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Sweet confusion under the moonlight

Our first Glastonbury - we had wanted to go for the past 2 years but my exam dates always clashed. We had planned to go to Stonehenge as well but once again I had an exam so we settled for just going to Glastonbury. My mum bought the tickets, which were £13, on her credit card and in a spooky "Big Brother is watching you" sort of way there was a mysterious phone call a few days later "just to check the details".

We hitchhiked from Sunderland after cashing our giros on the Thursday morning. We got picked up by guy in minibus and he took us and several others to within 30 miles of Bristol. He had been to the festival before and the more he talked about it the more excited we got. Once in Bristol we headed to the coach station to catch the Badgerline coach to the site. While we were waiting on the bus a ratty inspector got on and told people off for smoking, "Can't you lot read" he shouted at the passengers "We've even drawn pictures for those of you who can't" - the whole bus went deadly quiet. Once out of the station the driver turned around and said "You can smoke again now and if anyone has anything they want to pass forward…" - the whole atmosphere changed again. Official programme - 80 pence!

We were dropped outside Pilton on the road to Glastonbury and there was a long walk down to site past lots of cars in a queue. The Police were standing at the perimeter not allowed on site! I remember being asked for my ticket and being given a wrist band but the whole security thing was a bit vague - I don't even remember any fences. Once on the site we looked around for somewhere to camp, there were tents and cars scattered all over the fields.

We finally pitched our tent in "Big Ground" overlooking Pyramid stage and near to the market area, which in those days was at the top of the hill near the farm. All around were people with big signs advertising and selling drugs. Stayed up late waiting for laser show, which never happened! We did go to the Cinema Marquee and caught some of the Glastonbury Fayre movie - the bit with Authur Brown. Eventually we decided to call it a day and headed off to bed in the early hours.

Jugglers on stilts Getting into the spirit - he'd be about 18 now! Childrens area

Unfortunately we woke up very early as well, my watch stopped at about 4.30 am and we thought it was the afternoon and we jumped out of bed. It was in fact only about 7.30 and we had only been asleep for a few hours!!!That afternoon we saw Joan Baez, Billy Bragg and Hank Wangford . We were struggling to keep awake during Joan and so afterwards we went back to our tent, fell asleep and missed rest of evening! This included Ian Dury and Dr. John.

View from our tent Val bought headpiece made from dried flowers from girl who had a rat in Pyramid shaped cage and then lost her scarf and when we went back to look for it we saw a hippy wearing it around his head. In the evening there were Hash and mash stands and people doing hot knives on side of road. On Saturday we went to the greenfield to find the showers which we finally found in a small tent, we got undressed and stood in a line of naked people before having a cold shower under a circular hosepipe with holes in it suspended from the ceiling. (Val still swears to this day that she saw Authur Scargill in the showers!)

There was some great food on site. A guy called Leon who ran a vegetarian stall introduced us to the fact that there were 5 different coloured peppers and the Khrisna tent was selling some excellent pancakes with syrup which we had for breakfast.

On the Saturday we saw Joolz and Seething Wells in the theatre area. On the main stage caught Paul Brady, The Waterboys, The Smiths (during their set the stage ended up covered in greenery) and Elvis Costello. Val went back to tent during EC and I decided to head back to watch him and the lasers. However I had just got back to the Pyramid stage as he finished.

Sunday we saw John Martyn, Fairport Convention, Christy Moore and Linda Lewis (who wasn't scheduled but she said she had appeared at the first Festival and was sure the stage was higher in those days). By Sunday afternoon we decided that it was going to be difficult to hitch from site booked coach to London at 7am on the Monday morning and hitched from there! Went back to college with suntan and told them I'd been ill. Our ticket to London

So that was our first Glastonbury, we enjoyed it so much we went back the following year and so started a tradition that would last as long as the festival itself.

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All Photographs © Kevin Shewan