Glastonbury Festival Glastonbury Festival 2000

Our festival started out great. It took our 1971 VW van ten hours to travel down from Liverpool, but we did stop a lot along the way (fumes attacking those in the back, you know?). Anyway, once we arrived I began almost immediately hearing people muttering about "thieving Scouse bastards". I decided to ignore it, last year in the Pyramid Field the thieves had been called that but when we found them in our tent they were Cockney.

However, on Saturday night, after Travis, I was in my tent with my boyfriend and we heard the girl behind shouting because all her stuff had been stolen. Including her contact lenses, glasses, saline solution... all her clothes. So we went out and gave her a pair of shorts and a tshirt just so she wasn't stuck. Ten minutes later, my boyfriend was closing the tent flap when the thieves came up and kicked him in the face. They continued kicking the tent until I started screaming for help. So, after the police had been relatively unhelpful (one of them pointed out that despite three witnesses, one of whom was still bleeding profusely from the nose, there wasn't enough evidence to arrest them). After two hours in the Medical Centre we came back to find the Australians next to us still awake because the thieves, all under 16 and from Liverpool, were watching them and waiting to steal their stuff too. One of them had already been kicked in the face earlier on Saturday. Just as we arrived back, a flare came sailing across the tents and hit our tent. Luckily the flame had gone out along the way.

After many hours awake, the undercover police finally arrested the group, but told us that they wouldn't be holding them, and he "strongly suggested" that we move posthaste. So, at 6am, I was forced to wake my mother in her camper van and ask to put our tents behind them. I have been going to Glastonbury for several years, since I was 16 in fact, and never before have I felt frightened or threatened. Security really is the most important thing at a festival, and although the police were helpful once they realised that one of us was injured, they obviously didn't care that people were being robbed everywhere.

So Glastonbury 2000 - year of sunburn and hiding out in the jazz field in disguise with the Children of the Corn chasing us. Roll on next year...

P.S. If you're the girl with my shorts, you're welcome to them, I'm sorry we just ran away without telling you why...

review submitted by
Lorna