Glastonbury Town In the Seventies

Glastonbury in the 1970's. Photograph by  Michael Lidgley.

I recently received an email from Normal For Glastonbury reader David Taplin, he’s been visiting the town since he was a young hippy in the seventies. He’ll shortly be moving back this way – to Street this time. He sent me a fascinating and funny account of his time here and agreed to me sharing it with you, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

Glastonbury Reclamation Yard

Glastonbury Reclamation Yard

Perhaps I’m just a hipster in denial (except for my lack of a beard) but I love reclamation yards. They’re like charity shops for people with big houses and access to a flatbed truck. There is something thrilling about wandering around looking at all this stuff that used to have another life, and could now be part of mine (if I had a big house and a flatbed truck).

Glastonbury Snow

I love snow. We hardly ever seem to get it in Glastonbury, so when we do it’s even more special. I think the snow clouds tend to dump their load over the Mendips before they rarely get here. No matter how old I am I still get that ‘No School Today!’ elation when I open … Read more

Local Media in Glastonbury – popular, but not with everybody

Glastonbury Town Market Day

I recently published a post on the Normal For Glastonbury Facebook page about two Somerset Live articles on Glastonbury Market. The first on June 14th was titled “This is what is wrong with the Tuesday market in Glastonbury”, it appears to have since been deleted, the next (see it here), only  a month later on … Read more

A Little Glastonbury Mystery

I felt a bit sorry for these lost letters, all jumbled up and meaningless in a heap. Of course my next thought, this being Glastonbury, was that they must ‘mean’ something

The Glastonbury Institute of Gracious Living

Once upon a time I lived in a big, old, rambling Edwardian townhouse in Glastonbury with between four and ten friends and we had lots of parties. Manifesting a Home in Glastonbury I’d been sharing a house with Tim and the tenancy was coming to an end in 1998. This being Glastonbury we decided to … Read more

Glastonbury Town I-Spy

Who remembers the days before Pokemon Go, when we walked around and looked at real things in our actual environment? I thought I’d celebrate the particular visual delights Glastonbury has to offer by creating an I-Spy game for the town. See how many you can spot, if you find some good ones tell us about them in … Read more

Glastonbury – The Spiritual Supermarket

It’s an oft heard complaint that you can’t buy anything useful in Glastonbury. This is of course nonsense. What could be more functional than a mirror ball Ganesha? Who needs underwear when you can simply don a very long cloak? As Kim said to me earlier “I don’t actually want a cauldron, but it’s nice to know I could just pop into the High St and buy one if I did”.

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