A joyful weekend at home

Every early winter, I lay a fire, a teetering Jenga of kindling, a waxed fire lighter at its heart like the boiled egg in the log of luncheon meat the old man favoured in his packed lunch. I ramp a few split logs against it. A hoppy ale - 20 minutes out of the fridge to lose a little of its chill - sits on the table. As the wood catches, I sit back, the first swishes of Hejira likely as not spinning on the turntable.

And while half the western world dashes to their laptop in search of tickets, I lie in deep, soulful contentment that I am not.

8 months later - this weekend - a quiet contentment fills me again.

For the 38th year in a row I am not going to Glastonbury. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. I shall walk to the sea, visit my own toilet, sit and lie comfortably whenever the urge takes, I shall listen to excellent music played by those who have never worn a tie ironically, I shall watch - on TV - the handful of bands I’d love to see rather than squint at a large screen from some miles away; I will not be covered in that peculiar, invisible wax that comes with camping. And I shall at no point be woken by the passing of a noisy someone who’s tucked in a handful of bennies and a four pack of rough.

38 years ago I went to Glastonbury.

It was very wet. Coming from Devon, I thought I knew what wet was: I was mistaken. It was dry enough in the days running up to it and everyone got in ok, but it rained and rained and rained from the Thursday night, broken only by a couple of blazing hours of sunshine that came and left like a switch had been flicked. 40000 people trod the wet Somerset countryside into chocolate mousse. Tractors towed stuck vehicles off site. Tensions were high after the violence of the Battle of the Beanfield only a couple of weeks earlier; the rain did, at least, wash away the very real sense that there might be more to come.

Three images above ©British Culture Library

Echo and the Bunnymen were marvellous, as were The Triffids (imagine The Doors if they’d stayed on the lager-tops), while Ian Dury and the Blockheads, and The Colourfield were everything I’d hoped. The Pogues, John Martyn, Billy Bragg, Hugh Masekela, Green on Red, Microdisney and The Blue Aeroplanes were some of those that encouraged us out into the mire.

I also saw one of most horrendous half minutes of my life unfold.

A man walking a few yards in front of me, clearly under the influence of an assortment of exhilarants, lost his footing and fell slap on his arse. Slipping about in the sloppy mire, laughing, he realised he couldn't get to his feet as easily as he hoped so he lay on his back, feet into the air like an inverted turtle (now there's a name for a prog rock band) and, judging by his howls, enjoyed skidding downhill for a few yards. After a few seconds the novelty wore off and he tried again to stand, without success. Every time he got partially to his feet, it took only a half step forward to flip him face down again. All the time gravity did as gravity does and took him gently downhill. Now on his front, feet downhill, he clawed at the ground like a swimmer in an attempt to stop himself sliding further but all he was doing was leaving ten thin trenches in the liquid mud where his fingers had been. I caught his eye as the realisation of where he was heading hit him. I have never seen someone sober up so quickly.

The side and doors to each cubicle in the row of toilets were short, with a large space at the bottom: you looked under to check whether it was vacant. In you went, relieved yourself and away slid the waste into a huge pit immediately behind the holes in the floor...a huge pit towards which Mr Exhilarated was now sliding.

He held on to a door post for half a second, clawing like Dr No, but the lubricating mud gave him no grip. A good many people had seen the horror unfold - a combination of gasps and cheers greeted his disappearance over the edge into the abyss. I can tell you he lived but if you've been to a festival back then and experienced the loos you'll be perfectly aware that life must surely have never been the same.

Every year on this weekend, I like to think of - let’s call him Gerald - living out an uneventful life as a conveyancing solicitor in Ashton-under-Lyne, his days of Special K and skunk well behind him, safe in the knowledge that the mobile phone and its camera facility was some years away, that no-one knows that he - Gerald - was once covered in the slurry of 40000 cheap sausmix and chick pea curries that had previously been someone else’s tea. Even after these 38 years, I don’t suppose that smell ever quite leaves Gerald’s nose.