Luke had foraged wooden stakes for fuel; they were laid flat upon the long, dry grass, their tips aflame in the fire pit. As the stakes burned, he got up and adjusted their length. It was not the safest of arrangements; the edges of the pit smouldered as the fire spread along the stake, and visitors tripped over them in the dark. But he seemed to know what he was doing. For the weekend, he was the keeper of the flame.

The conversation turned to meat. Rupert had been to St John’s Market in Liverpool and watched a man auction off bags of assorted meats. Five quid a bag. Ten quid for a bigger bag. No indication of the contents. Just meats, a variety thereof. Cath remembered the tripe and tongue stall at St John’s. Then Luke mentioned the grill steaks advert that made a grand claim of their “pocket of juice”. Other processed burgers lacked this pouch of indeterminate fluid. They were dry. The design flaw of high fat content was made into a point of differentiation and that was why I was laughing, at the thought of all the meetings and money that had gone into marketing the advantage of a “pocket of juice”.

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1) Camp high
As a performer, I camped backstage at the Park, on a high pitch overlooking the festival, close to the fence. The effort involved in hauling the gear uphill was offset by the relative peace and quiet of the spot throughout the festival. If I was going there as a common-or-garden Dad punter, I would aim far away and high.

2) Take a wheelbarrow
Hauling your gear from car to site is a difficult and unpleasant experience if you’ve got a big family tent and all the extra beds and sleeping bags that come with children. Glastonbury has metal reinforced pathways that are wide and hard enough to take a large trolley or barrow. The walk from car to campsite for me was about half an hour. I would struggle to carry my tent more than ten minutes on my back. As ever, keep a tight rein on the amount of gear you are taking. Take some rope to secure your gear to the barrow.

3) Don’t cook
A few of our party brought stoves with them, but I maintain you are better picking up food at the festival. Not only does this save on the amount of crap you have to haul around, it also means you are not leaving loads of waste packaging behind at the festival.

4) Kids’ field
Bugaboo hell. None of the parents we travelled with enjoyed the kids’ field. First of all, who wants to sit around watching their children do stuff. Secondly, children aren’t going to learn to juggle in the hour or two you spend there. I’d rather see family experiences more integrated with the festival such as…

5) House of Fairy Tales
Established and lead by the artists Deborah Curtis and Gavin Turk, the House of Fairy Tales is “a child-centred artist led project which draws on an extensive team of artists, performers, writers, educationalists, designers, musicians, film makers, dreamers and philosophers to create magical, parallel worlds where learning is play and play is directed learning.” The people at the House of Fairy Tales were the highlight of Glastonbury – my three children got thoroughly involved – from my two-year-old boy modelling an enormous tower of clay to my seven year-old dilligently acquiring medals as she went through the set activities – and the setting was interesting and friendly enough to keep us adults entertained too. After-hours, a banquet and live performance was laid on (tickets fifteen pounds a head), for which I gladly bought tickets.

6) The Park
The House of Fairy Tales was located in the Park, the area of the festival established by Emily Eavis in 2007. To Dads, the Park is ideal. The bar is not so packed, the stage is full of interesting and alternative acts (all the bands I wanted to see – Animal Collective, Bon Iver, and M.Ward played the Park stage), and you are well out of the maddening throng.

7) But what about the headliners?
I didn’t see any of the big acts. I’ve been in those crowds without kids. I couldn’t face them with small children. One of the consequences of taking kids with you is that you are excused Must Seeing the Must See events. For the first time, I was free of festival fret – that feeling that something better is happening somewhere else and you must trudge off to see it. Before Glastonbury, I negotiated two passes out of the family – one to see Animal Collective – and that was enough.

You sound like a really dull man
I am speaking only from the Dad perspective here, from that portion within me concerned with the logistics of shifting a family around. But it’s a fair comment.

9) When should I arrive at Glastonbury, and when should I leave?
Judging arrival and departure is the real trick. This year, because of the recession and the poor rate of exchange with the euro, many people took Glastonbury as their holiday. This skewed the usual traffic patterns. About half the people arrived on Wednesday, which is quite unprecedented. We rolled in at 11am on Thursday morning and had no problems and barely any delay. We left on Sunday at about 4.30pm and likewise there was no queue. To put that in perspective, my mate spent six hours in the car park on Monday. Six hours! We couldn’t have coped with that.

10) Buggy?
We went for two backpacks in which to haul the children around, each packed up with wet and hot weather gear. Just don’t take a buggy that runs on casters, as I saw a lot of Dads digging the mud and grass out from the wheels. My reasoning was that a buggy would struggle in the really deep Glasto mud, but in the event, the weather spared us that.

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I am a big fan of the Port Eliot festival, being their very first paid customer way back when. I have been researching We Are Camping for a year now. For the event, I lead festival goers through the campsite while talking about the meaning and history of camping.

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Amy Winehouse tribute performance at Lovewood

This is the first Lovewood festival, a collaboration between the Love Is All You Need charity and Little Dernwood Farm. The plan is to raise money for the charity and its work in South Africa, including an education centre in Mdumbi, caring for children orphaned by HIV and AIDS in communities where 170 adults die every week.

A handmade, friends-of-friends type of event, Lovewood is not so much a festival as an expression of goodwill and support for this charity.

I don’t dance for the same reason I don’t walk around in a pair of speedos – out of consideration for others

Little Dernwood can be found along the narrow country lanes around East Hoathly, and the campsite has a growing reputation for providing an experience closer to wild camping than the manicured order of the nearby Caravan Club site. There is no shower block. There is a composting toilet somewhere but I can’t find it. As it is late Spring, the bluebells turn down their bonnets in the dappled glade. On stage, a collection of children called Jazz Code come on. The adults hide behind the barbecue stall, smoking the cigarettes they promised their children they had quit.

A silver heart in the trees of Lovewood

A Streets-style trio called Twisted Link perform an impressive collection of raps over beats taken from the 8-bit and 16-bit videogames of yesteryear. I look around for their parents. No sign. Perhaps the boyfriend of the daughter of someone. Their set coaxes a few more bodies into the big empty rectangle at the front of the stage. Now the Mum and Dad dancing begins in earnest. Mum grooving her baby’s arms in time to the beat, Dad gallumphing around in front of the stage with his son on his shoulders. The baby is in a papousse, and its arms and legs flail around as Mum dances.

Dirty Ugly Punk Monkeys play a set that turns a variety of beloved classic songs into shouty musical mince

Needless to say, I don’t dance. Not anymore. I can’t lose myself in the beat. These days, my mind wanders off and starts thinking about bills and art and things and before I know it, I am just standing in the middle of the dancefloor as if startled from a dream. Nor do I encourage my children to dance. I don’t dance for the same reason I don’t walk around in a pair of speedos – out of consideration for others. Emo offspring skulk around, discover their parents having a cheeky fag in the woods, and roll kohl-rimmed eyes. I’m with them.

The land cools quickly. The pylons with their rigging are ship masts sailing off into the sunset. My brood returns to its tent. It takes longer than ever to load the children into bed. Elsewhere, the party is just starting. Soon the bonfire will be lit, and Dirty Ugly Punk Monkeys will play a set that turns a variety of beloved classic songs into shouty musical mince. And somewhere in the woods, a grey-haired old badger will put its paws over its ears and suffer for a good cause.

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Keswick, 1968

We pitch our tents far apart so that our hearts may stay closer together

Back in the Hackney flat, I rose and dressed, and took the liberty of making myself a cup of tea. The previous evening I had broken the cardinal rule of pitching – I had set my bed in the dark. The arrangement of sofa cushions, bust sleeping bag and empty cans of lager did not represent best practise. My host remained in bed. On the balcony I drank a brew and watched the school run. Three children in yellow safety helmets rode bikes of descending size behind their mother. A brother and sister hurried to make the bell but still did not let go of one another’s hands.

In my mind, I addressed these youngsters with the self-satisfaction of experience:
Don’t pitch your tent within sight of the pyramid stage, I thought. You’ll regret it.
Don’t pitch your tent next to the bonfire, unless you like to fall asleep to the sound of bongos and conspiracy theories concerning contrails.
Don’t pitch your tent right next door to your friends.

There is a Bedouin proverb: we pitch our tents far apart so that our hearts may stay closer together. Far apart so that the sound of their snoring will not disturb. Far apart so that the first thing you see in the morning is not their battered hungover face as it emerges from the tent to verify suspicions about the weather. And, most crucially, far apart so that we are spared the hell of one another domestic routines. No-one should have to listen to me harrying the children into line. No-one should have to listen to Cath and I debate breakfast, the constant exchange of banal information required to keep the family on target. Let us get our shit together before we are expected to be social. Let me at least wash my face.

We are both currently off the treadmill of regular paid employment, as is the fashion this season

I often cite this Bedouin proverb when friends suggest renting a cottage together. Regardless of everyone’s good intentions, such holidays have an undertone of passive aggressive negotiation about differing domestic standards. Families can’t share kitchens. Camping is better – let us come together around the ancient brotherhood of a campfire, rather than around a dining table, with its baggage of bourgeois food performance anxiety and over-familiar topics of conversation.

Nine o’clock came and went. My host remained in bed. We are both currently off the treadmill of regular paid employment, as is the fashion this season. Still, I had an appointment to keep with a job I once had. A job that I meet now and again for coffee: the final negotiations in the break-up of a long-term relationship. I called up the stairs to thank my host for his hospitality but he was asleep. So I packed up the sleeping bag, restored the sofa cushions to their place, and crushed up the empty cans and placed them in the recycling. How you strike camp is as important as how you pitch it. One simple rule applies. Leave No Trace. I opened the windows to air the room and thus I left it just as I had found it.

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