Key events 1986 - 1988

1986

1986 WBC cabin

Glastonbury messaging before mobile phones!

• The GLC is abolished and WBC runs the bars at a farewell party in Jubilee Gardens.
• Our first year of running the bars at Glastonbury Festival.
• Tim Mills becomes our first employee.
• Melvin Benn, at the time the president of BWTUC, shook hands with Oliver Tambo, president of the African National Congress to formally welcome him to a huge anti-apartheid march on its way through Wandsworth to Clapham Common.

The Measures Taken, Glastonbury Festival 1986

1987

• WBC invited back to Glastonbury. Nearly bootlegged off the site but the advantage of cold beer and lights just saved the day.
• Bars run at 17 other events including the Lambeth Country Show, the Edinburgh Festival, the Green Light Festival, a Red Wedge Concert and Kingston Green Fair.

1988

• A fallow year for Glastonbury and no GLC events to cater for any more. This meant WBC staff had to be laid off and we were back to a solely volunteer base.
• Growing experience running Irish music events at Battersea Arts Centre by the Battersea and Wandsworth Irish Group sows the seeds for later developments. WBC and BWIG shared some key volunteers such as Steve and Eamon Pryle, Rory Budds and Myles Vardy.

Battersea and Wandsworth Irish Group event

Next: Key events 1989 - 1991

This is just a flavour of events. It is impossible to do justice to the amazing work of so many people over the last 30 years. If anyone has any photographs or memorabilia from these years please get in touch.