Tor Webster

My first Glastonbury Festival was 1998 I was a 21 year old film student in Farnham, I was friends with a young family that invited me to go with them and another family. So I just went along for the journey. They were seasoned Glastonbury goers and knew the drill, so, after we had performed a military style operation through a hole under the fence at the dead of night with all ten of us including kids under 5, we made our way to the camp that the dad had set up for us. We were their pretty early and one thing that stood out for me is was the sheer mass of everything , It was amazing to see this sea of tents that came in from nowhere fill the space around us.I don’t remember much from that first time, mostly hanging out at the tent drinking cider and following our group to various random events, mostly for the kids, I don’t even remember what bands I saw that year, I think I saw Portishead. Then I remember being just as amazing as how quickly the tents around me disappeared.

My 2nd Glastonbury was the year later, 1999, it was a whole different experience it was just me and a mate from college. We got there and paid a scally £10 each to squeeze dangerously through a gap in the iron wall that he had wretched open with a crow bar, I was pretty freaked out as I squeezed through as if the crow bar came out I would get squashed and arrested, but there was no wimping out because I had thrown my bag over the fence. We got through and I thought I was in, but I found out there was a Harris fence to climb over also. So I ran and clumsily throw myself over that too, I realised the the local news were filming us so we ran. My parents had moved to Glastonbury town that year and I found out, when I got home, that my mother and sister had seen the back of me on the news running away from the fence, they knew it was me by my run.

My mate and I had quite a marathon time, in complete contrast to my first we went from band to band fuelled by cider, at one point I fell asleep in the crowed in front of the then Jazz World Stage, we spent most our time trying to figure out who the band on Jazz World, I generally didn’t have a clue my friend seemed to know a lot more, I just went along with it. I do remember seeing REM, Manic Street Preachers and Kula Shaka which became one of my favourite bands of all time.

2000 I graduated and with the same friend we repeated our last experience, as it worked so well, it was a spiritual experience to watch David Bowie even though I was a bit put off by the close ups, where you could see how much makeup he was wearing. The other highlight of that year was the Asian Dub Foundation, we were kicking up the mud.

After a fallow year I had moved into Glastonbury Town with my parents coming back from working a year in New Zealand as a tv editor, I had got involved with the local Somerset Film and Video people in Bridgewater and they put me on one of the crews filming for Julian Temples film ‘Glastonbury’ that was a blast walking around capturing the madness and interviewing people.

The next year on I had made friends with Tara who runs the Tipi field, which was and still is an extension of Glastonbury town at the festival. So for many years I was part of the tipi field crew living in various ‘live in vehicles’ and tipis over they years, I loved to hang out with my old friend Adrian Beckingham ‘the man from story mountain’ in his painted tipi, we spent most our time in the smaller stages like Sunbird’s Eartheart Cafe and Pony’s Small World stage.Over the last few years my work as tour guide and operator has clashed with the festival, I’ve been one of those stuck in the traffic. I couldn’t miss the Rolling Stones in 2013 though, so my wife Julie, dog Nettle and I had this plan to sit on a hill overlooking the festival and watch them, we parked up and walked as far as we could sat in a field over looking the festival and we herd them start up in the distance. We got questioned a few times but we were left alone, sadly we couldn’t see the stage, so I got my phone out and we watched it live on the BBC.

Last year I was back in the tipi field being one of four holding the opening, closing and daily ceremony’s, it was a great honour. I was invited back for this year but then we were hit by some strange plague, but I’ll be there next year for the 50th doing ceremony in the tipi field. Come and say hi. I hope to be holding that role for the rest of my life, if not that I’ll be there and find some way in to help hold the magic.

Cover photo by Zeena Mozzaic