It was Wednesday morning at Glastonbury. The sun was
shining, the gates were open, and 130,000 music fans were pouring onto the
site. I collected my veteran’s t-shirt and my gloves from the office and met up
with my team at 8.00. Because I had broken my litter picking stick Odele had
lent me hers as she didn’t need one in her job of trader information. I was a
bit wary of borrowing it because she had used it for about ten Glastonbury’s
and I was worried about losing it or breaking it. (More on that later)
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| Tipis & Yurts. |
Our team leader was Andy who I had worked with before. There were fifteen in our team and I remembered a few of them especially Pete and Sean. Once we had all arrived, we set off across the top of the site following our leader. There wasn’t all that much rubbish to pick up as people were only just arriving, so Wednesday was quite an easy day. Every year at Glastonbury there is less and less waste for various reasons. Firstly, this year there was a ban on the sale of single use plastic bottles. That made a huge difference, people could refill their own water bottles at various places around the site. Secondly, people don’t smoke so much these days. Every year there are less cigarette packets and dog ends to pick up. Thirdly, people are much more environmentally aware these days and conscious of looking after the planet, especially with speakers like Caroline Lucas and Sir David Attenborough at the festival. Another thing that made the job easier this year was the nice weather which meant you weren’t picking stuff out of mud.
One amazing thing I had never seen at Glastonbury before
was that we met hundreds of people out on an organised early morning 5K run
around the site. They had all the running gear on and were taking it very
seriously. That never happened in the olden days. We wandered all over the site
picking up any garbage we could find. Stopped for an hours break at 1.00 and
went round the same route in the afternoon and finished at 5.00. The afternoon
was the most tiring because of the heat. In the evening I had a couple of
drinks in the Bread & Roses saloon and went for a walk to the stone circle
to see what was going on. I was tired though and it was too hectic. There was
about 10,000 people up there partying. I sat in the Peace Garden for a bit of
tranquillity and then wandered home and crashed out about midnight.
Thursday was much more dramatic. Emily Eavis had asked us
to go to the Park area. Because the music didn’t start till Friday everybody
had been up that end of the site partying till dawn. The rubbish bins had overflowed
and there was quite a mess. We worked really hard that morning and got it all
looking nice again. I had a disaster. I went to pick up a can with Odele’s
stick and the handle broke in half in my hand. Oh no, I felt really bad about
that.
In the afternoon I had another disaster. We were working
our way along to the old railway line where it was very busy with multitudes of
people going in all directions.
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| In The Woods. |
I was having a chat with Sean about music. I stopped to pick up some rubbish around some bins, looked up and I couldn’t see my team anywhere in the crowd. It was at a crossroads, which is the worst place to get lost. I had to guess which direction they had gone. I walked one way for about 100 yards but then noticed some rubbish on the ground. “If they had come this way they would have picked that up”, I thought to myself. So, I retraced my steps and tried another direction and the same thing happened. I was getting more and more frantic. The world had suddenly become a lonely and threatening place.
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| Some of our team. |
I felt like a little kid who had lost his mum. I was the only member of
the team who hadn’t bothered to take Andy’s phone number in case of such an eventuality.
I decided to go to the Glade and stay there and hope the team walked by. After
half an hour there was no sign of them. The only thing to do was go back to the
office and report myself lost. By the time I got there I was really hot and
bothered I can tell you. The office staff phoned Andy and found out where they
were and I was finally reunited with my team by the John Peel stage at about
4.00. I had been missing for about two hours. It made the afternoon go
quickly that’s for sure. We finished work at 5.00 and had no more work until
Sunday evening.
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| Fiona with Michael Eavis. |
That evening it was the recyclers party. I was watching a
band from the entrance to the marquee when a security man tapped me on the
shoulder and asked me to move slightly. I turned around and there was Glastonbury
organiser Michael Eavis and Fiona which gave me the chance of a couple of close
up photos. Later on, a couple asked me if I knew the way to the Rabbit Hole so
I said I would show them. That involved a long walk. I had a couple of drinks
up in The Park then walked back via the Tipi Field, Strummerville, Field Of Avalon
and ended up in the bar at the Acoustic Stage. It was nice and quiet in there
which suited me. I had a chat with a nice couple from Northern Ireland and said I'd meet them at the Park Stage tomorrow morning. I finally went to bed about 2.00 but I was quite excited
because tomorrow the music would finally begin!
TO BE CONTINUED……………
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