Up Glastonbury Tor

I have only been up Glastonbury Tor once , I was on holiday in Bath at the time and took a trip to Glastonbury itself. Now this is what I remember at the time and may be flawed and wrong but it was inspired by a conversation with Soleira Green.

This happened so long ago that there was a Woolworths in Glastonbury, I remember Bill Bryson berating the fact that every town you went to was the same and had a Boots , a WH Smiths , a Woolworths and more , but nothing different from any other town , complete homogenization.

I think I avoided those shops but there was a posh pub called “Backpackers” with a very strict dress code that would not allow backpackers in, which was pretty ludicrous , so we went to another one.

My friend Mike O’Brien , CEO of Opencast Software, had told me about an amazing version of “I Fought The Law” he had heard , he is a great fan of The Clash, and I went into a market hall and there was a place selling CDs and I picked up a compilation called “Heartbeats: Nätive Sounds From The Hearts of Europe” (that’s the only time I’ve seen an umlaut on a lowercase “a”) and the reason I bought it was because it had a version of “I Fought The Law” by The Oysterband featuring Yaranistan. That was the one amazingly. You can listen to it below but I have a feeling the disc may be a little difficult to acquire (it was on Special Delivery Records SPDCD 1029). Surprisingly it's on Amazon here.

I am listening to it as I am typing. The YouTube video is one that I had to do.

So we then decided to go up Glastonbury Tor . Foot and Mouth was spreading in the UK but everything looked ok. We wandered past a Digeridoo maker (I have one at home , but being a wind instrument I’ve never been able to get much out of it) , I am sure then we went to some magical grotto before getting into the field to take the path up Glastonbury Tor. Here is the official website.

“Beneath the hill, it is said, that there is a hidden cave through which you can pass in to the fairy realm of Annwn. There dwells the lord of the Celtic underworld Gwyn ab Nudd with the Cauldron of Rebirth”

Glastonbury Tor is a conical almost artificial hill on a flat plain and it is topped by a stone structure almost like a small castle. When you get up you have amazing views for a long distance in every direction. I probably took photographs but it was in the film days , pre digital , so they may be lost.

While we were up there , we saw a figure at the bottom, who started running up the hill. This was slightly disconcerting. They guy got up to us and promptly stood on his head for a good five minutes. We were nonplussed. Eventually he got back on his feet and ran back down. We didn’t see him again.

That was the event.

We wandered back down the Tor glad for the experience but without any magical side effects , unlike our visitor who I think may have partaken of certain substances that are not generally available but probably are in Glastonbury.

Down at the bottom the field was taped off with Foot and Mouth warnings , they weren't there when we set off up there but were there now.

So that is my story of my day in Glastonbury, if you ever get the chance you have to do it, you will not regret it.