Glastonbury Tor

Glastonbury Tor, originally uploaded by Red Snapper9.

I was reminded today about my trip to Glastonbury. Although I go to Somerset a lot I rarely go inland and it's a number of years since I was last in Glastonbury. It's an interesting town, lots of shops with crystals and other hippy-type trinkets. The Tor is just outside the town, located in the middle of the Somerset Levels and can be seen from miles around. The view from the top is spectacular and worth the walk up the hill to the top. I most often see it from The Quantock Hills some miles to the west of Glastonbury, where on a clear day the Tor has a mystical quality as it stands out on the horizon.

I never got to go to the Festival but I imagine it would be a similar atmosphere to that at WOMAD. I am lucky to have been part of the group of people that brought back the Rock Festival to Reading and also brought WOMAD (what we used to call the World of Meals and Drinks) to the town. I can remember it as being an exciting time. We had just taken majority control of the Council and as Chair of Leisure Martin was determined to get the Rock Festival back. Our contacts through Ron Bartholomew, the Festival Site Director, who was also our boss at the Housing Co-op made it easy to negotiate with Harold Pendleton for the return of the Festival. It was always great fun, lots of eating and drinking and loud music. But it was always WOMAD that was my first love. Back stage was a constant parade of all those people and artists that you loved to listen to and the food and workshop events were amazing especially the parades around the site. Happy days which, like most things in life, only really come into focus many years after the event!