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.. a brief glimpse of this place can be seen in the actress Diane Cilento's documentary produced by the BBC "One Pair of Eyes".In 1971 many of the students and their teacher, Mr J.G. Bennett, went to the Glastonbury Fayre music festival. You can see Mr Bennet talking about the festival in the documentary "Glastonbury Fayre".
I had a childhood memory of the festival. It was a dreamlike memory of a friendly raven. As I grew up I began to doubt that this ever happened. If I remember it right the raven was with someone at the festival but befriended me. It was very odd friendship as I had a bad association of raven type birds from reading the Lord of the Rings and Hitchock "The Birds" but I wasn't at all afraid of this fellow. I remember his sharp claws and his deep cackling voice.
The festival started out very wet and muddy but then it turned into a heatwave. In my parent's group of acquaintances, through our connection with Mr Bennett, were musicians like Arthur Brown, Robert Fripp, De Hartman, and actors like Diane Cilento.
I remember Jason Connery, son of Diane Cilento and Sean Connery (an actor who played one of the early roles as James Bond), going to our school for a short while and playing with us at Sherborne House. He is the blond boy in the clip from Diane's documentary attached.Arthur Brown was "responsible" for teaching me the rules of chess, which I then terrorised all the residents of Sherborne House, challenging them to matches where I would inevitably torture them with distracting behaviour and cheat when they weren't looking. I was a horrible undisciplined "hippy" child.
The music at the festival was amazing. However, the more amazing thing was the mix of people from all walks and classes of society getting together in a crazy, sometimes clashing, sometimes harmonious experiment of cathartic release from social norms and ways of thinking. The smell of cannabis and hot plastic of tents brings back these memories easily.
Glastonbury Fayre 1971 full documentary video here
