Young Me

I was looking through old photographs last night, marvelling at how young we all looked, and decided to share.

First, me and my mother.  This was one of the only holidays we went on when I was young.  This picture is the only one I have of me as a child, other than a baby picture.

 Yes, I know I look like a boy.  I always did - short hair and trousers in the days when girls all wore dresses and ankle socks and had their hair in bunches or pony tails.

 Three from my days of touring Australia.  The photo says the place the signposts are is Golden Fleeces.  But it is  more than 30 years ago, and I have no idea if that is the name of the place or the cafe, where LittleDave is going to get coffee.

And that car!  I had to push start that every working day for six weeeks, unwtil we had saved up enough for a new battery.  It weighed two tons. We pushed it up the drive (and I do mean uphill!), than we pushed it down the road (thankfully, that was downhill!) until LittleDave decided we were going fast enough and jumped in.  Then I had to keep the speed up while he did the driving magic thing to make the engine start.  Talk about a good way to start the day!

Worst.  Hairstyle.  Ever.  I say no more, I let the picture do the talking.

That's me, bottom left.  This was taken in 1981, when I was 26 and doing a year's voluntary work on a kibbutz.  Ramot Menashe was near Haifa and Acre, both of which have some stunningly beautiful places among scenes of squalor.  I liked Israel, though teenage army brats with guns on the bus were a bit hard to come to terms with, given I came from a society that, at that time, did not even have armed police.

The photo is of all the English group, with the addition of Dominique Noel (next to me) who came from Mauritius, and who once had us roaring with laughter when she told us It makes me sad,  It gives me balls in my throat.  It took a while to convince her we were not laughing at her, but at the expression.  Oh, and Dominique?  Use the words Lump in your throat!

I first went to Glastonbury in June 1982.  This was the first big Glastonbury washout, with the highest recorded rainfall for 45 years on the opening Friday.  This was the first year to feature the laser show.  On the bill - Roy Harper, Osibisa, Aswad, Richie Havens and Van Morrison (with thanks to google!)

I was with the Hamer Horror.  Such a nice guy, he dropped acid and I didn't see him for two days.  Thankfully Pen was there to take me under her wing.  So was Husband, but he wasn’t even Boyfriend at this point.  I mostly remember it rained.  And rained.  And rained.  Yet-To-Be-Husband was the only one who had wellies (they were in the boot of the car cos he had been gardening at his parents), size 11, which everyone borrowed.  Including, at one point, Pen, with her size 3 feet.  She got half-way across the mud to the toilet holes-in-the-ground when the wellies got stuck.  She couldn't get them out of the mud, as when she tried her feet came out the wellies.  Yet-To-Be-Husband heard her cries for help and rolled his trousers up, waded through the mud to her and carried her on to the loos.  Ever the hero!

This was also the year Husband got his zoom lens.  This poor chap was in the sound tent in front of the main stage when Pen snapped him smoking a joint.  Well, why the hell not - it was Glastonbury, we were all young and beautiful then.

The other thing I remember about this Glastonbury was the queues to use the brand-new mobile phones that someone was enterprisingly using to let festival goes phone home.  Musically, I cannot remember a single band from this gig.  Aswad - they played every Glastonbury I ever went to, so they are a given.  Otherwise I cannot remember and cannot know find the programme.  Which I know is somewhere in this house.

The next year, 1983, I had split with the Hamer Horror, but not got together with Yet-To-Be-Husband.  I borrowed a tent from Little David, which had come with him from Australia.  A square box which took about two minutes to put up, was like a room inside and often had people sheltering from the sun.  Yes, sun.  We were still able to camp on the slopes overlooking the Pyramid, and have a log fire.  P & J bought their Firstborn, who was about One, so they were often in the tent.  A lot of flirting went on between Not-Yet-Husband and myself, and he offered to drive me home.  I remember spending a lot of the journey glancing sideways, thinking Mmmmm, nice profile.  Mmmmm, nicely muscled arms.  Mmmmm.  Just generally Mmmmm. 

Finally, the Best Glastonbury Ever.  I was with Not-Yet-Husband.  I was young.  I was slim.  I was tanned (we had just got back from three weeks in Greece).  I WAS IN LOVE.  And lust.  A lot of time was spent wandering around in not many clothes, getting stoned and seeing amazing bands that we had never heard of.  Saw Maria Muldaur and she was good.  Ian Dury was even better!  Had my one and only acid trip.  Of which I mostly remember:

·        The young ladies who could not operate their blue duck puppet.  It was like our own little show.  Though we were tripping, so this memory of a happy half hour watching them and laughing with them could easily have been five minutes

·        Getting a steak sandwich.  First bite - wow, I have died and gone to heaven.  Second bite - god this is chewy.  Third bite - what third bite?

·        Getting back to the tent, having a cup of tea and going inside for a quiet joint (too many people outside).  One thing led to another, the way one things often do and we made passionate, noisy roll around the-floor love.  We ended up against the side of the tent and, as we became post-orgasmic, realised the song playing was The Smiths, I'm So Miserable Now.  Don’t remember leaving the tent and facing our friends, but I don’t think that would have bothered us much at this point.  I mean, they all knew we were newly-in-love-birds.  And we were spaced.

·        Listening to Elvis Costello doing Shipbuilding while the rain soaked us.  Down the front, close enough to touch, with a saxophone solo that went on for ever.  In the arms of Not-Yet-Husband

The last Glastonbury I went to was in 1986.  Can't remember if we even went in 1985.  I was pregnant with Daughter, so drug-taking was severely curtailed!  Went with King & Rodney - we put our tents up in the same corner of the field but hardly ever saw them.  A very contemplative Glastonbury, relaxed and laid back.  We knew it was going to be Our Last Glastonbury as Just Us - coming with a child was a very different thing, we knew - we had seen it affect our friends - so we set out to really enjoy it.