Festivals Britannia Page #5

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The atmosphere was absolutely chaotic, it was just wonderful,

because there was no security,

there was no backstage or anything like that, no smart caravans

or anything like that. Completely haphazard.

But it worked.

People ring up and say, "Can we come and talk to you?

"We'd like to do such-and-such."

And we had healers and spiritual leaders

and ghost hunters and maze builders and every kind of walk of life.

#..Something to make you so happy... #

The first Glastonbury Fayre had the most beautiful stage I've ever seen.

It was this pyramid built out of scaffolding and then covered

in polythene sheeting, which reflected the light,

and it was gorgeous. And it was very, very big.

And there were two guys, they had a piece of drain attached

to the scaffolding, and a large iron spike,

which they were about to drive with sledgehammers into the ground.

I suppose to tap in to the convergence of ley lines under the stage.

And one of them looked at the other and said,

"Of course, we might split the earth in half."

And one said, "Do you think so?" And he said, "Mm, maybe, I don't know."

"What the f***." Then he hit it with a hammer and the earth didn't split in half.

But there was a moment when I thought, "This is going to be really interesting."

Somehow or another, in spite of all that sort of looniness that was going on,

it still happened, which is extraordinary.

# Oh, the heart that keeps on changing... #

Everybody was doing something. And to me, it suddenly clicked,

it was more like the bands that were doing it, all knew each other.

So there was a reason to do it for free.

In the audience there was an American with a cockerel on his shoulder.

He was known as Chicken Man.

And he'd saved it from the slaughterhouse.

I thought a lot of it was very weird.

It looked like a sort of a get together of intergalactic aliens

and sort of really weird looking people.

I wasn't really sure if I was hallucinating or not,

or if this was actually what was really there.

# Sometimes when I am feeling as big as the land

# With the velvet hill

# In the small of my back

# And my hands are playing the sand... #

It did have an air of innocence about it.

It had an air of exploration.

Nobody knew what was going to come from it.

It was a combination of ancient Druidism and modern music,

and confronting the modern world.

#..Sometimes when I am feeling... #

Like any other family, the hippies can occasionally be seen taking afternoon tea.

The sandwiches and fruit cake are on offer most afternoons

at the home of Miss Christine, a determined lady of over 80.

She lives in Glastonbury and is a staunch defender of the hippies.

She feeds them, has them to stay and encourages them to take baths.

The village people were sort of very broad-minded, I think,

looking back at it now.

There were people walking about nude with top hats on

and knocking on people's doors in the village.

Really, it was quite horrendous.

But they did think it was funny.

It would be very nice to see, not just Glastonbury Fayre happen,

but lots of small festivals happening

with the same motive. You see, we can't tell

what good will come out of it until we try it.

At Glastonbury Fayre, some people felt they had found something special,

a glimpse of an entirely different kind of life.

# Please don't dominate the rap, Jack

# If you've got nothing new to say

# If you please, go back up to check

# This train's going to run today. #

Elsewhere in Britain, commercial festivals such as Wheeley and Bickershaw,

were attempting to pick up

where the Isle of Wight and Bath festivals had left off.

Bickershaw, Lancashire, a mining village on the road to Wigan Pier.

A place where nothing ever happens.

Until May 1972, when the Bickershaw Pop Festival made it a mecca.

In terms of the festival then, are you going to be ready on time?

It looks as though you're not.

Well, what would convince you that we were?

If the fences were up, the stage was up, everything was ready.

What fences are not up?

They're gates that are not up. Fences are up.

The accusation that this isn't ready, if you don't know anything at all about festivals,

then you might make that statement.

If you know anything about festivals, then you'd say we're about up to date.

# My younger brother

# went to jail... #

But something wasn't quite right.

Amateur businessmen, poor organisation and often horrendous weather,

meant that commercial ventures like Bickershaw never quite established themselves in the early '70s.

But for those that had seen the light at the free-spirited

Glastonbury Fayre, festivals were now becoming less about entertainment,

and more about an alternative nomadic way of life.

The Sixties' hippy dream of a new society was becoming an alternative

reality for a growing number of people, who began to make a new life on the road.

# Leaves are falling all around

# Time I was on my way...

# Thanks to you, I'm much obliged

# For such a pleasant stay

# But now it's time for me to go... #

I think as a result of Glastonbury Fayre in 1971,

a great many people then thought that they had experienced some sort of life-changing situation,

and it prompted them to want to go and set up on their own,

and take over, if they could, common spaces,

what was left of them, and really rekindle the idea of communality, if you like.

I think that was the beginning of

the formation of alternative communities.

Certainly in the West Country, around Glastonbury, you found people

trying to live in yurts or living in caravans.

People starting to follow the festival trail.

Free festivals was a lifestyle thing that we wanted to develop

a way of living out of, rather than just the music thing.

We were like a whole generation on the move, all these people who,

you know, a lot of people would travel from festival to festival.

They basically lived at festivals.

They'd stay on afterwards and clean up after them.

As far as free festivals were concerned, we were the travelling festival.

When we turned up with vehicles and our families, got our stalls out and put them up, you know,

we traded with the local population.

A whole group of like-minded people who would try

to make a living at festivals by making stuff and selling things.

I remember walking in to one, and within 25 minutes I was in charge

of an organic stall.

And the guy didn't come back for two hours.

So I mean, you know, it was like that.

You just didn't have a...

Like, "I'm playing music."

You were part of all of it.

As the free festival movement gathered momentum in the early '70s,

this new alternative culture began looking for a spiritual home, and converged for a series of festivals

in the somewhat provocative surroundings of Windsor Great Park.

The spirit there was quite incredible, it really was.

It was just amazing. The whole feeling.

People were there and could hardly

believe this was happening in England.

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