Glastonbury

My boys are going to Glastonbury and senior, having astutely worked out that Nailsea is nearer Glastonbury than Brum, is coming down for the night with some friends. Then he is going to meet his brother on site.

With this final phrase I am back in 1972 and the Great Western Express Festival at Bardney near Lincoln. My mate at the time Steve Parker and I travelled together but got separated at the last minute when he was last on one coach and I had to wait. Our coaches dropped us in different places. He had the tent; I had the food.

It rained. I got wet. Very wet. Only time I ever woke up and saw the sky. Unbelievable feeling.

I found him the next day as I wandered around the site of 50,000 hippies and we enjoyed the rest of the Bank Holiday Weekend and the performances of a star-studded array our £4.50 passes had purchased. I will bore you with the cast list over a second bottle of red some day. Any day. Your round.

Thing is, Big Ben and Little Jon (I've apologised) will simply call each other on arrival and say, 'Where are you,' and then meet. Easy as that. They have no idea what we went through. Mind you there's 170,000 of them, it's going to tip it down and the cost is 3000% higher.

I just have this memory of the festival notice board; meeting arrangements scrawled on bits of wet paper pinned to a tree or summat.

It was my 17th birthday.