Beaten, trousers stolen and first trip
It was at Reading 1990 I think, the year the Cramps headlined.

Being youthful, I was right at the front getting very sweaty with the wrecking krew. After a few songs I noticed that the wrecking was becomming quite painful, only then did I realise that a group of psychobillys/psychobillies (what is the plural?) had formed in a circle around me and were all quite literally punching me. Hard. So I moved towards the back.

Later that night I returned to my mate John's tent for I was sharing with him. Covered in psychobilly sweat, I did stink a bit apparently so in a gesture of diplomacy I placed my jeans outside on top of the tent. The next morning they were gone. I managed to borrow another pair of jeans, eventually.

On Sunday I bumped into a mate Simon who was at the festival with a geezer called Baggy who was a New Age Traveller (had a bus) and dealt a bit. He was doing a roaring trade selling veggie burgers and magic mushrooms. In return for cooking burgers for a couple of hours I got as much food as I could eat and he gave me my first trip.

I went for a walk with Simon and his bird Emma. After a while I started coming on strong and had to hold her hand as they led me around the site. We came across a procession of people all following this one bloke saying that he was the messiah. He led them down to the river where the quite sizeable crowd chanted "walk on water!" at him until he jumped in.

After that we went back to Baggy's bus and I sat by the fire tripping like a loon. Shan't bore you with the details but I never had such a good trip after that first one. It was like I was watching a movie where anything I wanted to see would appear but then it would start to go weird and dissolve into loads of colours.

Come monday morning, I had no money or train ticket, bit of a mistake leaving my wallet in my jeans in hindsight. Luckily, there were no ticket inspectors on railway or tube and I managed to make my way back to my London home.

One slight problem: I lived in a flat on the second floor with a very heavy duty door and my key had also been in my trouser pocket. I wandered about for a bit and saw a policeman. He advised me to call the fire brigade so I did. They were not impressed and said I should have called the police... but they got me in.

I hadn't been home for a couple of weeks, had been staying at friends prior to the festival and my Israeli (not that I'm saying Israelis are dirty), dirty fucking cunt of a flatmate had left the place in a right state. Big pile of stinking rubbish in the kitchen. Maggots crawling over the floor. He'd been through my stuff in my bedroom looking for anything he could use to eat or drink from rather than wash anything. I found my camping set of aluminium cups and plates were in among the rotten festering pile of filth that used to be the kitchen sink. So I had to clean all that up.

A bit tired, I went to bed around 5pm and slept until 10am.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 18:24, Reply)