Arabella Spencer-Churchill

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Randolph Churchill with his daughter Arabella (right), Jacqueline Kennedy and their son John F. Kennedy Jr . in New York (1966)

Arabella Spencer-Churchill (called Arabella Churchill or Bella ; born October 30, 1949 in Westminster , † December 20, 2007 in Glastonbury ) was a co-founder of the Glastonbury Festival .

Origin, childhood and youth

Arabella Churchill came from the old English Churchill family . She was the only daughter of Randolph Frederick Churchill and his second wife June Hermione , making her a granddaughter of Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and a half-sister of Winston Spencer-Churchill . As a child and adolescent, she had a close relationship with her famous grandfather. She visited him frequently at his Chartwell home and also at his Hyde Park London home in the months leading up to his death in 1965 . In March 1954, the five-year-old was the cover model for Life magazine . She was educated at Fitham House schools in Hampshire and the Ladymede School at Aylesbury . As a young woman, she was a model for Vogue . Her mother, who bought her a house in Notting Hill , introduced her to London society. In 1967 she was voted Debutante of the Year and in 1970 the press speculated about a relationship between her and the Swedish Crown Prince Carl Gustav .

Approaching the hippie scene

Arabella worked in the public relations department of London Weekend Television and for the British Leprosy Relief Association , a nonprofit to fight leprosy , supporting charitable events such as a ball for the victims of the Biafra war . When asked in March 1971 if she could serve as ambassador for NATO's annual Azalea Festival in Norfolk , she refused. Her rejection, which she justified with her fundamental rejection of NATO, she published in an open letter in Rolling Stone , which triggered a storm of indignation. She retired to Worthy Farm near Glastonbury, where she met Andrew Kerr , a longtime friend and former assistant to her father. Dairy farmer Michael Eavis had hosted the Pilton Pop, Blues and Folk Festival the previous year , and Kerr was planning to host a new, free music festival to be held at the summer solstice as an alternative to commercial festivals. Arabella helped Kerr organize and finance the festival known as Glastonbury Fayre , which took place in June 1971 on Michael Eavis' grounds.

Co-organizer of the Glastonbury Festival

On August 10, 1972, she married the teacher James Jude Barton at Essex Street Chapel in Kensington . She had a son with him, Nicholas Jake , but the marriage was soon divorced. Churchill then retired to a farm in Wales before she became active in the London squatter scene in late 1976 and briefly ran an alternative squatter restaurant. In 1979 she took up the idea of ​​an alternative festival in Glastonbury together with Bill Harkin . At her insistence, the second Glastonbury Fayre was dedicated to the International Year of the Child . This gave rise to the Children's World Charity , which was founded in 1981 and promotes the cultural education of children, especially in Somerset and south-west England. Since the Fayre of 1979 was a financial failure despite its great popularity, a festival called Glastonbury Festival for the first time could not take place until 1981. Arabella organized and directed the children's field at this festival , and over the next few years she expanded the festival to include the Theater & Circus Fields . On April 27, 1988, in Shepton Mallet , she married the juggler Haggis McLeod , whom she had met at the previous Glastonbury Festival. From this marriage she had a daughter, Jessica. In addition to her work for Children's World Charity, Arabella invested a lot of time and energy in the increasingly successful festival, which was renamed the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts in 1990 . She also worked for the National Trust as a volunteer guide through Chartwell, her grandfather's residence. In 1999 she expanded the work of Children's World Charity and founded Children's World International , which was active in Albania and Kosovo . After the 2004 tsunami , the organization was also active in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia.

Memorial plaque to Arabella Churchill on Bella's Bridge in the site of the Glastonbury Festival

Death and aftermath

Despite suffering from pancreatic cancer , she worked on organizing the Glastonbury Festival until two weeks before her death. Michael Eavis had Bella's Bridge built in her memory , a wooden bridge that spans the Whitelake River on the festival site near Glastonbury and leads to the so-called Bella's Field . Her husband and daughter continue their work at Glastonbury Festival.

Web links

Commons : Arabella Spencer-Churchill  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d The Guardian: Obituary - Arabella Churchill. December 22, 2007, accessed February 13, 2017 .
  2. ^ Glastonbury Festival: History 1979. Accessed June 29, 2015 .
  3. ^ Children's World Charity: About. Retrieved July 2, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Spencer-Churchill, Arabella
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Churchill, Arabella; Churchill, Bella
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British co-founder of the Glastonbury Festival
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH City of Westminster
DATE OF DEATH December 20, 2007
Place of death Glastonbury