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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The serried ranks of tents at Glastonbury

We are heading to Glastonbury again this year. Math will be compering talks at the Free University of Glastonbury on the Saturday, 11am-2pm. Guests will include John Niven, Rob Chapman discussing Syd Barrett, and Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook. The weather forecast for Glastonbury weekend is good, and Math is hard at work prepping for the festival. Here is his tip for pitching your tent at Glasto:

Pitching a tent at a festival

Since it is likely you will be returning to the tent at night and in a state of confusion, making the tent easy to find is your first concern. Some people make flags with distinctive homemade patterns. I can still recall the “horse, hand, star” crest used by my friends twenty years ago. Etch the flag with strips of fluorescent material. Others will pitch the tent in a memorable location, near to a thoroughfare or at the very back of the field. I disagree with this approach. The edges of the field, whether it be hedge or fence, will invariably become an improvised urinal – or worse – over the course of the weekend. And thoroughfares are absolutely to be avoided, as confused people are likely to blunder off the walkway into camp.

At a festival, the tent is only for sleeping in. Camp serves no other purpose. The enemy of sleep is noise. Camp as far away from the dance tent as possible, and steer clear of fellow campers bearing acoustic guitars or bongos, or indeed any individual who looks susceptible to paranoia, as nothing disturbs a good night’s sleep like a conspiracy theory concerning aircraft contrails and chemicals being sprayed over the city. Worse case scenario is a paranoid musician.

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7. Which campsite?
I’ve done the full range: festivals, campsites with launderettes and shower rooms and ones with composting toilets and a single cold tap. If you know what to expect then you can plan ahead. Sites with shops mean you can always get snacks and fresh milk, which is convenient, but you may be sacrificing other things like having an open fire. Festivals sell lots of gloopy food and beer but are shy of grocery shops and so you will have to take supplies, at least for baba.

8. Hygiene
Babies don’t like showers, nor do toddlers. Little babies can be bathed in sinks if there are plugs; otherwise a collapsible bucket filled with warm water and a sponge is your best bet. If you take your toddler into the shower don’t expect it to be a refreshing, relaxing experience. It won’t be for you, your child or any other campers in the shower block. A couple of days without a bath won’t do them any harm.

9. Illness
Always unfortunate in a tent, one holiday resulted in Matthew losing a filling on some Spaghetti Vongole and Alice, then 18 months old getting conjunctivitis. A basic first aid kit along with Calpol, ibuprofen for kids and adults, a light burns kit and insect repellent is a must.

10. Nappies
I have always worked on needing an average of four per day per child and a few extra on top. Sites vary and some will expect you to take your rubbish home with you; come prepared with nappy sacks and bin liners.

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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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