Off the cuff

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), June 30, 2005

Byline: By Jamie Diffley

For many a year the last weekend in June was an important date for me. It was the first date I scoured for in the calendar every new year. Because then it would be Glastonbury.

Looking at the mugshot that adorns this hilarious column, it's hard to imagine I was once an ardent Glastonbury-goer. But don't let the sombre shirt, on which rests a tie like a noose round my neck, put you off. I didn't always work for The Man you know. I was once free.

And that freedom was spent doing fun things and going to fun places like Glastonbury. Course it was a different world then. Different time. The first time I graced the green fields of Shepton Mallet was way back in 1990 to see the Happy Mondays stumble their way through a shambolic set.

I was only a mere slip of a lad, months shy of my 17th birthday, but it was the beginning of a fantastic journey. A journey which saw me and my pals return to the festival practically every year in the 90s each with its own highlight; 1990 ( Happy Mondays; 1991 ( cancelled; 1992 ( Billy Bragg; 1993 ( Rolf Harris; 1994 ( someone getting shot; 1995 ( the fence being pulled down. Cancelled in 1996, didn't go in 1997 and got caught up in the mud in 1998. And since then nothing.

By 1998 things were changing. I was by then a cub reporter on my local paper in Rochdale. The Man was now paying my wages and he was calling the shots. I remember camping next to a group of students who looked down on me when I told them I actually had a job. I actually got dressed in the morning and went to work. For The Man.

And I bought my ticket that year. For the first time since my debut eight years before (I was young and naive) I had shelled out to attend. I used the money The Man was giving me to keep me in The System.

The students camped next to me didn't pay. In those days there was more than one way to get into a massive festival for free. You could go over the fence; under the fence; wait until someone knocks it down (see 1995) or pay someone to stamp your hand with half a potato which fools the security guard and his ultra-violet light machine.

When they found out I had bought a ticket they made me feel somehow small. Like I didn't belong to `their' festival and I was just another city worker who liked to think he was a bit mad and went to concerts to keep in touch with the youth.

Never mind the fact I was still only 22 and these students were terribly middle-class, it was I who was made to feel fraudulent. Perhaps by then I was. I was a relic from the good old days of Glastonbury before it was popular. I'd only heard of it because I was going out with a girl whose sister was the coolest kid in Castleton (Joanne Potts take a bow) and when the Happy Mondays were playing it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Back then there was no blanket coverage by the BBC. The first TV crews to venture into the madness was Channel Four. Soon after BBC 2 started to broadcast excerpts and before you know it Jamie Theakston is presenting live for BBC 1. Glastonbury had gone global.

The festival had slowly been creeping towards the mainstream for some time but at 7.30pm on Saturday night it exploded when one Robbie Williams `wowed' the crowd.

Back then he was, and to me still is, just a fat dancer who used to be in Take That. But as the sun made a brief appearance above the Pyramid Stage (awful mud that year) Robbie came into his own. And I knew then that for me it was over.

These new Glastonbury-goers weren't my type at all. Looking back I very much doubt those students did jump the fence. They were probably just trying to be cool. And they were probably down the front singing `Angels' and waving their Zippo lighters.

It's been seven years since I went to Glastonbury. I almost forgot it was on. I'd like to go back one day and see what's what. I might need a leg up over the fence though. The limbs aren't what they were.