This is a short piece that I originally
wrote as a sort of end-piece to “Turn Left At the Womble”. In the end I didn’t
include it in the book, largely because it seemed to make it a bit disjointed.
Having said that, on reflection, it may have made a neat coda to the whole
thing. But it isn’t in there, and rather than it being lost and thrown away
forever, at least by putting it up on here it will leave some sort of faint
electronic imprint somewhere on the internet…
It was about two
week after Glastonbury. For some reason-now I cannot remember why- I had
arranged to meet Amy in town one afternoon. I know I wasn’t in work that day,
but I’m not sure why I had the day off. I don’t recall why we met in town; possibly
she’d had some meeting, or an interview or some training or the like and I was
just picking her up. I don’t think why we met really matters that much, but it
was one of those odd (and few) times when neither of us seemed to be rushing
anywhere so that we could just sit down and relax. Naturally, this involved a
coffee.
It was a sunny
and warm afternoon and I think it was a Friday. It was that warm that I was
sitting outside the coffee shop, cappuccino by my side, ciggies on the go and
note book open. I was just starting to sketch the first notes of what this book
turned out to be. At that time it was just simply a few random words and was
intended only to be a sort of a personal diary of what had happened. It was something
to look back on years to come, a “did you really go to Glastonbury, Grandad?”
type-thing. I would then dust down some battered old notebooks, dispense
Werthers Orginals to all and sundry and tell the tales of what I got up to in
those Somerset fields, many years ago. They would have thought that I was
exaggerating about the horror that was Muse and put it all down to the
ramblings of an old man, but I would have known it was all true, and in fact I
had spared them the worst. They’d nod indulgently at how I told them that the
Flips were the greatest music I’d ever heard. They’d hear stories about Amy
that would not be believable. And that’s all it was really meant to be-just
some notes to look back on. I never really thought it would turn into anything
as grand as a book.
That’s why it’s
turned out the way it has. I could have made it all sound more exciting than it
really was. (Not that it was exciting, but that wasn’t really the intention). I
simply wanted to record what actually happened at Glastonbury, how it felt and
what we actually did. I wanted to give it that whole feel of what it was like,
stepping into something unknown, and doing something that I hadn’t expected to
be doing. By writing it just as a record, and by trying to keep it as matter-of-fact
as possible, I knew that it would at least be an honest account of what
happened. I could have spiced it up by adding linguistic flourishes or by
writing that we did things that never happened or saw things that we never did,
but I’d have known that in the future some of it wasn’t true. And I’m sure
that, over time, I’d have started to blur the line between fact and fiction. I
had to have all that build up-the tickets, the planning, the drive etc. Without
that context, I don’t think that it would have explained how far I’d come as I
had when we walked through the gates-both in a geographical as well as a
personal sense- since we managed to get those tickets on that Sunday morning in
October.
So there I was,
scribbling away in my little notebook, Glasto wristband still on my wrist, coffee
going cold and half-watching the world go by on a sunny Friday afternoon. I was
still in that Glasto frame of mind; probably helped by the sun, the fact that I
was wearing my shorts and battered sandals and that everyone walking past
seemed to be wearing suits and rushing around. I think that it’s too easy to
get back into that ordinary, workaday frame of mind and that it all can just be
a good memory; but somehow I know that going to Glastonbury has changed me. To
what extent and in what way I’m not really sure yet; I just know that it has.
Does all this sound a bit precious, and more than a little bit silly? Possibly .
After all, it was just five days at a music festival, wasn’t it?
Out of the
corner of my eye, I saw Amy come bounding down the street. (That’s Amy by the
way; she doesn’t walk, or run-she bounds).
She started waving at me from at least 100 yards away, whilst at the same time
motioning for me to get her a drink. I didn’t leap into action, I was too
relaxed. As she reached the coffee shop, she looked at me and then the table quizzically,
“And where’s my coffee?” “I’ve been waiting for you for ages, it would
have been cold. What do you want?” I asked as she flopped down next to me.
(Flops, rather than sits. You get the picture). “Oh, anything” she said as she nosed into my
notebook, “what are you writing?” “Just a bit about Glastonbury,” I replied. There
was a slight, imperceptible pause before we both shared a grin. “It was bloody brilliant,
wasn’t it?” she smiled.
Get Turn Left at the Womble here:
U.K.
U.S.
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