I love Leeds
I'm 41 this year. That's quite old.

I did Glasto '92-'94 (1994 being the year of the most awesome Nick Cave performance I've ever seen.)

I did Thurles (Ireland) in 1993 - the filthiest ever festival.

I've done a few others.

But now I'm older and cherish my home comforts I'm not really up for the festival thing any more.

Leeds, however, is a whole other thing.

I'm a senior manager in a retail warehouse. It's good money - not fantastic, but I live well.

Now here's the thing. I used to work in the bus and coach industry, have a PCV license and still drive buses on a part-time/casual basis.

Leeds festival is the best weekend of my year.

I don't know what the organisers pay my employers for bus provision to/from Bramham to Leeds City centre, but the money I get to drive is worth time off my regular job, and more.

From a driving point of view it's awful work - we usually hire in buses that are destined for the scrapyard and the punters are puke-festooned kiddies or hard faced nutters. There is a strictly enforced legal maximum working time for bus drivers and two years ago I spent all of it on one journey in a traffic jam.

The money I get for the weekend, however, pays for my Autumn holiday to the US.

If you're cold and tired, and get on the bus at Bramham on August bank holiday Monday to head back to suburbia don't bother to spare a thought for your driver, because he'll have made more over the weekend than you'll have conceivably spent.
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Thu 4 Jun 2009, 22:21, Reply)