Glastonbury revisited - Friday 27 June
Henry and Dick started to explore the ‘heart and soul’ of the Festival
DAY TWO
Friday we set off to meet the amazing Sarah Sheppard at the site office and bumped into Tony Boffey who is now a senior member of the Site Management at Glastonbury and also handles the Abbey Extravaganza. Tony went to the same Agricultural College as me and then came to work on the White Book as well as getting involved in our live shows which included Glastonbury.
Sarah had arranged a special surprise appointment which transpired to be a visit to the BBC Compound where Peter Taylor (Engineering Manager) and a host of BBC staff were in attendance to meet me. Lots of hugs and I could feel the love - it was very emotional to be back amongst my BBC colleagues. So great to see - Peter Taylor, Alison Howe, Jo Housden, Rebecca ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson, Rachel Cooke, Richard Earle and his son Tom, John, Vicky, Antonia, Rhys, Tahira Dar and so many more. Not forgetting the Director Janet Fraser Crook. Henry and I sat in the TV Broadcast scanner for the end of Supergrass, the opening act on the Pyramid stage. Henry was also thrilled to have a guided tour of the OB and transcription trucks - being Senior Sound Supervisor in the film world - he was in his element. Thanks so much to those who gave freely of their time to make our ‘BBC Compound tour’ so memorable and enjoyable.
We got a lift across to West Holts and met up with the team there. John and Alex Clarke, Neil Brown and Ruth Robinson. John and Alex both used to work for EnTEEtainment which is where they met and subsequently got married and now have a family. They were both working on site at the London Chinese New Year Celebrations for us back in February. Ruth used to be my Dressing Room manager at the Other Stage and is now part of the West Holts team. Neil Brown has acted as a stage manager for us on many shows and events and now handles production at West Holts.
We caught a bit of the set by Glass Beams - which I thought was excellent - check them out…
From West Holts we walked across to The Park via Glasto Latino, the Field of Avalon, and along the railway line. We did selfies in front of the ribbon tower and then met up with Andy and Sam Shorten and Neil Marcus at the Park. Andy had only left one our shows a few days earlier where he had been our Production Manager for a Jamie Webster concert at Haydock Park and he needed to get back to Haydock asap on Monday 30 June ready for a Tom Jones show on Friday 4 July. Sam is one of our regular Artist Liaison TEEm and Neil Marcus has worked with us for many years at events including Reading Festival, BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend, Proms in the Park and a number of Racecourse shows.
Having enjoyed some cold drinks and a bit of rest - we carried on to look at the preparations in Arcadia, then down past the Other Stage into the Interstage, past the BBC Introducing Stage and onto Woodsies (previously named John Peel Stage) - before heading back to the hospitality car park and returning to our accommodation. A long, hot and sunny day - but so much fun and just kept on ‘bumping into people’ that I knew as we trundled around. l literally nearly knocked over Ruari Molloy at one point - another past member of our TEEm - who went to the same school as Frankie and I took on to work on some of our shows including Glastonbury. His first job with us was ‘The Big Grin’ the 350th birthday celebrations of Punch and Judy in Covent Garden in 2012 - check it out:
https://www.channel4.com/news/punch-and-judy-celebrate-350-years
Back at Bourne farm we enjoyed some chill time relaxing around the camp fire with the other guests, toasted marshmallows and chatted. It was great fun, but we did avoid singing ‘Ging gang goolie’ and other traditional camp fire songs. Being from the world of feature films, Henry had a lot in common with many of the guests and there was a lot of ‘do you know’… ‘yes, he is a good friend of mine’…’I worked on that film as well’… ‘do give him/her my regards when you see them again’…
(Day Three coming up)