Monday 30th July

We leave from Westminster Lodge in a coach, eating Pistachio Nuts and filling Nick’s hat with the shells. Arthur and Becky argue about who has more Haribo, and amass over 2 kilograms between them. The coach grinds to a halt about a mile down the road in Chiswell Green. On the coach, Rosanne admits that although she did meet Owen and Evan in Brighton, she didn’t ask Owen if he slept with a priest. An old man comes onto the bus looking for Rosanne.

We eventually arrive on the campsite, with everyone trying to work out what the nearest shops and pubs are. We spot a supermarket called the Pioneer (Pioneer! Pioneer!) which will later become our wine retailer of choice. Arriving at the campsite, Simon, Arthur, Becky, Rosanne, Martha, Louise, and other pupils of Sandringham School are surprised to see a Sandringham minibus parked next to our campsite, but reason that it must be one of their teachers (Mr Feldman) who is with the New Barnet Group.

We all get off the bus and unpack everything, and meet the Sheffield group. They all seem very nice, and we try to remember their names. They offer to help us put up our tents, but we don’t accept their offer.. then we get them to put up the Marquee. We then eat lunch, and Emilia finds a fallopian tube in her pasta.

We have a circle and everything, and are introduced to the Sheffield group as the group from St. Ives, and then we go off to the Opening Ceremony. Thousands of Woodcraft people abound, and a whole host of unusual things which have been constructed are carried across the stage. Having not made anything ourselves, we cheer for some of the more unusual looking ones. We are then introduced to the song “Sust ‘n Able”. Rosanne suddenly realises that it’s meant to be “sust’n’able”, and mentions that she’s been correcting everyone all day thinking that they just couldn’t pronounce “sustainable”. Throughout the opening ceremony, we see many old friends from a wide range of Woodcraft events, including Boo, Fido 2, Emilia’s Fancy Boy Felix, and Evan. Simon and Arthur, meanwhile, keep running off to network with various Dfs they see around the place.

After the ceremony, we all wander off to the central area, where Simon and Arthur run into all sorts of Dfs they recognise from events in the past. Arthur, Alan and Nick produce their own version of Sust’n’Able, involving dancing, human-beatboxing, and rapping respectively.

We go to the Disco, where Arthur and Alan show their unique approaches to dancing, but are put to shame by the efforts of the Disco King. (no, not Chris!). We run into a lot of old friends, including Drunk Mel, who seems to be dressed up in PVC for some reason, Adam from Lockerbrook, who remembered us putting sticks in his sleeping bag, but couldn’t remember the carpet tiles.

We are around the “Activity Barn” for a while, and Arthur asks Owen about sleeping with priests. The food place is alas unable to keep up with Kentish Town, not having a single can of Lychee Juice. We all wander around the central area for ages, losing Emily and Arthur to a big gang of Cambridge Dfs. We then wander up to the crowds outside the DF tent, shouting “Caity Roe!”, and Rosanne meets a very scared Caity Roe. Rosanne and Robert run into Stonehenge, and Robert knocks Stonehenge down. It is a scattered selection of people who find their way to the Juice Bar. Emily seems to have gone off with some guy, and Arthur tells a load of Dfs that Simon has gone off to play with some girls.

We eventually all converge outside the juice bar, where we realise it’s about half past two in the morning, and we walk back to Village 37. We all go to sleep in our own tents, except that Joe bivvies on the floor between the two ‘complex’ tents.

Tuesday 31st July

We wake up in the morning, and eat breakfast. We don’t really do anything all day; we make the immense St. Albans Wappenshaw, featuring about 15 airbeds, and much of the day is spent lying on these airbeds in the blazing sun. We get the ghetto blaster working, and listen to Jimi Hendrix, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bob Marley for much of the day. Rosanne joins every single clan, and much of the clan activities (and vegetable slicing) descends into water fights.

We make big cardboard feet with inequalities drawn on them, and we just draw the inequalities straight onto Emilia and Louise’s feet. Nick writes his address on the back of his cardboard foot (Nick, The Tool Tent, Village 37). Meanwhile, Simon, Becky, Martha and Tom paint the St. Albans Marquee to avoid foot-painting. Rosanne’s circle T-shirt has “Caity Roe” painted on the back in big red letters, together with a quite scary looking stick figure. Emilia teaches everyone the three point plan, and in the process of this, Simon paints her lips red with paint, and she leaves lip-marks on Rosanne’s t-shirt. Rosanne, meanwhile, repaints the red star on Chris’s t-shirt with more red paint.

We go down to the river for the first time, and although only a couple of us had originally planned to swim, we end up all going in, half of us still wearing our clothes. The star on Chris’s t-shirt starts to run, and Chris is able to print the star on everybody. Arthur and Simon both have a star in red paint imprinted on their chest, which shows no sign of coming off.

We go off into the central area again that night, having started on the Boddingtons earlier. Chris mentioned the ghetto blaster, and before anyone could do anything, Alan ran off back to the tents to fetch it. Meanwhile, we run into Evan, who mumbles incoherently about an underground two-step club. We meet Adam again, and we mention the Emilia / Sex Demon incident, to which Adam remarks that he must have been on drugs. Rosanne runs into poor Andrew Gowland, and scares him by reminding him about the incident on ADC where Harry threw her into the mens toilets and soaked him by mistake. She then pretends to be Caity Roe.

We slowly make our way back to our tents, Joe taking any opportunity he can to steal Rosanne’s hat. We sit around Arthur’s leaky tent, for some reason, and Simon produces his Trangia and begins to cook noodles. Arthur rivals Simon’s trangia with his gas stove. Becky and Simon sit next to eachother, with Emilia between them. She is mistaken for Simon’s swollen leg, with much bluntness and innuendo from Arthur. People fall asleep and move around quite regularly at various points during this night. Alan returns with the ghetto blaster and a woman. Arthur and Anna are believed to be twins. Chris goes to bed early because he’s an old man. Emilia’s mouth fills with mucus, and she has to clear it out and start again. Becky wonders what happened to the man with the head of an orange. Everyone falls asleep bit by bit, some people sleeping outside.

Wednesday 1st August

We wake up in the morning, only to find that Simon’s sleeping bag had mysteriously ended up in the girls tent. Becky expresses surprise at how this could have happened. Wide games were going on, and so, like the keen and sociable district we are, we all went swimming in the river again, having planned to do so for about five hours. Simon asks Greg to fetch his torch from the Girls Store Tent, and surprises Becky, which makes Greg very cross! We washed our hair in the river, and then lay in the sun on the cliff top for ages and ages. Certain DFs enjoyed watching the German Delegation go swimming. Chris throws a rock at a little kid, and very nearly kills him, Lord of the Flies stylee. Becky tans really quicky. We lie on the beach for hours and hours, and most of us end up accidentally sunburning. Nick has the best smoke of his life.

Louise drinks loads of salad dressing for lunch, and puts sugar on her noodles. During the course of the day, several semi-couples emerge, including Louise and Robert, Emilia and Pat, Rosanne and Joe, and everyone’s favourite incest twins, Arthur and Anna, who spend most of their time “playing cards” together. Ed Maltby wants to use Rosanne’s phone, but it sadly didn’t work, so he had to borrow someone’s mobile instead.

We go out, and Chris hugs Milko, who is his usual cheerful self. Simon produces a bottle of red wine, and we drink it. Alan realises that wine is the drink for him. Adrian reprimands Chris for using the mens toilets. Rosanne befriends Caity Roe outside the juice bar, and they swap hats. Nick smokes something really strange, and starts tripping, seeing weird psychedelic stars, and seeing Robert turn into Arthur, and then back into Robert.

We go back to the tents, and Chris makes Rosanne sleep on a load of broken cans with sharp edges, and fills her sleeping bag with widgets. Arthur and Anna disappear under Arthur’s big black cloak, and then both fall over backwards. Nick, probably still tripping, falls over backwards and nearly crushes the Tool Tent. Emily and Nick fall asleep in front of the leaky tent, and Simon strokes the sleeping Emily’s head. There are lots and lots of people outside the leaky tent, in the manner of an auditorium. There are at least three rows. As everyone is drifting off Becky gets cramp and jumps up and runs around the gathered people who shout various different cures, except for Art and Anna whom Becky interrupts… Louise says how much she likes cramp and tries to get Becky to give it to her. Then we all fall asleep and sleep in the mess.

Thursday 2nd August

The morning begins with a simple debate between Simon and Arthur over the advantages and disadvantages of various clan duties. Arthur suggests that emptying the toilets is the worst job, as you may become weak and drop the contents of the toilet all over yourself.

Our supplies are getting low.. we’re running out of Boddingtons, and Alan smoked 120 filters in two days. Some of them were even attached to roll-ups. We send a daring team of voulunteers to the nearest town on bikes to buy drink. They return, having spent £60, and we have (among other things), 10 bottles of wine (plus a bottle for Becky).

Emilia feels ill, and everyone thinks she has a hang over. Then she is sick on Rosanne’s (surprisingly absorbant) sleeping bag and Becky’s lilo, and sits in a tree for most of the day. In the evening, she is moved to the medical tent. In order to keep her company, we join her, with Simon’s walkie talkies. Nick comes with some juice, and then Alan brings a couple of bottles of wine to liven things up. The wine party gets going, and Emilia hears some gossip from “Ginger Skatey Tom” on the phone and feels much better.

During the day, whilst Emilia is in the tree asleep, we all go into the central area, where some kids are sticking a big banner on the Nestle machine. Nevertheless, an evil woman tries to use the machine, and wonders why it doesn’t work. We suggested that there may be a dead baby caught in the works. We go to folk supply, and buy lots of badges, t-shirts, and get some free postcards for Lizzie. Back at the tents, Nick accidentally kneels on a bottle of shampoo, and splatters the whole inside of the tent, including Anna, with it.. He starts to clean it up, and Arthur comes in...

Alan fills a lot of bottles with Lychee Juice, and we return to the tents, where Alan makes a bong, using the Lychee Juice for bong water. As the night goes on, we all play with the bong, and Emily starts talking with a northern accent. Alan goes off to find some more straws. He returns to see quite a random gathering of people in the tent, and promptly throws everyone off his bed. We all sleep on the floor in the middle of the tent, where Rosanne has her head in a puddle, as well as Simon’s sleeping bag, which she borrowed, believing it to be one of Nick’s many sleeping bags. Chris uses Alan’s shirt as a pillow, and Anna doesn’t have a sleeping bag and gets really cold.

However, before all of this, we notice Simon and Becky in the end of the tent, and they’re not whispering for a long time....

- Tom, what happened with the football, because I have no idea!

Friday 3rd August

We have a pretty strange morning, with gossip and rumour flying everywhere. Various conversations take place in Emilia’s sick tree. Alan, meanwhile, managed to pick up a drum’n’bass tape in the ghetto blaster last night, and proceeds to dance manically, joined by Arthur (who has his hair in bunches) at 10 in the morning, in the rain. They churn up a great deal of the earth around the tents.

We speak to a mad kid called Oliver, who suggests that Nick likes to drown animals, and then tells us how the salad dressing “looks like a cowpat, like a shiny, glistening cowpat!”. He then proceeded to drop an orange in the salad dressing. The oily orange somehow made it’s way back to the Tool Tent. During the course of the day, confused by the presence of the orange, Chris throws it across the campsite. Somehow, it lands in the kitchen tent.

Greg is a dirty pervert, having gone on travels with his camera on the last night, taking photos of lesbians. Alan claims to have been one of the women. Everyone is really confused. Alan starts on the wine in the early afternoon, and soon everyone joins him.

The summer of love is truly upon us. Arthur and Nick find lots of chords to folk songs, and so we have an impromtu singing session, before walking into the central area singing “Blowing in the Wind” and “Green Grow the Rushes, Ho!”. People join in as we walk down. Robert and Pat scare the life out of Rosanne with some raver horns.

Chris and Rosanne run headlong into the Nestle machine until this big man stands in front of it. We then return, and everyone is playing guitar or singing. We play a load of songs at double speed, whilst Simon and Becky go to the middle of the field and make out in front of everyone. However, by this time, we’re playing “Green Grow the Rushes, Ho!”, and everyone is dancing. We have quite a crowd. Then, we end up writing Reggae Riley. We play it about five times in a row, with new sections, backing singing, and other cool stuff being added all the time. Simon and Becky come back, and claim to have been at the juice bar. We’re all confused once again. We go back to the Cafe International, and play Reggae Riley on the stage, in the dark, without an audience.

We go back to the camp, and play the song again to everyone there. Then, we go to the DF tent in our village, and play all the songs we can think of, until late into the night.

Saturday 4th August

We all wake up in various tents, and Chris, Rosanne and Emilia have a long awaited meeting. Nick tells the tale of his unfortunate adventures last night. He didn’t have a sleeping bag, and was caught in the act of stealing Tom’s, and so he had to sleep without one. This matter wasn’t helped by him being half-off his airbed, because he had his shoes on. Alan, meanwhile, sleeps through most of breakfast, and when he actually does emerge, tells us how he was out until dawn the previous night, and couldn’t remember exactly what he was doing. By this point, most of the couples are established, although Joe has left.

There’s something funny in the paddling pool, and Simon’s cup undergoes it’s first series of abuse, as it is used to shave Greg’s legs, and is filled with Shaving Foam and hair. Greg shows his first signs of interest in dressing up as a woman, more of which we shall hear later. We also meet Ben, who is twice the man any cow could ever be, due to his remarkable number of stomachs.

Simon makes quite an inopportune comment about Rosie Upton, and Alan questions him about the Child Protection act. Much confusion incurs, as Simon isn’t quite sure what incident Alan is referring to.

Nick remains confused about the existence of Becky’s Wine, and insists that it must be a code for something, even after said wine is produced. Becky sips genteely from the wine. Meanwhile, Arthur and Alan introduce us to the concept of blowback, and Nick describes the Tool Complex as the Ghetto of camp.

We rage against the Nestle machine again. We paint two big signs, announcing “Rage against the Nestle machine”, and “Maybe there’s a dead baby caught in the works”, and we walk down to the machine in order to stick them on. We stick the signs on, Rosanne cutting liberally at the machine with a penknife in order to cut the sellotape, and then we begin to tape up the coin slot and the selection buttons. Then, a woman comes out of the shop, and says that we can’t tape up the coin slot. We argue for a while, and she has quite reasonable arguments, claiming that our signs are alright, but taping up the coin slot is not really fair. Then, this unreasonable and horrible man comes along, who is very rude to us, and refuses to listen to our arguments. He is the only not-nice person we meet on the whole camp.

In the end, we do remove the tape from the coin slot, but we leave our signs up, and they are photographed for the Guardian. However, by the next day, they are missing, and we suspect it was the horrible man.

We meet Mad Nic, and tell her how Alan has been stealing his wine from the old man he lives next door to. Arthur asks her for some sugar, as he has diabetes. Poor Nic was very confused. We soon returned to the Tool Tent, where Rosanne eats one of Alan’s E pills, believing it to be a paracetamol. We also devise the recorder-bong, although Chucky invented it years ago. Rosanne’s recorder develops a distinct cannabis smell. The concept of this appeals to Rosanne, and she plans to give it to some kid, or perhaps to a charity shop, together with a pear. Not even Rosanne is aware of where the pear came from. Anna wants to write “bong” on the Marquee. We ask Emily if she can play the skinflute, and she replies in the affirmative. The story is told of how Simon threw a slug in Becky’s hair as a token of their love, only to give her a child a week later. Rosanne is determined to melt the recorder, but is persuaded otherwise. She demands a pint of the black stuff, but is assured that you cannot drink melted recorder. She rants on about destiny and short shorts and butter, whilst Alan seems determined to take her clubbing with him in London, or at least to the Drum’n’Bass night at the Firkin. He then suggests making a bong out of the big green boiler in the kitchen, and the night descends into chaos and confusion.

As various people eventually go to different tents, Alan and Amelia take Chris’s sleeping bag, and Rosanne realises she has her head in a puddle, and moves into the Gimp tent. This leaves Chris without a sleeping bag, and he ends up sleeping in Gimp under a Woodcraft Shirt and a towel. However, overwhelmed by cold, he stumbles out of the tent at 5 in the morning, muttering about being freezing, but returns with a sleeping bag he has found, declaring that “there is a god!” to a sleepy and confused Becky.

Sunday 5th August

This day is the open day, and so Becky’s parents come to visit her. It’s also Martha’s last day. Someone wants to borrow a recorder, and so we lend them the cannabis recorder. Emilia and Greg go off to a wedding, to return the next day man and wife.

Becky’s parents arrive, and they want to see our tents, but Becky advises them not to. She also persuades them against borrowing her hoodie, as it has a distinct aroma of Tool. At that point, Rosanne accuses Chris of lending someone the cannabis recorder. Becky persuades her parents not to eat in Village 37, and they are less than pleased with the fare they obtain from the Central Area. Everyone thinks that Becky is a bitch for not talking to her family.

We all went into the central area for the Open Day stuff, and we played Reggae Riley on the main stage. Everyone sang, clapped, shouted “Hey!”, played guitar, and it was a sight to be seen! Simon, meanwhile, took lots and lots of photos. After the song, we all wander about the central area. Simon and Arthur give someone money for Red Falken Hoodies, which is the last they see of them. We sit around in the central area for ages.

Everyone devises more and more elaborate plans concerning losing, some of which were just malicious. Martha leaves, and we all bid her a sad farewell.

Monday 6th August

Today is quite a rainy day, and we spend a lot of time in the Ghetto of Sin. Alan starts drinking before lunch. Everyone looks very bedraggled, and Anna comes into the tent to an unique greeting from Alan. We spend much of the morning making cranes for Hiroshima Day, where Arthur shows an unique ability with folding paper, and is able to make a quail from a tiny square of Rizla paper. Emilia and Greg return.

We then go back into the Tool Tent, where we boil up a load of Haribo, Extra Strong Mint, and Marshmallows, making a strange orange soup-like concoction, which tasted really cool, in a very sweet manner. Arthur warns us that if we coat him in flammable tent material, the retribution will be severe.

Lizzie comes to visit us, to pick up Joe to go on holiday. Her parents see the ghetto, and suggest that we may have come on camp in order to get fresh air. Rosanne gives her a packet of Rizla to take on holiday. The mess in the ghetto is added to by the presence of a hanging, bound and gagged dead baby. Adrian asks us not to smoke in the tents, whatever it may be that we were smoking. Grace arrives.

We all walk down to the central area for Hiroshima Day, together with Cranes and Lanterns. However, not much is going on, due to the torrential rain. We all sit in a Marquee, and sing songs. Grace sees Arthur and Anna, and thinks that they might be walking arm in arm just to annoy her. However, soon she sees that instead, their old passions are revived!

In our Marquee, everyone is drawing on the tables, and Ellie draws a picture of Becky with her melancholy aura. We discuss what would happen if the leaders were to find out about some of the couples, and try to keep hidden from Adrian. Then, a load of kids nearly blow up a gas lantern.

It’s back to the tents, and more Tooling up. Grace and Tom avoid the smoking, and spend a great deal of time in the Gimp tent “playing cards”. Ivy wonders how Alan’s cup ended up in Town 3 Marquee, a question which Alan himself was considering. Tom tries to encourage Grace and Rosanne to have lesbian sex. (?) Rosanne, however, has met a boy called Rob, who hitherto became known as Cheese Sandwich Boy, due to his search for a cheese sandwich.

Tuesday 7th August

We woke up in the morning, only to find a ‘suprise’ in the middle of the Tool Tent. Grace enquires as to whether it was used. Used or not, it ends up in Simon’s poor abused cup, which became an ashtray the previous night, and nearly set on fire due to tissues and smoking. No-one really wants to get up, and Chris spends much of the morning painting the sides of the tents, being the only person up. He paints “The Ghetto of Sin” on the side of the Tool Tent, and “Lust” on the Tent Formerly Known as Scorpion.

Finally, Alan attempts to make everyone get up, with his unique “Hands off Cocks and on with socks!” cry. Simon calls Chris “Becky” by accident, much to the surprise of all concerned. Becky’s twisted mind becomes disturbingly clear, when she comments on the whereabouts of Arthur and Anna.

Acute shortages of wine means that another trip into town is required, and Alan perusades Rosanne to spend her money on wine. Robert persuades Simon to come along, due to Simon’s age, posession of bike, and fitness. They return with several bottles of wine, a bottle of very cheap scotch whiskey, and a fateful bottle of vodka.

Quite a lot of this day is also spent in the Tool Tent, with the conversation covering such subjects as Alan sleeping with his lesbian mother, foetuses (and use thereof), and bouncing a corpse along the moshpit. Rosanne learns how to roll, and Alan plans to go to Spain. Arthur reprimands people who attempt to hit our “No Parking in this Area” sign.

Alan has two interesting Tool related experiences, the first involving him nearly smoking a plastic tube full of filters, believing it to be a joint, and the second involving explaining to his sister why he was smoking a very long cigarette.

We meet Arthur’s fancy boy, Steve, for the first time, despite their planning to meet throughout the whole camp. George and the other people from the Czech delegation talk about their country and the Pionyr movement, which we all listen to. Greg, Pat, and various other people all dress as women, we drink quite a lot of whiskey, and then wander into the central area. All, that is, except for Nick and Alan. Nick stays behind because he isn’t feeling brilliant, and Alan would rather stay in the tent and smoke. Nick warns all of us not to let him drink the whiskey. Quite a lot of people get quite drunk, due to the presence of whiskey, wine and Alexi’s cheap french beer, and there is lots of stumbling about. Simon has to help a load of drunk people get home.

Rosanne and Rob go back to the Tool Tent, interrupting Alan and Nick’s male bonding talk, and gradually the Tool tents fill up with random people. Louise tells us how she loves the smell of whiskey, and we drift into night..

Wednesday 8th August

Morning comes, and in the Gimp tent, Chris finds the bottle of Whiskey in his sleeping bag, and Rosanne and Rob seem to have vanished in the night, along with one of Simon’s shoes. There’s still no sign of them at breakfast, but Alan gets his own morning cry, consisting of two people standing either side of the Tool tent, shouting “Alan! Get up!” after his complaints that he couldn’t hear the normal one.

Rosanne and Rob reappear after breakfast, and we learn exactly why they left last night. She tries to make Chris do the three-point-plan on Rob at some point in the future. It truly is the day of misunderstandings, and Simon accidentally calls Becky “Emilia”, much to the indignation of Becky. It doesn’t stop there, however, as Chris then calls Becky “Emilia”, and to top it all, Alexi calls Anna “Emilia”, thinking she was Becky. And chaos ensued. Simon, meanwhile, formulates quite a complicated plan to clone Emilia and kill Becky.

Some of us go canoeing, a rather cold experience, where Rosanne invites people to “join the clique”. Simon rolls several times, and Chris fails to roll at all, and falls out of the boat. All of this, coupled with falling off a big raft made out of barrels, naturally leaves us very wet, and subsequently freezing cold.

By now, most of Arthur’s storage tents have turned into Love Nests, the most notable of which are Ringo Starr, which is Arthur and Anna’s cluttered love nest, with two doors for convenient entry, and Emilia and Pat’s well stocked love nest, Soulfly, featuring a double airbed. Becky and Simon claim Army Ant, formerly just Simon’s “equipment tent”, and Louise and Robert, meanwhile, have comandeered the Lust tent, and not even Chris’s soup throwing can deter them from this target.

We spend quite a lot of time in the Tool tent, and the phrase “tooling up” is born. Tom and Grace avoid the smoke by retreating into the Gimp tent and “playing cards”. Chris does the three-point-plan on Rob three times, but he fails to notice at all.

Evening comes, and we find outselves playing Reggae Riley on the stage in the Cafe International for the second time, but this time with an audience; An audience including Milko, who makes insulting gestures directed towards a certain performer, but who admits by the end that the performance was “pretty good”. Simon and Alan, however, stay in the tents until later, and miss out on yet another performance of our infamous song. Chris subsequently has an unusual moment, featuring jacket-smelling and matchmaking, with uncertain results for both counts. Most of the Barnet group, however, now know what happened in the Gimp tent on the previous night, much to very different reactions from all involved.

We all wander down to the Activity Barn and surrounding areas, and Pat and Emilia produce the fateful bottle of Vodka. Maybe this is why Simon and Alan turn up at this point. It’s passed around, and both Emilia and Becky are fairly tipsy. However, all of this is surpassed by Rosanne, who before long is unable to stand. Becky tries to help Rosanne by lying next to her and shouting her name. Alan get annoyed and Simon soon removes Becky. We make several attempts to make Rosanne stand up, but to no avail, and we sit her on a plastic chair whilst we decide what to do and make sure that a similar fate doesn’t befall Becky or Emilia. Both certainly spend some time on the floor, but nothing compared to Rosanne.

We decide the best solution to avoid trouble and suspicion is to get Rosanne back to the tents, although there are some short lived plans to go find a stretcher. We decide that we need a way to draw as little attention to us as possible, but failing that, we all take turns carrying Rosanne. As she is carried, she wonders where her camera is, assures us that she’s never sick, that she has just one clean hoodie left, and refers to her size and that she is fine. Every now and again she asks for Becky and Rob. Becky, however, is busy pestering people for cigarettes, claiming that “cannabis smell is the best smell in the world”.

As we are carrying Rosanne, we pass a marquee where they are showing “all four star wars films”. We decide that it might be a plan to stay there for a while with Rosanne, and so we split up, half of us staying there whilst the other half go off to get Rosanne’s sleeping bag. Whilst watching the film, Rosanne and Becky shout at eachother across the marquee, much to the surprise of Mr Feldman, and Arthur has to hide the bottle of Whiskey from Becky, who is still quite drunk, and keeps trying to find it. As we are returning with the sleeping bag, we see Rosanne and Rob and Alan returning to the tents. Alan comes into his own as the drunk-person-carer, and ensures that Rosanne is okay. However, whilst we have her lying on a grass verge, a couple of official looking people ask us what’s going on. Chris bluffs that everything is under control, even as Rosanne shouts “I’m FINE! This is just my one clean hoodie!” at them.

We take her back to the tent, and Alan gives her water to drink. She falls fast asteep, and Rob goes to sleep there too, in Nick’s sleeping bag. We look in the Tool tent, but Emily is lying there, half awake, with an unconscious Evan lying across her, pinning her to the ground. We express slight confusion at this, especially as Emily seems to be shoving biscuits into Evan’s open mouth, but we wander to the other tents. However, Lust is once again Louise and Robert’s love nest, and Grace and tom have hijacked the Carnality tent. Becky drunkenly shouts at both pairs about the selfishness of having only two people in a tent and is quite rude to Louise… So, as it’s a nice night, we drag a load of airbeds outside, and lie down outside the Soulfly tent. We pass the whiskey around, despite Becky imploring Nick not to drink it. Nick, meanwhile, has found a sleeping bag, but it’s Ivy’s, and she soon demands it back. Nick wanders off, and returns with another sleeping bag. He doesn’t know whose it is, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

The talk turns to how we’re next to Soulfly, and how Emilia’s love nest is full of the shrunken skulls of her ex-boyfriends, a subject which can mostly be attributed to Becky and Alan. Emilia returns, with Pat, and Becky warns them not to go into Soulfly, as “it’s full of the shrunken skulls of your ex-boyfriends!”. Emilia looks confused, and Pat falls on Becky, Simon, Chris and Alan. They both protest that we can’t be serious in wanting to spend the night right outside their tent! Then, along comes Alison, and Becky shouts at her because she doesn’t like Spaced. Alan adds insult to injury by suggesting that you need to be on drugs to watch it, but coming from Alan, this isn’t actually directed as an attack on Spaced!

Then, it starts raining, and Evan and Emily seem to have gone from the Tool Tent. Simon and Becky disappear into Army Ant, and Chris, Alan and Nick go into the Tool Tent, where Nick and Alan start making joints. Chris falls asleep. We’re all woken by Evan, who at about four in the morning, stumbles back into the Tool tent. We all look at him, but he looks more confused than us, and wanders off, muttering...

Thursday 9th August

We all wake up in our various tents, and have breakfast. After breakfast, Simon and Becky mention that they heard ‘noises’ coming from Emilia and Pat’s lovenest in the night. No-one really knows what could have gone on, but we realise perhaps why Emilia and Pat were keen for everyone to stop sleeping outside their tent. Everyone wonders what all the swearing was about at the end.

We go swimming in the morning, and Simon waxes his back especially for the occasion. Meanwhile, Alan and Nick go off to see some workshop about Genoa.

The game "Who’s who in the ghetto" is created, and bit-by-bit we fill it in. We conclude that Saturday night must have been good, as nobody can remember where they slept, although eventually almost all boxes are filled in.

It’s the camp closing ceremony, and so for the occasion, most of the group wear very coloured outfits, including red and yellow ponchos, long green dresses, and blue things, but all are outclassed by Alan, who becomes, bit by bit, the God of Hellfire. He wears a long gold dress, goggles, a spikey bracelet, army boots, massive 12-foot-high wings, and a whistle. Alan not only steals the show for our village, but indeed for the whole camp, and as we process towards the central area, dressed in all our finery, it is quite an awesome spectacle!

We hear Sust’n’Able for one last time, as well as the catchy “World on a tightrope” song, and various awards and earth summit things are given out. Village 37 wins the most cultured village award and the tidiest village award (!), and Dan loses on stage.

We all cook a St. Albans meal that evening, and Tom offers ‘messy hand-jobs’ to anyone interested. Later, Tom dons Nick’s leather hat and becomes an Australian barbeque-master, frying meat like no-one else can.

However, it is the serving of the food that finally gets to Chris and Becky. Chris is the worst hit, and, so frustrated by the manner of meat-serving, eventually throws meat at Emilia by mistake, and then makes the mistake of trying to clear up. By the next course, Becky has taken over, trying to help Chris out because she can’t understand what could be so bad about serving, but she too is overtaken by the madness, and is almost about to throw rice left, right and centre.

We have a pretty unusual evening, and Alan is very taken with the fact that there’s a Jungle&Drum’n’Bass night, and sets off with his whistle still around his neck, but unfortunately no tobacco left. Most of us follow him, and there follows a strange series of encounters, meeting such people as Crazy Dina, Rebecca (who Emilia takes a liking to), and of course, Adam Raven and Andrew Gowland, who both wonder how Rosanne knows their surnames as well as their first names, and indeed how Rosanne knows them at all. Anna has stolen Becky’s pink glasses at this point, and together with Arthur, the two of them look like quite a rock star couple.

The power is cut in the drum’n’bass disco, and Alan emerges, wild eyed, still moving really fast, and searching for some tobacco. We all wander up to the central area, where Rosanne gets hold of several cigarettes. Grace, meanwhile, meets a boy with lots of plaits who is enigmatically known only as “Syphillis Mark”. Rosanne meets some old friends, Rebecca (of Emilia, Shoreham Forum, and Simon fame) and Barry, who only recognise her after a while.

As we walk back to the tents, we meet Sara, who offers us some Vodka to “cheer Becky up”, and we lose Emilia and Pat more or less at the same time. Simon puts forward the hypothesis that they may be in the portaloo, and Sara wonders if we can hear the bog rattling. Rosanne starts to sing “a red bog, a rattling bog, a bog down in the valley-o!”, and we continue on our way home.

Friday 10th August

It’s the last day today, and it’s a very sad day indeed. We take down the complex, to reveal masses of scorched and damaged ground amidst the Tool tent ghetto. Becky finds about five socks, which no-one claims, and she and Simon do a very bad job of hiding their coupleness, having no tents left to conceal themselves in. As the Gimp tent is packed away, somehow a peach ends up being left there, but this is something that will not be discovered until Chris and Simon unpack the tents at Summer Madness. The coach arrives for St. Albans, and Harry comes with it. We pack everything away to the strains of Bob Dylan coming from the ghetto blaster propped up on Broken Stoal.

We bid a sad farewell to all our new friends from Sheffield and the Czech Republic, and vow to meet again. Nick and Alan nearly miss the coach because of one of their ‘walks’, and Rosanne steals Fancy Cheese Sandwich Boy Rob’s shoes, despite them being about five sizes too big for her. The coach skids in the mud, and we all get out and push it. We also take a “Central Area” sign, which Tom gets, and an “E-Shack” sign, which is given to Alan. All the couples sit next to each other on the coach. We finally leave the campsite, and it is a sad time indeed. We see the central area, and then the nearby shops, the Pioneer Wine Supermarket, and finally the open road.

When we stop at the service station, Harry disappears round one side of it, and the DFs disappear round the other side, resulting in a longer stop than we had planned. Before long, we set off again, and we are back in Verulamium Park. We all say goodbye to eachother, even though half of us saw eachother the very next day, and go our separate ways. Simon cycles back with his trailer, but it breaks down, and furtunatly Julia is able to give him a lift. Chris and Nick get a lift back with Harry, and Alan spots Madge on Victoria Street and leaps out of the car. And so, bit by bit, the world returns to a much more ordinary place, but it will never quite be the same, and indeed, we spend the next few weeks barely apart from eachother. Camp may be over, but the Summer of Love has only just begun.

Miscellanea, notably the "Grease Night"

Most of us remember the "Grease Night", but we can’t quite make up our mind when it was.. it can’t have been on the Monday, which is what most people believe, because that was Hiroshima day, and there was torrential rain, but it was originally scheduled for Sunday, and it probably didn’t happen then either. So, here is the account of the Grease Night, whenever it was, created from various conflicting accounts from Chris, Becky and Nick.

We watch Grease on the big screen, “The coolest film ever”, according to Nick, and certainly the gangs and cars seem very appealing. Everyone gets lost, confused or split up in the central area, and we eventually stumble across Rosanne, Pat, Rob, Charlotte and various other people all lying on the floor by the Rinky Dink. Simon and Becky lose everyone as they get to the central area and don’t think that anyone would watch Grease so they wander down to the toilets where Arthur comes out of a bush smoking. The three of them discuss couples and the whereabouts of the rest of the group before deciding maybe they are watching Grease after all. They look over the whole of the central area using Arthur’s tiny torch, except near the front because they don’t think the others would actually be watching Grease so intently, but when they can’t find a soul they know, they sit and watch Grease till the end. Becky thinks she sees Alan and a few others in the conga as the credits roll but is laughed off by Art and Simon who still think no-one would watch Grease so near to the front. They begin to wander back to the tents and pass the Juice Bar where they finally meet up with most of everyone they had lost, and discover that most did watch Grease right at the front and that Alan was indeed in the conga.

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