Glastonbury festival in BR days.

[SWTCommuter]

There is a further Betjeman film about the line, here, a substantial re-edit it seems of the one linked above with some shared shots, but with an extended walk around the old Highbridge Works. Made in 1962, same year I made my one trip on the line. Round about the 15/16 minute mark they are passing through the festival site, which is between Pylle and West Pennard stations. The Glastonbury Blue Gate, on the A37 road (used to be a hump-backed bridge there over the line but long removed), is on the site of Pylle station.

FWIW, it is the same film but the version I linked to was divided into three parts. Parts two and three are here
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPsIIZlH0Rw
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBE2fR0z3CI
I think the only difference is that they are in the correct aspect ratio whereas the single-part version is stretched horizontally. Of course the iPlayer version is in one part and the correct aspect ratio so is probably the best one to watch.

This follow-up film is also worth a look. I'm not sure of the date.

For those who don't know the South-West, there are a longstanding range of indigents (Druids; New Age Travellers; Hippies; traditional Tramps etc) to be found in summer. Farmers around Taunton made use of them at harvest time for extra labour, or undesirable jobs like cleaning out drains, and those I knew were always insistent to pay them full farm labourer wages and not take advantage of them. I think they have however been pretty well cleared out of Glastonbury; £60 just to park on site before admission, and some elegant "Glamping" professionally erected tented areas at about £10,000 for the week!

IIRC, back in the 1960s and 1970s many of the shops in Glastonbury had 'no hippies' signs in the windows. Now many have quite a New Age / hippy feel.

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[Jagdpanther]

I the 80s I dont think many people went to Glastonbury by train. If you didn't have a car or van you hitched. I remember going to Stonehenge free festival in the early 80s which was by far the bigger one, after the solstice there was a mass exodus of hitchers heading to Glastonbury. After the abomination of the Beanfield assault in 1984, Glastonbury got bigger but still going by train was virtually unheard of, despite attendance numbers being double what the official figures were - it was so easy to bunk in. Nowadays Glastonbury is nothing more than a corporate rock product placement exercise and those who attend are at the mercy of big business (including the railways) fighting to bleed them dry.

 

[nw1]

This sounds familiar from my memories of that period too.

Not actually been to Glastonbury festival but the impression I got was that the last time there was a real "hippy" vibe to it was indeed the early 90s.

It's a shame that it is no longer affordable and accessible though. The whole point of things like Glastonbury was presumably to give people with not so much money the chance to see their favourite bands in a festival atmosphere at an affordable price. But are there the same number of new guitar-based rock bands (that were the lifeblood of these festivals) that there were in the old days? I doubtless sound like I'm getting old, but it seems that rock as a genre isn't doing so well right now even compared to the 2000s.

Back to the trains, I do seem to remember a few specials in the mid-90s, so perhaps BR days and perhaps not. I think (might be getting this wrong) that there were some extra Sprinters from Westbury to Castle Cary, the odd additional HST from Paddington, and later (not BR days, admittedly) a 37 and coaches employed vice Sprinters (which I once travelled on from Southampton on the 0836 to Bristol, possibly in 1999, as presumably this was a diagram which headed to Weymouth later in the day).

 

[D6968]

Not actually been to Glastonbury festival but the impression I got was that the last time there was a real "hippy" vibe to it was indeed the early 90s.

It's a shame that it is no longer affordable and accessible though. The whole point of things like Glastonbury was presumably to give people with not so much money the chance to see their favourite bands in a festival atmosphere at an affordable price. But are there the same number of new guitar-based rock bands (that were the lifeblood of these festivals) that there were in the old days? I doubtless sound like I'm getting old, but it seems that rock as a genre isn't doing so well right now even compared to the 2000s.

Back to the trains, I do seem to remember a few specials in the mid-90s, so perhaps BR days and perhaps not. I think (might be getting this wrong) that there were some extra Sprinters from Westbury to Castle Cary, the odd additional HST from Paddington, and later (not BR days, admittedly) a 37 and coaches employed vice Sprinters (which I once travelled on from Southampton on the 0836 to Bristol, possibly in 1999, as presumably this was a diagram which headed to Weymouth later in the day).

June 26th 1999 was opening day of the Millennium Stadium and also Glastonbury so there was a lot of EE Type 3 action in the South West and South Wales.
37414 worked vice a sprinter diagram for Wales and West, so that would the 37 you recall.
47705, 37029 and 46035 worked down the Marches to Cardiff although the 37 was failed at Crewe so Ixion on the other end of the train ended up working to Cardiff.
Valley Lines had a 37 gala with 042, 198 and 678 out on the Rhymneys.
And I believe 051 and 057 ended up working back up the Marches (possibly vice 46035)