‘I was a secretary and now run Glastonbury on TV’

4 hours ago

Martin Heath & Annabel Amos

BBC News, Northamptonshire

BBC Five people sitting on a wooden chair. Alison Howe has short light-coloured hair and glasses, wearing a green anorak and white T-shirt. Emily Eavis has long brown hair and is wearing a blue and white shirt. There are potted plants behind them.

A TV producer has been explaining how she went from a secretarial job to producing the award-winning BBC coverage of the Glastonbury Festival.

Alison Howe, from Northampton, first attended the event for the corporation in 1992, but said her memory of the Worthy Farm festival that year was hazy after she suffered sunstroke.

Her team recently won a Bafta award for the live coverage of Glastonbury 2024.

Ms Howe credits a Northampton College teacher for inspiring her to pursue a dream of working in music.

“I had this brilliant tutor [who] embedded into me that, if I had dreams of working in pop music, I just had to be a little bit ambitious and she encouraged me to apply for a job with the BBC, which seemed like madness at the time,” she said.

Getty Images A line of eight people wearing formal clothes for an award ceremony. Six of them are holding Bafta statuettes. Alison Howe is far right wearing a black and white dress.

As the gates open at Worthy Farm for Glastonbury 2025, thousands of people will stream into the iconic site for this year’s celebration of popular music.

At the centre of the BBC’s television operation is Ms Howe, executive producer at BBC Music.

She has been a regular at Glastonbury for the BBC since 1992.

Getty Images Jim "Bob" Morrison with short dark hair wearing a red headband, a black leather jacket and a white T-shirt, sitting alongside Les "Fruitbat" Carter, with a grey top, white T-shirt and medium-length dark hair.

She said she could not recall who was headlining that year, but “there were groups like Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, it was a very pre-Britpop era”.

“What I do remember was it was incredibly hot – and it was so hot that I slept in the car one night and got sunstroke, so sadly that’s my undying memory of 1992.”

The records show the headliners in that year included Shakespears Sister and Youssou N’Dour, as well as Carter USM.

PA Media A line of people, some wearing orange hi-vis vests. In the centre is Michael Eavis, using a wheelchair. He has short white hair and beard and is wearing a black gilet over a grey shirt. A woman in a white blouse is leaning over him. They are all on grass.

Ms Howe’s road to the TV control room at Glastonbury started at Northampton College, where she enrolled on a secretarial course.

She said: “I’m proud of being a Northampton girl, I lived there until my early twenties and my close family all still live there.

“I look back fondly on being at college there and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.”

A line of five women in various costumes, ranging from flowing white dress to a black basque. They are singing on a large stage, three have guitars and one is playing a keyboard. There is a huge crowd beyond the stage, and flags and balloons can be seen above them.

She got a secretarial job at the BBC, moved into radio and then to television where, amongst other things, she gave TV debuts to the likes of Adele, Ed Sheeran, Stormzy and Arctic Monkeys.

“It’s a pretty cool job, it’s not without its long hours and hard work, but it also brings a lot of joy,” she said.

“When I look back, my 18-year-old self would just not believe what’s happened.”