Monday 13 July 2009

T in The Park

Well its over for another year, better than it's ever been (according to the organisers) weather was brilliant (except for several hours rain on Sunday) and not a lot of trouble (according to the local police presence) with few arrests for an estimated 80,000 pop music fans assembled for the weekend and it all took place about 15 miles from where I live.
This morning many weary fans were still making their way home, waiting for transport in the 2 small local towns. They're quite easy to spot. All seem to sport some sort of brimmed hat, a T shirt with an outrageous slogan, shorts (girls), jeans (boys) and .........wellies and huge rucksacks either being carried or trailed on a variety of trolleys! The wellies would hardly be required this year on site and the easiest way to carry them is on your feet.
We had to step over bodies on the pavement to get in to the icecream shop, which was doing a roaring trade. So it's an ill wind, as they say!
The nearest we ever got to a pop festival, back in the 50s, were a few of us teenagers on the farm sitting around in the byre playing our breakable 78s on the wind-up gramophone. It seemed fun then. You could really impress people if you could recite the songs in the "Hit Parade"(10), then later, if you were really into pop, the "Top Twenty", never mind what's happening now in the top 100!
It's called progress.

2 comments:

Gail said...

Sometimes progress is sad.

Mary said...

A number of years ago we took the caravan to Glastonbury on the week following the festival. It was a "Touchstone" holiday organised by the Caravan Club where you slept and had breakfast in your own van and then all congregated at the bus for the adventure of the day. The caravan site was excellent, but one morning early I decided to put on a load of washing, arrived at the appropriate facility and found ..... a bunch of hippies stretched out in their sleeping bags on the long tables there, all nice and cosy and even better FREE. The town was littered (yes I mean that) with a bunch of odds, bods and sods in a weird assortment of garments of dubious cleanliness and origin. I don't think anyone in Glastonbury would have gone to bed without checking all windows and doors. I hope T in the Park never gets the "status" of Glastonbury for all your sakes!