EAVIS
Michael

• 1. Personal life

Sir Athelstan Joseph Michael Eavis is an English dairy farmer and the co-creator of the Glastonbury Festival, which takes place at his farm in Pilton, Somerset.

Personal life

Eavis was born in Pilton, Somerset on 17 October 1935, and grew up at Worthy Farm in the village. His father was a dairy farmer and also a Methodist local preacher, and his mother a school teacher. Eavis was educated at Wells Cathedral School, followed by the Thames Nautical Training College in Greenhithe, Kent, after which he joined the Union-Castle Line, part of the British Merchant Navy, as a trainee midshipman. His plan was to spend twenty years at sea, and return with a pension to help subsidise the income from the family farm.

After his father died when Eavis was 19, he inherited the family farm of 150 acres (61 ha) and 60 cows. He worked at Mendip Colliery at Nettlebridge or New Rock colliery at Stratton-on-the-Fosse on the Somerset Coalfield for a couple of years to help supplement the income from the farm.

Eavis and his first wife Ruth had three children, Juliet, Rebecca and Jane, but divorced in 1964. He next married Jean Hayball, with whom he had a son, Patrick, and a daughter, Emily. Jean died of cancer in 1999, and Eavis has since married his third wife, Liz. In common with his parents and second wife, Eavis remains a practising Methodist, although he has also stated that he is "not really bothered" about the existence of God. He is a teetotaler and does not smoke.