Didmarton 2006: A diary |
5th Sep 2006 |
By Jer Boon
Wednesday 30th AugustWe're almost ready to roll. The cats are in the cattery, the chocolate muffins are baked, and we've sorted out what gear we're taking. I've got the day off work and spend a good few hours packing for the festival. A Renault Scenic is pretty darned spacious, especially after removing a couple of the rear seats, but the exercise is still reminiscent of a giant game of Tetris with the tent, camping gear, seats, tables, beer, food, banjo, mandolin, and double bass. I have to leave a carefully measured space for the bass to slide in last with all the other stuff carefully positioned so as not to move about and squash it. The car has never been so full.
 We arrive on site at 6pm. By this time last year, the site was still just a field with a couple of marquees in it. This year there are already a handful of tents and caravans, and crucially the portaloos have been delivered. The build up crew have been here for much of the day too, and fences are going up, the stages are in the process of being erected and the Wirtzes have their caravan all set out.
We're issued with fluorescent vests. All staff have to wear these, especially around any setup work. To set foot in the main marquee you need a hard hat and steel toecaps. Probably for kicking banjos better.
We get our camp set up just in time to head up the pub for the evening. A last chance to get a proper meal for a few days.
Thursday 31st August The website had mentioned that the site is open to the public from Thursday onwards, and from early on a steady stream of extra-keen punters are arriving. Our first duty is to head out into Cirencester for supplies. The setup crew needs feeding and although we've got plenty of bacon, Captain Wirtz has accidentally brought bread rolls that are both frozen and unbaked. We head down to Waitrose, and not being used to shopping in there, I sense that I'm already getting funny looks from people. Am I that dishevelled after one night of camping (I managed to wipe myself down with a Wet-Wipe this morning, so I can't be that smelly yet) or do we just not look posh enough for Waitrose clientele? I wish I'd worn my fluorescent vest in to the shop so I can look like a proper builder and really wind-up the posh people.
At 10:30 the crew head down for their bacon sarnies. The gazebo at the back of the main stage is acting as the feed station and general gathering place for the staff. Lucy gets to work on the frying pans, but unfortunately it turns out that the heavy-duty camping stove she's using is actually some kind of device for melting tar and the first batch of bacon ends up charcoaled to the bottom the pan. The guys have been erecting stuff since before 8 this morning and since my workload has so far consisted of a bit of shopping I let everyone else get their butty first.
I only got into this lark 15 months or so ago, after offering to "help a bit". With only a few sessions of ticket selling under my belt at the 2005 festival I'd suddenly been promoted to "head steward". I'd like to say that I'm a quick learner and have a wide experience of man management and so on, but it'd all be a lie. I'm just a lazy goodfornothing who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but fear not dear festival goer, for this is only a token job title – Moira is firmly in charge of every aspect of the festival running (you can fear that instead, if you wish [note to web ed – insert humorous photo of Moira here]). The bulk of my role was phoning around willing volunteers and drawing up schedules for steward duties and stuff, which I'd done weeks ago, my plan for the festival week was to sit back and enjoy it all. How mistaken can you get?
 The ticket office isn't open yet, but there are plenty of other odd jobs to do. Erecting back stage gazebos, sticking up signs all over the place, marking out roadways and so on. I help out where I can, and eventually by about 5 o'clock, after maybe one or two hundred punters had already arrived we actually got the ticket office ready to roll. 3 of us hang around for a couple of hours taking cash off people in exchange for armbands, but it's a bit of a token gesture as most people on the site still haven't paid yet. The real head steward, i.e. Moira, takes control and finds some volunteers to walk around the site and sell armbands to anyone who hasn't already got one.
By 7 o'clock we've had enough and head into Cirencester to look for a chip shop and head back for the stewards meeting, arriving late with our fish & chips, just so they know who's boss.
We hang around the bar for a bit, catch some sessions then hang out in the festival office drinking Australian champagne (if we're allowed to call it that) while Percy entertains us – have you ever heard It's A Small World done on mandolin?
Friday 1st September I awake tired. Too tired to bother with a wet-wipe this morning. I grab a cereal bar for breakfast and 3 cups of coffee from the back-stage office. Some idiot had scheduled me in on the first ticket duty this morning, and we get a few punters arriving early on, but mostly a lot of people who'd arrived yesterday looking for their wristbands. The system goes smoothly, and all the stewards turn up for their shifts, which is what I'd mostly been worrying about. Also, at 10:30 I have my bacon butty hand delivered, just so they know who's boss.
I'd only scheduled myself for this one ticket selling shift for the whole weekend, in the hope of knocking off for the rest of the weekend and sitting back and enjoying it, but I end up keeping my fluorescent vest on and strolling around the camp looking, no feeling, important.
As a steward you get asked two main questions, where to put chemical toilet waste, and why are there no showers. I don't own a chemical toilet so after being asked a few times, I eventually go and find out (for future reference, chemical waste goes in the big black tanks situated next to some of the toilet blocks, and not empty tin cans as some seem to think). The deal with the showers goes something like this: there are no sewers on site, so portable shower blocks need huge tanks for water and waste water and are hideously expensive. It all boils down to: you can either have showers, or you can have Peter Rowan...
By early afternoon, new arrivals are having to use the overflow camping area. It's a little inconvenient for them, but a good sign that the festival is popular this year.
We get a little jam session by our tent, and then get a camping meal going. It's your bog-standard slightly warmed tinned vegetables with some tinned fish. With all that fibre intake I'm in danger of my bowels starting to work again, and having to use the portaloos, so I follow it down with a "Mars Bar and cream" flavour crepe from The Creperie. Interesting.
By this point my memories get a bit hazy of the event. My body by now is running on a mixture of adrenaline and fluorescent vest buzz, but I'll basically be in zombie mode for the next few days.
We hang out round the bar and marquees and I manage to catch Beverly Smith and Carl Jones playing but by the time (I'm having to refer back to the schedule as I write this, to remember who I saw) the London Philharmonic Skiffle Orchestra gets into their second or third song, I'm struggling to keep my eyes open. What a lightweight I am.
Saturday 2nd SeptemberWe wake up to not the best weather conditions, but we're not too bothered, as we're going off-site for a few hours. We're popping home (in Bristol) for a proper shower, to get some food for a barbecue, and because Captain Wirtz has requested that Katherine makes some more chocolate muffins.
I even manage to have a shave, but my toothbrush is back at camp (not that I've remembered to use it for a couple of days) so I give me teeth a "finger" brush. We get all the stuff together, and start heading back to Kemble soon after midday. I get a phone call on the way, telling me that it's a bit windy and that our gazebo took off in a gust and almost blew over the security fence. Some of the guys managed to wrestle it to the ground and luckily it didn't land on our tent, or take down any aircraft or anything. There won't be anything to shelter us from the rain if it keeps up now though.
I do some marquee door duty, covering for one of the stewards for whom I've managed to schedule work during both of Peter Rowan's sets, and then evening comes. Being British we decide that the weather is good enough for a barbecue. It's traditional to give yourself food poisoning when camping – I managed it at last year's festival, so why not? The wind has abated just about enough to put up Steve's gazebo again, it having survived the earlier gales, and if the rain holds off (which it doesn't) it'll be quite nice. I cremate some burgers, some fish and some sausages, and then for good measure cook them a bit longer to warm the insides, and we head back to the action.
We manage to get some beer in, watch Peter Rowan's set and the Nashville Bluegrass Band and after a coffee I'm awake enough to hang around the camp fire outside the bar, in the rain, and catch some excellent sessions.
Sunday 3rd SeptemberI'm sure stuff happened on Sunday morning, but for the life of me I can't remember what.
In the afternoon, we watch the Growling Old Men then have a little session by the tent. After hearing the odd accordionist, bodhran player, trombonist, harmonica player and spoon clacker during the weekend, I break out my new instrument - I've taken it camping a few times, but it's the first time I've played it.  It's a metal sheet for cooking on which comes with a camping shelving unit we have. If you wobble it, it makes Rolf Harris-style noises, and if you wobble it on the off-beat you can mimic mandolin chopping. Sort of. I need a little more practice, but it basically works, and I reckon I could even take a reasonable break with it if offered. Next time the spoons, trombones, harmonicas et al get going, I'm there...
We grab a bite to eat from the food stall and hang around by the trees for a while. Peter Rowan is there chilling out, and I'm really, really tempted to get him to sing Two Little Boys (I've heard him do it on the Old And In The Grey album) and then break out my wobble board.
And then the festival is over. I'm way too tired to get that sort of sad feeling I always get as Sore Fingers Week comes to an end. Many of the punters start to pack up and drift off, but there are still plenty that hang around and stay the extra night. The staff get on and start taking stuff down and clear up, and sustain ourselves with the crisps and chocolate that the Nashville Bluegrass chaps had left behind in their back-stage portacabin.
And then in the evening all the staff have a grand banquet. We set up a couple of tables at the back of the marquee, club together what food and drink we have and cobble up a wonderful nosh. I eat about a half of pound of some gorgeous cheddar washed down with a very nice red wine, and then Percy fetches a selection of French cheeses and Normandy Cidre he's brought over with him. It'd be rude not to.
 Mike Compton even joins us for the banquet, and Percy explains that (and hopefully I'll get this right) if you attach a piece of string to the pedal of a bicycle and pull backwards, the bike will go backwards, but the pedals will go forward. Much drink had been drunk by this point and nobody believes him, and so somebody actually fetches a bike and we prove it. It's amazing and true, but you probably need alcohol to fully appreciate.
Afterwards, we head to the bar, and after they kick us out we find a great late-night session going on around a lantern in the smaller marquee.
Monday 4th SeptemberFor some of us the festival still isn't over. I'm completely shattered, but I help to clear out all the stuff in the ticket office, take down signs, take down the ropes marking out the roads on the site, pack various stuff away. We collect up bin bags and litter from the site and then remove signs from the portaloos. That's the worst job of all - to be kind I'd say that the loos just about held out for the weekend…
We take down the awning from the Wirtzes caravan, Percy kindly unloads another 7 bottles of Normandy cider our way and then we finally get off around 3 o'clock. I'm scared to stop off at Tesco in Tetbury on the way home, having not showered or cleaned my teeth for so long, but we're so hungry we have to go in. They don't seem to notice anything wrong.
See you next year!
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