The names of Michael and Emily Eavis are synonymous with Glastonbury Festival. With the big 50th year celebrations erupting later this week, festivalgoers are gearing up to attend the ever-popular festival run by the father-daughter duo.
Now 86, Michael, a dairy farmer by trade, co-founded the festival in September 1970, while Emily’s influence, both musically and politically, has grown steadily since 1999. Athelstan Joseph Michael Eavis was born in 1935, his father a Methodist preacher, and educated at the Wells Cathedral School.
He left school at 15 to join the Union-Castle Line, part of the British Merchant Navy, as a trainee midshipman, which took him from Britain to Kenya and South Africa. When he returned to the UK following the death of his father from cancer in 1954, he reluctantly agreed to inherit the family’s land and herd.
