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 each other, 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.

---o---

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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