1986 Glastonbury Building peace mountain

THE BUILDING OF A PEACE MOUNTAIN

TIM JARVIS gets a lesson in farm economics from MICHAEL EAVIS—the man who built Glastonbury and is helping to make CND grow.

"I SUPPOSE you want to talk about the convoy" says Michael Eavis wearily, at the end of hard day on the Glastonbury site. News bulletins are broadcasting rumours of hippies heading for Glastonbury.

"What do you mean, rumours?" he asks incredulously. "They're already here."

Sitting cosy on the phone in London I had images of Somerset farmland knee deep in Aduki burgers and joss-sticks with indigenous cows fighting to the death overthe last blade of grass.

Eavis is a busy man. His festival has become a big musical fixture and has outgrown the trivialities of former days. It's now billed as "Europe's most effective anti-nuclear fundraiser" and earns more for CND in three days than anything else they do in a year.

Throughout the '70s Eavis, a small-stock dairy farmer, opened his gates for the 'legendary' free festivals around the summer solstice. But in 1979 he decided it was time for a change. His daughter, Emily, had just been born and around that time the anti-nuclear movement was undergoing a rebirth.

"I developed very protective feelings for my little girl who had nothing to do with the world and the major eradication that politicians and generals seemed to be planning."

With this personal commitment, and alarm from his bank manager, Eavis mortgaged his farm to finance the first of the new-look festivals in 1981. He clearly found a winning formula as the festival has continued to make a profit to date.

Throughout the year Eavis farms his dairy herd and has made the festival work because he has applied frugal, farm economics to big-time entertainment.

"The music business have a tough time negotiating with me," he says, "because I treat them in exactly the same way as the farmers I deal with at Taunton cattle market."

The farm is dominated by the 80ft-high pyramids used as main stage during the festival and barn in winter (ironically enough built from surplus Ministry of Defence metal sheeting) which symbolises the permanence of the festival. Far from being one of a dying breed, Glastonbury has adopted a tantalising combination of music, theatre and arts, both commercial and esoteric, and there's never a shortage of major acts (this year, Lloyd Cole, The Cure, Madness, Level 42) queuing up to play.

Perhaps there are some regrets that so much attention has been concentrated on Band Aid, etc, taking the focus away from other causes.

"Feeding the starving in Africa is admirable but non-political compared with nuclear disarmament," says Eavis. "Rich, right-wing pop stars don't want to support us, but thank God there are still a few big names who will put their weight behind CND."

And regrets, no doubt, that this year's festival has been heralded by the arrival of Fleet St's current bete-noire.

"This whole hippy thing is pathetic and so self-indulgent. Fair enough, this is a peace festival but no longer of the 'Can't you feel the love 'variety!"