The Ned Wood Archive

Plant me somewhere special
I’m the Glastonbury Oak.

Beans on Toast, 2025

Joe

The first message is: “Hamish Hawk is so good. You will regret not being here for the rest of your life.”

The second message is: “You can make amends. Get up to the Park now. Trust Me.”

Joe trusts George. He works his way out of the crowd in front of the Pyramid Stage and heads off down the track to Carhenge. He’s decided to go the long way round because he knows it’ll be quicker. He doesn’t want to get stuck trying to squeeze past Left Field. There’s bound to be a massive crowd coming away from the Other Stage. At Carhenge he heads south on the track past Jazz World and Greenpeace, then he takes the railtrack to the Glade crossroads and then diagonally across Pennard Hill to the top of the Park.

It’s way too late to see the band on the Park Stage, but he’d more or less expected that. George had sent another text saying to meet him outside Scissors. Joe gets there, sees George, starts asking him to explain. George just repeats himself: “Do you trust me?” Yes, he still does. Joe’s known George to wind him up horribly, but he’s never known George to mess him about badly. George tells him he has to wait here for a couple of minutes. Joe’s had experience of George being mysterious like this before. Humour him for a little while. See where it leads. Where it leads is actually inside the Scissors tent and onto the big barber’s chair! George has obviously planned some ritual humiliation at Joe’s expense. Oh well. Maybe he shouldn’t trust George after all. No peace for the wicked.

On the stage next to the chair is a Drag King, acting as compere, doing outrageous links between various disco tracks. He’s encouraging the audience to join in with all parts of the act. Joe leans back and gets lost in music with Sister Sledge, goes crazy with Prince and finally comes out with Diana Ross. To be fair, though, when he was first sat in that chair, Joe was a bit worried his hair might be in danger – that’s one of the things they do there – shave your hair, style it, whatever. Now, he realises, the stylist or whatever he should call her seems to be brushing it like they’re grooming a horse. Just go with the flow, mate.

“Ladies and Gentleladies,” says the compere, “tonight we are privileged to witness a very special occasion. For tonight we are to witness the very first conjoining here at Scissors” .. pause… off stage whispers… “ladies and gentleladies, … the twenty third conjoining here at Scissors, the long awaited nuptials of two naughty nubiles.”

Joe relaxes slightly because he’s realised that his long beautiful hair isn’t getting shaved. It’s getting braided. He’s had one very wonderful braiding experience at Glastonbury already this weekend. Could this be another? He stretches his head when he can, when it isn’t being held down to be worked on. He stretches to catch the action. He can’t. He stretches to try to catch sight of George. He wouldn’t leave him here would he? Actually, yes he would.

The woman working on his hair has finished. She puts an elaborate white head dress-cum-veil on top of Joe’s head and leads him onto the stage. Joe’s resigned. Just go with it. What’s the worst that can happen?