Glastonbury
This will be a bit long....

I used to work in a computer store as my normal job and I worked a cook for a Veggie Burger stall at weekends. It was therapeutic for me getting away from computers and working at various gigs and festivals around the country. A complete change from my normal life and a great laugh. The biggest festival we did was Glastonbury and, for that, I'd take a week off work.

This one year - early 90's - we setoff for a weeks trading. There was about 8 of us. Two blokes and 6 girls including the owner, Janet, AKA Miss Piggy. We had a great festival and made an absolute shitload of money but this year there was a fair amount of violence. The New Age Travellers AKA crusties had gatecrashed the festival and set-up their own camp which they used as a base to go around robbing peoples tents and, to add to an already dangerous mix, the security that year was provided by gangs from the St Paul's area of Bristol. These "guards" were basically drug-dealing thugs who loved throwing their weight around. Not nice people.

Anyway, the festival went pretty well albeit with an underlying edge of menace but we were in the traders encampment and help was only a yell away. The traders stuck together - start trouble with one and everyone pitched in to help out whoever was getting grief. So we had a pretty successful week and we had around 30K in cash in the stall. The money was divided between me and Brummie mate called Andy apart from a few hundred in coins that was kept in what we called the shrapnel bucket. Getting offsite to bank was impossible so we were stuck with this cash until we could leave on the Tuesday when most of the punters would be gone.

So the final Sunday night of Glastonbury finished and we worked all night serving shite veggie food to the starving stoned masses and finally shut-up shop late Monday afternoon. A few hours sleep and then it was time for the Traders Party. Our turn to relax and get fucked out of our brains on alcohol and dope. We had a blast but were all absolutely knackered after the weeks trading and most of us were destined for an early night - but that didn't happen.

All of a sudden the jungle drums told us of a riot in the Crusties field. They were taking on the gangs from Bristol (security) and a lot of people were getting badly hurt. More info came in. It seemed that the security guys had found a young crusty scavenging in one of the skips and given him a severe beating - bad enough to put him in hospital. Crusties were livid and were attacking any and all security guards on sight. Security retaliated by sending about 20 Land Rovers full of security guards up to the crusties encampment and now a full scale riot was underway.

Looking up the hill we could see this battle in the distance and it was slowly getting coming towards us as the crusties beat the security guards back. Land rovers started coming past us full of bleeding men and the odd rock was landing near our tents. This was getting scary!

Then Janet, a trippy-hippy New Ager had a bright idea.

"Lets all join hands and think thoughts of love and protection. Imagine a dome covering all of us and we'll be safe" she beamed..

Me and Andy looked at each other and grabbed a machete each and a big fuck-me knife. We were the ones with 15 grand each around our waists and I'd rather rely on meanness than Janet's "Dome Of Protection" - fucking hippies!

As the fighting drew nearer and we were starting to get very seriously worried - a few knots of fighters had already went past us without bothering us but the main riot was very close now. And then a few crusties who we recognised (we'd given them some free food in return for doing water runs for us) dashed up.

"Hey - put the knives down man and don't panic. We're not going to touch you. We're only after those black bastards" he said pointing to the battered security guards "You've been cool with us - you're safe"

Our new found protectors stayed with us for the next hour telling us what had happened and why while the riot swept past us. And then it was over. A convoy of crusties in the Land Rovers they'd stolen form the guards slowly drove past us and peace finally fell over the site.

Exhausted, we all headed for our tents and crashed. I awoke around dawn - something wasn't right. I crawled out of my tent and looked out over the festival site. The whole place was wreathed in pre-dawn mist and walking slowly towards me, totally silent, was a long,long line of policemen in full riot gear. They stepped around our encampment and continued up the hill looking for all the world like some weird science-fiction movie.

Bloody good weekend all in all.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 22 Jun 2006, 12:54, Reply)