Glastonbury Festival founder Michael Eavis called in at Bridgwater’s Eastover Oxfam shop to celebrate its becoming one of the charity’s top ten South West stores.

The Bridgwater shop’s record sales posting follows a positive trend in trade for the store after Mr Eavis offered to pay its rent until August 2014, when it was threatened with permanent closure two years ago.

Michael told the Mercury: “The shop is such a fantastic success. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.

“I’m so pleased about it. It’s a win win win. Even the books are going better than they were.”

Adding to the festival feel of the celebration earlier this month, Michael even turned up with ‘The Rolling Stones’ to mark the triumph with Oxfam staff. Admittedly, they were cut-outs of the veteran rockers signed by Jagger, Richards et al, but “fantastic fun” nonetheless.

Carol Klimowich, the store’s manager, said: “This year has been phenomenal – we’ve been trading 18% up year-on-year, and 10% up on our target – so not only have we been doing incredibly well but going against the high street trend.”

The Glastonbury Festival raises cash for a number of causes but its three big charities are Greenpeace, Water Aid and Oxfam.

For information about Glastonbury 2014 visit www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk