Lodestar Festival

IN 1970, Michael Eavis was a 34-year-old dairy farmer who, 11 years earlier had inherited 150 acres of countryside land at the foot of Glastonbury Tor, at Pilton in Somerset. He was inspired to organise the first Glastonbury festival after he and his wife

IN 1970, Michael Eavis was a 34-year-old dairy farmer who, 11 years earlier had inherited 150 acres of countryside land at the foot of Glastonbury Tor, at Pilton in Somerset. He was inspired to organise the first Glastonbury festival after he and his wife Jean visited the Bath Blues Festival. On September 19, 1970, about 2,000 people watched T-Rex play at Worthy Farm and the first Glastonbury Festival was born.

It was years before it made any money and there have been lots of bad publicity and problems along the way, but the modern day event attracts 100,000 music lovers and makes hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity.

Lodestar organiser and life-long music fan Doug Durrant, inspired by television footage of festivals like Glastonbury, has plans to introduce his own festival to the East Cambridgeshire village of Lode. The farmer hopes to emulate the success of the event, but knows he has some work to do to win some of the locals round.

IAN RAY and DEBBIE DAVIES report.

# The proposal for the festival took 18 months to put together.

# The land that will become the festival arena has been flattened and planted with the most suitable kinds of grass to avoid a Glastonbury-style mudbath.

# The festival site will include a family camping field and will spread across 120 acres.

# As well as two stages, there will be a specially-designed acoustic tent for low-noise, late-night performances.

# A small film festival at Lodestar will promote the work of aspiring film-makers.