Glastonbury - There Are No Proper Shops

July 6th, 1991 was a day I did two things I’d never done before. I saw my first, in the flesh, crop circle; and I visited the town of Glastonbury. Taking things back to the very beginning, it was all thanks to Terry Wogan.

Earlier that year Wogan had David Icke as his guest on the BBC’s prime time show, aptly named ‘Wogan’.
I never watched it myself but my mother did, and she rang me later to exclaim that some bloke called David Icke was on Wogan; said he was the son of God.I asked who David Icke was and she said that he used to be a footballer, a goalie for Coventry City, did the snooker, was leader of the Green party and that he was ridiculed by the whole audience, and it was all very embarrassing.
I said, ‘a goalie for Coventry City? I’m not surprised. Why would the son of God play for Coventry City?’

Suffice to say, it had grabbed my interest. I knew the sacrilege of such a claim, having been brought up a Catholic, and I’ve heard many a similar shout in railway station cafes and upper decks of buses, usually from someone sat spittling right behind me; but for someone to do it on live TV was reasonably new. If Icke was a Catholic he’d certainly just
condemned himself to an eternity of fire and brimstone, accompanied by the sounds of a forever recurring Westlife discography.

I bought his book, ‘The Truth Vibrations’, and to be honest found it all a bit much. Icke sounded like a modern day Nostradamus, albeit one bedecked in a turquoise shell suit.
Many things he said in the book related to natural disasters that we would face unless wechange our ways. Curiously, nearly twenty years later President Obama and the UN are saying the same things, concerning climate change.

What I found most intriguing were his references to ‘Earth Energies’ and ‘Ley Lines’, and how these invisible channels of energy circle and crisscross the earth; and that stone circles were apparently built at certain ‘node’ points. Some of these energy centres are still alive and have a higher purpose, particularly in places like Avebury and Glastonbury.
At the time Avebury was at the centre of world-wide crop circle activity: still a hoax unclaimed, or maybe not a hoax at all. Glastonbury was later referred to by Icke as 'the centre of the Universe', and a local landmark, Chalice Hill, as the actual Camelot of an actual King Arthur. I thought, ‘Wow, the centre of the Universe is not only on Earth but in England? Fancy that!’ I could even visit there without the need for a very long journey involving sleep pods.

Once I’d finished the book I passed it on to my best mate Marcus, who became instantly hooked, especially on the Earth energy stuff.

Later that year in July, six of us (three couples) had booked a holiday together in a B&B in Newquay, Cornwall, to do the usual holiday things: lounging on beaches drinking and going to pubs to sit in beer gardens, only to return for a shower and change of clothes at teatime, before continuing to more pubs with decent jukeboxes for the evening.
The holiday would of course have the occasional diversion of crazy golf, but in the past this has caused too many arguments and more than a tolerance of cheating, which would lead to upgrading to the more sensible ‘pitch and putt’ - a halfway house between what is officially called crazy golf and real golf which, when you think about it, is complete madness. People become very serious about their golf, and join online forums to argue which club would be best for hitting a lethal ball over 400 yards to get it into a little hole.
They have bobble hats for their clubs, wear ridiculous pants and ride around in golf carts, which essentially are nothing more than mobility vehicles with a roof. This pointless activity is done in all weathers, and by people with either too much time or too much money or both. It’s a very unhealthy sport as so many players die of heart attacks whilst on the
green. So many that I’m surprised that Health and Safety rules don’t insist on each course having its own hospital.

This would have been our ideal, lazy vacation but it was July and it was the UK and so it rained - constantly, heavily and every day.
The rainy days gave the industrious Marcus the idea of commandeering some wire coat hangers from the B&B bedroom wardrobe, which he engineered into dowsing rods, and the suggestion was made that we go and have a look at one of these ancient sites that are so abundant in Cornwall, to see what these earth energies are all about.

We headed to the nearest one, the Nine Maidens stone row just outside St Columb Major, parked our cars and without further ado tramped across the field. Marcus had the coat hangers in position: one in each hand pointing forwards like dual pistols, and he began to walk determinedly and steadily towards the row.

As he went between the stones, the ‘rods’ both swung inwards 90 degrees towards each other, and then swung out again when he’d crossed through. This drew different reactions from the rest of us. He himself laughed the sort of laugh one would make if a little fairy had just landed on your nose and tickled your nostril hairs. Others made
exclaiming ‘uh’ noises, and I simply stared, trying to evaluate what had happened, my finger reaching for a non-existent panic button. Mrs Peach, said, ‘Give them to me, I’ll see if you’re bullshitting’: and so she repeated the short routine with the rods. Her reaction was amusing because the rods did exactly the same thing; she screamed and instinctively threw them ten feet away. I think by now my hands were involuntarily placed on my cheeks, spelling the body language ‘oh my God’.

It was my turn. I really thought that nothing would happen. I couldn’t see how it could, and assumed that the moving rods were akin to the ‘OK, who pushed the glass?’ question often asked when playing with Ouija boards. So off I went, and of course they did move exactly the same as they had for the other two. Indeed they did it for everybody, turning inwards when just entering the edge of the row, and out again once across it: a distance that was no more than a metre.

It has to be said that here is something special, very special: when something happens that you simply can’t explain and know nothing about. It really feels that you’ve more than scratched some surface; opened a Pandora's box. The first time, and with ignorance as your companion,the experience is virginal and untainted. From that moment on though, every other dowsing adventure would be polluted by expectation and would never again feel as pure.

This we discovered quite quickly, because in the remaining days we tried to visit every standing stone and circle in Cornwall: from Men an Tol to Bodmin Moor - and sure enough every time there was a movement, so to speak. It was as if we’d stumbled upon a huge ancient secret that people with beards and their husbands had been quietly keeping.

We were told about a man who lived near St Ives: a famous local author, dowser and forger (that is, a forger who forges metal to make into other metal things such as dowsing rods, and not one who forges paper to make into other paper things, such as illegal £20 notes).
He was mostly known amongst the hirsute for his book, ‘The Sun and the Serpent’: a book about two major ley lines, respectively named Michael and Mary: energy channels that traverse the world but both pass through southern England. Marcus and I set off to his forge and were very pleased to meet him there.

He was a lovely bloke, and with a beard. We didn’t have too much to say because Hamish Miller is to dowsers what Stirling Moss is to car racing enthusiasts, only bearded. I can't remember whether we were naive enough to let him in on our revelation that that we’d just bent some coat hangers, had our heads blown, and now we would like to buy his book; but we probably did and it was more than likely me who said it.

The Sun and the Serpent is a very powerful and interesting book. It’s as if the hairy ones are giving you clues to an age old treasure. I would suggest getting a copy for its detailed coast to coast ethereal guide, but here’s a synopsis in a paragraph:

These Earth encompassing energy lines lines enter England on the western edge of Cornwall at Carn Les Boel, and exit from East Anglia. The Michael line was first brought to the world’s attention (that is, those who were paying any) in the 60’s, by another author, John Michell. Hamish Miller and co-author of The Sun and the Serpent, Paul Broadhurst, discovered, through dowsing, the existence of the Mary line.
They intertwine across the country. The Michael line is so named as it passes through many places dedicated to St Michael, such as St Michael's Mount and Brentor, Burrowbrige Mump and Glastonbury Tor: all of which are topped by St Michael towers or churches. It also passes through many ancient stone circle sites, such as Boscawen-Un, the Merry Maidens, The Hurlers and Avebury. The St Mary Line, known as the feminine energy, the yin to the yang of Michael, passes through places dedicated to St Mary. The lines occasionally cross at several spots: these crossings are known as node points, or ‘energy centres’ and occur at places often associated with paranormal shenanigans. One such node point is on Glastonbury Tor, but not at the top where you would think: more of that in the Tor chapter.

So, as far as were all concerned, the plot thickened.......

On the last morning we packed our clothes and put the cases in the cars. It was just before setting off that we were told of a crop circle that had been discovered at Callington a few days earlier. As we were by now hardened earth mystery buffs it seemed only correct and
fated that we visit this circle especially as it was on our way home.
It took a while to find the exact place as crop circle makers selfishly fail to put up direction signs, so by asking at petrol stations and local shops and suffering smirks we eventually found our way to the farm where this circle was which, fittingly, was in the middle of nowhere. We knocked at the farm and asked if we could go and see it. The farmer was not happy about this being here as he didn’t want the attention, and he wouldn't allow us to go directly into it but guided us to a viewpoint further up a lane. He seemed to think that we might know something about these things, and was curious to understand the thinking on how and why they occur. Of course, we had no more idea than we do now; but this was pre Doug and Dave days, so doubt hadn’t yet reared it’s spoiling head. The farmer explained that he’d been in that field at dusk the previous evening. The next morning he was there again - and there it was.

Back then looking at that circle was really just looking at a round circle in flattened crop; but with the added ingredients of a week of strangeness, and moving coat hangers cloaked in ancient stories and explanations, we might as well have been looking at the reconnaissance landing spot for an imminent arrival of enlightened, sentient, touchy finger space beings. It felt as if we were being allowed access to things that were usually only
heard in the mutterings of unwashed people who pass you in the street smelling of alcohol.

So we left with a Wow! and thus began the crop circle years - but that wasn’t today. Today we were going back to our home in the jewel of the North that is Crewe.
We had stopped at a Services on the M5 to see how much money we could waste in fifteen minutes on coffee which tastes of warm but well thinned gravy, and food that wasn’t anything like the photos of itself backlit above the counter. To be brutal, they didn’t even look like close relatives.

Doing some map checking (and for the benefit of younger readers: maps were paper things, with a sort of aerial view of where you were now; much like your Tom Tom, only these didn’t talk to you and direct you the wrong way, so therefore you didn’t throw them from the windows of moving cars. Yet they were difficult to read whilst driving alone and even more difficult if your partner was using one to navigate for you) we found that we would be passing the junction that leads to Glastonbury, and after objections that the town was 15 miles from the turn off, meaning we’d have a 30 mile detour, we decided we might as well go, if only to cap our weird week.

When you drive into a town for the first time, the first thing you look for - and insist your passengers help - is a car park: and so it was we ended up driving around the first one we came to, and pulling up in front of parked cars with people inside, and then doing that stupid thing of saying, through sealed windows, ‘Are you coming out?’ Of course they can’t hear you, so by moving your hand and pointing and widening the mouth with imbecilic
precision, you again say, only with a more scrunchy face,
'ARE YOU COMING OUT?'
To which you can guarantee they say ‘NO’, and move their hands from side to side, often accompanied by a smug grin; so off you go to repeat this several times, before parking illegally.

The lads decided that they would have a look around the ruined Abbey (near which we had eventually parked) whilst the girls chose instead to go shopping at M&S, BHS, Woolies, Ethel Austin - and at whatever else Glastonbury could offer. None of us boys are shopping fans, owing to historic attrition and resignation, so some old ruins would definitely be better.

We’d arranged to meet up again in an hour, at a cafe called the Mocha Berry in Magdalene Street. We were there first, followed closely by the girls: an amazing thing since none of us had mobile phones then. We’d actually managed to prearrange a time without needing to ring to say, ‘I’m on my way, be there in 10’.

This brings me to another cultural confusion, which is that so many people have hands freemobiles today. This essentially allows one to talk to oneself loudly without causingbatted eyelids. This has seriously affected our pouring of attention onto those who previously talked loudly whilst walking alone, without a phone. Nowadays we just don’t know, and the first victim was pity.

I’ll never forget the girls' startled faces as they came into the cafe, or their Northern accented opening line: ‘There are no proper shops!’
They went on to use words such as, ‘weird’, ‘strange’, ‘odd’, and possibly ‘freaky’.

In the cafe at the table next to us was a girl, the archetypal 60’s styled hippy chick, who was talking to, I assumed, her visiting mother. After some time, in a raised voice she said, ‘Look at those beautiful clothes,’ gesturing out of the front window. Being a Northerner myself and therefore instinctively curious, or as it’s better called up there, bloody nosey, I turned to see four men doing nothing more than simply crossing the road, but dressed in clothing you would never see in Crewe (even today). Colourful, loose, shiny, flowing and indeed very beautiful: and that was the moment, that very moment, I knew I could never be the same person ever again; and I think this is when I entered the Chapel Perilous: a phrase coined by author Robert Anton Wilson, in his book , ‘Cosmic Trigger’.

This chapel, or state of mind, is what one enters on becoming 'interested' in the workings of the Universe, usually on some 'New Age' yellow brick path - be it from UFO or crop circle enthusiasm, or from looking into spirituality, or taking psycho active drugs; or maybe from a nervous breakdown - also known as a 'Spiritual Awakening', depending on whether you ask a Doctor or a Buddhist monk.

The thing is that you don’t realise you’ve entered the Chapel until you’re already inside. I can assure you that family and friends would certainly have noticed, but they don’t refer to it in such ecclesiastical terms.
They use more succinct adjectives and analyses, such as: ‘lost the plot’, ‘looney tunes’, ‘one pebble short of a beach’, or ‘one can short of a six pack’ - or simply, ‘confused’.

Glastonbury is indeed a living Chapel Perilous. It would not be misplaced to have the town’s border sign stating: ‘Abandon hope some of ye who enter here’ - but that might scare the tourists, which wouldn’t do.
As Wilson states, the Chapel only has two exit doors: one marked 'Paranoid' and the other 'Agnostic'.

I enjoy entertaining the thought that I came out the latter.

That is assuming of course that I'm out.