A People’s History archive of Glastonbury Festival
My Glastonbury Story is an archive of crowd sourced photographs & stories exploring the people's history of this iconic festival. Please get in touch to contribute!
NB - This is an unofficial project and not directly related to Glastonbury Festival
See the full archive of stories & images from 1970 - 2020
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Ian Anderson, 1970
“I just remember our gang lounging on the grass, like everybody else as was the hippy habit in those days, and watching whoever came on. I’m not entirely sure that those appearing on the day bore much relation to the poster. Quintessence, Amazing Blondel and Stackridge (several times, i.i.r.c.) came and went.
When it was time for my set, I did some solo things, then brought up hirsute bongo player, the late Ian Turner (aka “Heavy Drummer”) and guitarist Ian Hunt. We kept getting signals from the wings to keep going. Eventually, when we finally got the sign to finish we dragged up most of our gang – musicians, girlfriends, writers from Melody Maker and Sounds, hangers on – in a ramshackle attempt to summon up some “Woodstock Spirit” with a version of Country Joe’s Fixin’ To Die Rag.”
Will Blomfield, 1970
“The opening day of the first Glastonbury, 19th September 1970, coincided with my 2nd birthday - that's me hugging my mum - and being so young I don't remember anything about it.”
Peter Gibson, 1971
“In 1970 my parents decided to join The International Academy of Continuous Education at Sherborne House, Gloucestershire. This was established by Mr JG Bennett who was continuing on from the teachings of Gurdjieff. We had been living in suburbia. A large house in Kingston. We moved into a country mansion full of students from all over the world. In 1971 many of the students and their teacher, Mr J.G. Bennett, went to the Glastonbury Fayre music festival”
Paul Clements, 1984
“Just waiting for "The Smith's" to enter main stage, 1984. This photo was taken by my good friend Anita Hambrook. Her then boyfriend Paul is laying next to me, worse for wear. He joined-in the stage invasion which meant The Smith's ended their set earlier than normal! Glastonbury was still pretty small then and with no security, which allowed for the stage invasion. Everything was all pretty gentle and everybody looked after each other. It was the year of The Miners Strike and I remember I lot of "Coal not Dole" stickers all over the place, which was great to see. It was also the year which I read Peter Kropotkin's fantastic 1902 book: "Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution" .. it kind of summed-up Glastonbury for me that year, living and working together, in a collective and collaborative way.”
Miranda Millen, 1985
“I was born in Undle Ground field on 23/06/85, after my parents were part of the peace convoy who had been caught up in Battle of the Beanfield. This photograph circa 1989 after spending all day making my outfit in the kids field. Glastonbury is my birthday party every year, best place on Earth”
John Novis, 1987
“All packed in the car, my friends and daughters climbed in and off we set on theroad back to Brecon, Wales. As we were edging, with other festival goers along the country lanes of Pilton, Somerset suddenly we are pulled over at a police roadblock. I didn’t understand. The police made me follow their car to a ‘festival’ makeshift police station and asked us all to vacate the car. They were accusing us of drug dealing…”
Sian Davey, 1995
“My first Glastonbury. I was 24 living in Bristol. I caught the train and hung out with a bunch of people on there, one of them gave me 2 strawberry acid tabs. I think I was fairly green at the time because I didn't know what they were.
Arriving at the festival I was with a crew from Bristol, I didn't know them that well so I was determined to find Paddy. This was pre - mobile phone days so I sign posted religiously the whole site, everywhere. The notes wrote 'meet me here on the hour.' I still have one of those handwritten notes. I walked and walked miles posting these up. It was typically torrential rain and my boots kept being sucked up into the sticky mud - and then I tore the anterior muscle in my shin. It was painful, but love is a determined thing. At 1pm i went to the meeting place the Red Cross Tent notice board not imagining that he would be there. But he was. He was there. I hugged his friend Yvonne who had found my note and Paddy and I went off to the festival. I pulled out the strawberry acid tab and we took them. I remember so clearly I had no idea what I was taking. But what followed was the funniest 24 hours of my life. We didn’t stop laughing. Paddy would say to me don't speak to anyone because it won't sound like you think it will. So we arrived in the cinema field and I asked if there was room for me on the bench and I was told there wasn't one.. and so on. We went to the travellers party at the back of the site and I was enveloped in gooey, warm, soft pink marshmallow. We became the most perfect party companions ever.
Paddy and I separated 4 years later. Two years ago I went to see him in his hospital bed for the last time, he had a brain tumour. He died that week. That muscle injury still hurts like hell at times and I'm always transported back to that exquisite weekend with my first true love.”
Tanya Cooper, 1997
“My only image of me at Glastonbury. It was 1997. Very messy, and lots of fun. My sister Ruth Stokes lost the car keys and we had an extra day there raiding all the abandoned tents. People leave the craziest things! We ate and drank like Kings until my Dad drove all the way with the spare car keys! My best memory was when everyone started dancing spontaneously at the stone circle at sunset. Very spiritual and beautiful!”
Louise Carron Harris, 2000
“It was a whim of an idea! We clambered into my Vauxhall nova, with my now husband and our best friends and hit the motorway on the Friday night - 10 hours of traffic queue later we dumped my car in a nearby field and 3 hours after that with bags and pillows and a cheap £20 Argos tent we found ourselves hiding behind a bush waiting for the security car to pass before we climbed through a fence
It was the biggest adventure of my life, the adrenaline was pumping through my veins
It hit me hard that we had actually made it inside ...we were greeted with a wild red sky . I knew I was home!
It was 2000 and about 350,000 other people also had the same idea ... it was so packed with people if you let go of your friends hand you’d lose them for days and we didn’t have phones then, not ones we could use!
The highlight of the weekend was watching 5 police men trying to get a man high on LSD who thought he was a cat out of a tree by ‘shushing and saying “here kitty kitty come down kitty kitty””
Harriet, 2015
“This is my first photo with Harry on the weekend we met at Glastonbury 2015. He’s on bottom left and I’m on top of him. It was Sunday afternoon, hours before our first kiss at the pyramid stage, watching The Who. We were due to get married this June in Somerset and head to the festival for our honeymoon. Like many things, the wedding and Glastonbury have been postponed! Till next year...”
Ali Bird, 2016
“2016 - gosh that was a hard year. Going to the Jo Cox Memorial and listening to Billy Bragg sing so sweetly on the Thursday, then waking up to hear the Brexit vote result reverberating across the site with tent after tent just going "fuuuuuuuuck". That was HARD. This picture was taken while we were waiting for ELO to start on Sunday afternoon.”
Sarah Adams, 2019
“Waiting for Kylie to come on the legendary legends slot on the pyramid stage I look into the sky & I see.... “Sarah Adams Marry Me Joe”… I couldn’t quite believe it.. at first I thought it was for another Sarah Adams at first because I had no idea at all!
Joe had been planning this for months, asked my mum before Glastonbury & then my dad on the Wednesday of glasto, he planned for the pilot, organised the flyover months ago & I had no idea.
Joe bought the ring in the green fields area on the Thursday, whilst I planned to get my hair braided & kept the ring in his programme lanyard until the Sunday.... & I didn’t see anything.
On the Sunday we awoke like another normal Glastonbury morning (I’ve been to the festival 9 times now & joe has been 3 times) we had a lazy get up after a boozy day on Saturday topped off by seeing The Killers! The boys went to the pyramid stage early & the girls stayed to finish off getting ready! We went to catch years & years but not to our knowledge David Attenborough was appearing just before Kylie so the pyramid stage was packed.. apparently Joe was getting anxious that I wasn’t going to get there, but we were able to push through towards the end of the years & years set. He didn’t seem nervous at all, so I had no idea what was to come.
Just as Kylie started Joe pointed to the sky which made me look up & there was the banner. My friend then had to get me to turn around to find joe on one knee holding the very ring he bought at the festival the Thursday before, & of course I said YES!”
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