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The grandpas of Glastonbury on why you’re never too old to enjoy a festival
He’ll confine himself to that area, though he did venture to the Pyramid last year, to accompany friends to see the excellent Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. He went too to the poetry tent to hear the Irish singer Imelda May reading her work and talking about WB Yeats. ‘What a fantastic woman. And she looked fantastic too. That was the highlight of the festival for me.’
Sticking mostly to one area, as Chris Lynam also does, is obviously shrewd. By his camper van, Lynam has ‘an entourage of tents, and a big kitchen thing going on, mostly breakfast.
It’s normally my daughter’s birthday around then, so there’s a lot of knocking up margaritas. It’s like a little city.’ Both Lynam and Roiser are to some degree privileged, but Roiser is heart and soul still entranced by Glastonbury: ‘Have you seen the dragon?’ he asks. ‘And the Stone Circle? The dragon’s a beautiful piece of work – Michael’s a patron of the arts.’
Ann Cook has seen all that, numerous times – and the extraordinary sight of mud surging down the hill ‘in the muddy years. Very photogenic.’ She too loves the cabaret and theatre fields: ‘so unexpected, so bizarre, so ridiculous – you’d not see it anywhere else’.
But what she adores and what brings her back at the age of 87 is ‘the fantastic atmosphere of camaraderie; the Glastonbury spirit’. One night, she slipped in the mud at 2am. The ground was rough, the light bad, and she was struggling, thinking, ‘All I need is a bar of chocolate.’ A young man came up, asking if he could help. Cook mentioned chocolate, whereupon the chap disappeared, returning with a half-pound bar of Cadbury’s. ‘And I said, “You’re my Angel Gabriel.” I’ll never forget it.’
What brings Sarah Matson de Laurier back each year is ‘the brilliant experiences’, the revitalising experiences: Dolly Parton on a Sunday afternoon, the London Community Gospel Choir, the craftspeople in The Green Fields, the real-ale tent by the Acoustic Stage, the faith tent from Birmingham in which volunteers were washing festival-goers’ hair, the wandering round the sleeping site at 6am – even the ticking off of young men ‘weeing’ in the open when there are loos aplenty. ‘You’re sparking me up asking all those questions! You’re putting me back in love with it!’
Which is just as well, because she has something to confess: she and Peter are wondering whether they should camp this year or stay with their son in nearby Frome. ‘I will never be mature,’ she tells me. ‘But I can’t keep crawling out of my tent as my husband sleeps on…’ Carry on camping, Sarah: you’re a standard-bearer for a whole generation.
Along with your horror stories, we want to hear – and see – your fondest memories from past years, whether it’s a story of a fleeting romance, a spellbinding performance or a bizarre experience of the kind that only the Glastonbury site can offer up.
Please share yours by filling out the form below.
