Categories: uncategorized
Date: 20 June 2011 05:08:37
So Third Party and her grandad, (who is telling at Greenbelt this year), got down to Worthy Farm - home of the Glastonbury Festival - yesterday. I am sat at home with a pile of exam scripts to get marked and a chapter of the thesis to get written up. Ok, so before I get the sympathy vote it's ok. Regular readers will know that there is some element of choice in me not going to Glasto, I think the time Third Party spends with her grandad down there, without me about, is really important - so I don't go. Also this year the act I was most gutted about not seeing - Don McLean - Third Party got me a ticket for tonight in Newcastle. But I have gotten diverted from what I'm planning to write about - briefly - honest.
Whilst marking I have been making the most of the BBC's excellent range of Glasto related stuff on i-player. Pulp's 1995 set has been replayed twice and the Glastonbury film once. My favourite piece of Glasto related stuff came from a BBC 4 programme; Festivals Britannia. Sitting watching it I realised that pretty much all my life I have been on the edge of a culture which Third Party has been bought up into.
As a kid my dad took me to the Albion Fairs and I would wander around making friends with other kids; going on the swing boats and being found by my dad, asleep in one of my new friends tee pees. I was little at the time, so don't remember too much more about it. But I know it was part of what I did.
When I was older I went to Glasto with my dad for a few years. The first time was 1993 and we camped in the crusty field then - my dad had gotten booked on two parts of the site and worked a killer weekend so he could get the tickets for us. The next year was Third Party's first Glasto - I went six months pregnant.
Festival Britannia also had stuff on the 1994 Criminal Justice Act and how that came in - I wrote my undergrad dissertation on that one.
As it got to the present day the programme explored the way that, inevitably, festivals are now huge commercial events and as Billy Bragg said, "it's a right of passage going to your first festival on your own".
I think this is what seperates those who are part of or on the edge of the culture from others. For Third Party this will not be a right of passage. Festivals have always been part of her life. Glastonbury and Greenbelt have both been important parts of her life - gatherings where she has met up with family and friends each year. Sort of like Christmas is for many people. They are not the only festivals she has done and she appreciates the work that goes into producing them, understanding them as both cultural and commercial events.
As I say, I'm rather on the edge. Greenbelt is now the only festival I tend to do - although Cambridge sometimes gets a look in. I have that cultural heritage though and I am glad one thing I have been able to do is help pass it on to my daughter.