I’ve always liked the idea of festivals. Since a school friend absconded for a weekend for the Stonehenge free festival, returning with tales of body-painted hippies on acid, druids worshipping the sun, a peaceful gathering of alternative folk with no need for regulation or laws or police … deeply subversive for a military school … it seemed like hope had entered into an empty world.
Brimming with youthful enthusiasm, I went along in 1982 with my girlfriend. We hitch-hiked and arrived at 2 am, and blundering around in the dark tripping over camp fires and tripping bodies, we found a quiet place to pitch our tent.
The next day was scorching, and there was only 1 standpipe at the festival with a 1 hour queue, and we had arrived with an inadequate little camping bottle. Since the music was still a couple of days away, we hitched into Amesbury to get a bigger water container, only to find that the only hardware store had sold out days before.
That night we bedded down early and prayed for cooler weather. Then at 3 am a chapter of Hells Angels arrived, and decided the place we were camped was a perfect spot for some motorcycle repair. It wasn’t clear why their machines needed to be tuned to perfection before daybreak, but it *was* clear that we weren’t going to stop them. They weren’t aggressive. They just ignored us.
Ask an old hippy about Stonehenge, and they will always reminisce: “Amazing, no rules, no police, people just doing their thing and getting on together”. Ask: “But what if there was trouble?”, and they will reply: “Oh, if there was any trouble, the Hells Angels sorted it out”.
The next day, I got to witness the Hells Angels sorting out some trouble for myself. Some shyster had been selling sugar pills as “Sulphate” (Amphetamine sulphate) and a fight started. The little group of motorcycle enthusiasts around our tent got involved. The poor sod was dragged to the little enclave of motorbikes, half stripped, beaten, had his hands tied together, was tied by his wrists to the back of a motorbike, and was dragged around the festival site.
The police may be thugs, may beat people up, and occasionally kill somebody. But I still think they’re far preferable to the Hells Angels.
It was another scorching day, and we were getting dehydrated, so we left and hitched up North. When we got home I had bad heat stroke, and some horrendous bug I’d picked up which didn’t clear out of my system for another 3 years.
I’ve tried festivals since – more sedate affairs like Womad and Wood festivals, but there’s still the plague of drummers who play all night and then sleep all day. And the ever-present risk of heat-stroke. One Womad I spent two days lying in the river Thames to keep cool instead of enjoying the music.
I persevered even after having children. Another Womad I spent an entire day at the helter-skelter with my 4 year old. I passed one entire Wood festival in the childrens’ activity tent … desperate to listen to the great music just across the field. Intensely frustrating.
Last Saturday, failing to learn from years of repeated disappointment, I took the children to a tiny local child-friendly festival. I’ve been there before, and I remember abandoning the festival for the playground opposite, but I thought: “Well, the children are older now …”
It’s cheap – £1.50 per adult, children free. Lovely food available, made from vegetables grown on the allotments there. So, feed the children, and then chill out to some music.
Ha ha. Pizza for 3 plus a bit of candy floss came to £25. We had a stroll round the kids’ activities, but it was all “Nooo, we did that last year”, and then it rained. As we left we passed the stage where a jolly band was playing, but the trumpet was excrutiatingly out of tune. So glad to leave!
So, we went home and made another little experimental fire sculpture. 100 times more fun, a tenth of the cost :-)
The simple rope design was a collaboration by my kids. So sweet.
