Arabella Churchill Q&A

(CNN) -- Arabella Churchill - Winston's granddaughter - has been at the heart of the Glastonbury Festival since its inception. As co-founder, organizer and guiding light since 1971, she knows Glastonbury and Michael Eavis as well as anyone. Here she talks to CNN about her long-standing associations with him and the festival.

CNN: When did you first meet Michael Eavis?

Arabella Churchill: I met Michael Eavis through an old friend of mine, called Andrew Carr, who used to work as an assistant with my father, so I'd known him since I was 8 years old. And Andrew wanted to run a festival, there were quite a few commercial festivals around at that time, but they really weren't very nice, and Andrew had all these ideas about running a free festival. He was looking for a place to do it, and he met up with Michael. Michael was also very keen on festivals. He had snuck into the show ground the year before and seen a big festival there, and thought he ought to have one. So he had a little one on the farm in 1970 himself, and then actually he wasn't living on the farm at that time. He was living in Glastonbury with Jean, his second wife. So he rented the farm to Andrew. And I used to start going down for weekends to see them. It was at Worthy farm. And I met Michael down there obviously. And I moved down for good in about October 1970, I suppose.

CNN: What was the festival like when you first got involved?

Churchill: It was amazing...it was very pure...nobody was doing it for money. Somehow we managed to put it on for free. Andrew put all his money in, I suddenly got some money from a trust and I put that in. People just all waded in to help and I didn't pay any of the balance, possibly not even the transport. And it was free, completely. And it was very much...there hasn't been a festival like it, really. Before or since. We're incredibly lucky, I think it's one of the reasons we're so successful now, is we still have the charisma of that first festival. It seems to have lasted, it's been very special. It's like folklore, people talk about it, God were you at 71, wow. And then it grew and it grew, and then we had to have that awful fence, which is much lower than the one you see now.

It became a sort of right of passage in English youth to come to Glastonbury but not to pay. People were jumping over the fence, burrowing under the fence...and we were meant to have at the stage, I don't know how many people, maybe a hundred thousand people. I think we must have had near half a million the year that people were jumping. It was really quite scary, I mean it was wonderful, but it was far too many people for the site. We couldn't control it.

Then one of the years after it had taken off Michael got us a big fence. And the big fence I have to say has really worked. It was quite a shock the first year with the big fence--there were so many less people. Performers were actually in a fight for audiences. But now we've got more people coming this year which is great. There's another 22,500 people coming. Which will be very good.

But it's still very pure compared to most other festivals. It's not done primarily for commercial reasons at all. It's had to become more commercial, because it costs more to put it on. Health and safety, we have to get better loos, better this, better that, and it costs a fortune to put on. So the ticket prices have had to go up and we've had to become more business-like, but £2m is going to go to charity this year, which is just stunning really. It's fantastic. And it also makes it nice, because or instance all the workers, well certainly all the workers in my area and I think in many other areas as well, we don't really do it for the money. We get paid, but nothing like the going rate. We do it because we love it. Most performers don't get paid more than a third of the normal price. And instead of being offended or whatever, they're so pleased to be at the festival and to get tickets, because the tickets are like gold dust. Once they go on sale on the 1st of April, they just go. It's extraordinary.

And then sometimes I think, there's Michael and me...he's over 70, I'm nearly 60...old codgers really, and yet we still seem to run the coolest festival in Europe. Which is very nice. And hopefully people still like coming. It does seem to get better, better and better every year. And especially after a gap year, last year was a year off, we tend to go four years one year off, so the farm has a bit of a rest and the village has a rest. After a gap year everybody is so excited.

CNN: How much do you think is down to Michael and his personality?

Churchill: I think a great deal. He spends all his time working on it. He's goes through the village. If you walk through the village with him it doesn't take the 10 minutes it should take, it takes about an hour and a half. He stops, he talks to everybody, he communicates with them. And again, he's a very generous man. It's because of him that all the money goes to charity, which is fantastic.

Michael's, such an unexpected person to be running a pop festival. If you look at most pop promoters, they're a different breed of person. Michael is a Methodist, Somerset farmer. He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke. I don't think he's touched a drug in his life. And, he loves music, he loves the buzz of it all. I think that's a lot of it for Michael.

CNN: Tell me about the areas you run and what we can expect this year.

Churchill: I run the theatre and circus fields, so it's Three big performance fields, and then two behind -- one's for camping. So I've got three big tented venues -- a big cabaret marquis, a huge circus big-top and a big theatre marquis. There's also an outside dance stage, there's a fire corner and an amazing midnight carnival area. Which is wild and goes on very late at night, or till very early in the morning really. Oh we have great things this year. Huge sort of 20 meter flames are going to be appearing all over the place.

CNN: Why do you do it?

Churchill: I suppose like Michael, because of the buzz. After a bad year, I feel tired and say to myself 'oh I'm not going to do it again'. But I never keep that up. It's a huge challenge you know, it's an enormous job even just my area. And it's such a thrill to carry it off. And also to do it with friends--I have the same stage management teams as I've had for the past 10 12 years. And so we're all friends and we all suddenly gather together. Which is why this year will be particularly nice because we haven't seen each other for a while. And working with friends and people you trust, people you can rely on. And it's just such a buzz. I don't think I'd ever give it up. E-mail to a friend