And I can see why the natives still don't trust us, because they think we're trying to take over the town. And maybe we are, some of us. We say we're all for unity and the kindly pagans are getting into bed with the Christians and everything, but basically we have very different values and when some local issue arises it all erupts. Like the proposed new road linking central Somerset into the Euro motorway network. Most of the natives are in favour because it will relieve traffic congestion in the small towns and villages, but the incomers see it as an invasion of their rural haven, the destruction of miles of wonderful countryside. So whichever way it goes, half of us are going to be furious. It's not as if even the Alternative Community is united. We pretend to be, of course – old hippies, part of that great universal movement. But we're divided, factionalised: gay pagan groups, radical feminist pagans like The Cauldron. Everything in Glastonbury inevitably becomes EXTREME.
I lie awake, mulling over the old hippy thing – why CAN'T we all live in peace together on what's supposed to be the Holyest Erthe in all Britain? And then I go back and read Pixhill's Diaries, making myself doubly miserable because we 're the sole outlet for a book nobody want to buy on account of his Nostradamus-like warnings of impending doom, souls raging in torment, the rising of the Dark Chalice, etc., etc. Well, you just don't say things like that about Glastonbury. Because this is a HOLY town and must therefore be immune from evil. The people who settle here want to bathe in the sacredness like some sort of spiritual Radox – They want to be soothed. They don't want anything to dent the idyll.
Anyway, you should see a copy, as Carey and Frayne are the publishers. Let me know what you think. I'll go now. I think I can see Jim Battle, my best male friend these days, wobbling down High Street on what appears to be a new secondhand bike and looking, as usual, in need of a drink. Look after yourself, wish me luck with Diane and be glad your posh London outfit doesn't have to publish anything like the enclosed! Love,
TWO
Not knowing Archer Ffitch all that well, Griff Daniel decided on restraint.
'Dirty, drug-sodden, heathen bastards.' Griff scratched an itchy palm on his spiky- grey beard. 'Filthy, dole-scrounging scum.'
Attached to the wooden bars of the gate at the foot of Glastonbury Tor was a framed colour photograph of a lamb with its throat torn out. Over the photo was typed,
KILLED BY A DOG NOT ON A LEAD. DOGS WHICH CHASE SHEEP CAN BE SHOT BY LAW.