My daughter (19) and niece (20), set off this morning for the Isle of Wight Festival. They have a lovely tent (put up in the garden earlier in the week to test that it was still ok from last year), they have camping chairs, sleeping bags, wellies, suncream, and mobile phones. They have money, and skin wipes, and torches. They have each other.
Forty years ago (yes 40) I was young and carefree and I too went to a festival. I had what I stood up in and a little money. I had the fur coat I was wearing to sleep in (sorry people...it was ancient even then and people still wore fur). I had friends with me. I have never forgotten the good time I had, although I constantly felt slightly anxious the whole time as it was the first time I had been to a festival. Sometimes now I will hear a song on the radio that stops me in my tracks and takes me straight back to that time.
Why is it that I will be worried about them both for the next 5 days?
Just as, I suppose, my mother worried about me. When I arrived home she made me stand by the back door and strip off the jeans and t-shirt I had been wearing the whole time.....would'nt let me into the house. The fur coat was burnt, I think, and she made me have a hot bath in case I'd 'caught anything sleeping in a field like that!'.........I had caught something, a taste of not living at home, and sleeping under the stars, and a love of music that made you catch your breath and stop your heart.
6 comments:
Great memories. Surely you're not that old!?
Hope your daughter has a great time and it becomes part of her memories too x
I'd LOVE to do a festival, yet another form of virginity for me. I'm very pure you know ;) xxx
It's a rites of passage... as is, I guess, worrying about your offspring but having the strength to stand back and let them go and do it anyway. I hope they have as good a time as you did... but that you don't burn their clothes when they come home. ;-)
Well Trish it was actually 38 years ago..the great western lincoln festival in 1972..good times.
AG...your nose must be growing! pure!! but lovable!! and I think I could only do a festival these days if I was in a winnebago...or with the band!
Steve..She has just rung to say that tent is up and all is well....and she took plenty of clothes, so no burning necessary!
I never went to a festival myself, but my son has been to a few and I know how concerned I was when he went of at 20 to his first one, but he had a great time and appreciated his home even more when he got back!!I do remember throwing out a pair of jeans and a couple of mud soaked tee shirts though! Hope they have a fab time!
Thanks Diney.....
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