Rock ’n’ roll kids

WOULD you take your children to the biggest pop festival in the world?

I did, and they not only survived, but had a lot of fun. So much so that we are off to another one at the end of this month, this time a smaller eco-festival near Wales. While friends who had only ever seen the city-sized sprawl of Glastonbury on the telly wondered if it wasn’t a bit mental taking kids to what is essentially a Battle of the Somme set to music — in terms of mud, not atmosphere — the trick is to deal with adverse conditions not by glamping (which to me, seems to miss the point entirely, and anyway who wants to pay five grand for a yurt?), but by being prepared.

And oh boy, were we prepared — practically and psychologically. You have to be. A big festival like Glastonbury can be overwhelming if you are expecting an extended village fete; the reality is that it is a pop-up city the size of Oxford, with 180,000 people spread over 700 acres, serviced by 3,225 loos, 300 showers, 60 stages, 20 bars and entire fields of food stalls — everything from vegan to hog roast. It has its own bank, daily newspaper, hospital, police, recycling crew, water resevoir, cinema. When it rains, it becomes a sea of mud. When the sun shines, there’s no shade. You can simultaneously experience trenchfoot and sunstroke, if unprepared. And then it all disappears again.