valley.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)