The Ned Wood Archive

Ellie

It’s coming along the A361 from the Shepton Mallet road that you first see it.  You see the rows of white tents on the hilltops.  Teepees amongst the trees across the valley.  The thin grey ribbon of fencing that’s wrapped up the gift.  This is when your fingertips start to tingle.  This is when you know you’ve arrived.  This is when you feel that the festival is starting.

The whole coach is getting super excited.  Passengers are looking out to the left and spotting places they think they recognise.  You see what you think must be the ribbon tower, surely.  You can make out the sign above it.  You see that the hill around it is already pretty crowded.  You catch a broad stripe of colour – one of the big tents, maybe.  And here and there a corner of the campsite now a kaleidoscope of coloured crystals. Shapes in the distance where everyone else has pitched their own tents.

“That’s where we’re aiming for,” says Ellie, pointing vaguely in the direction of the fraction of the campsite that they can see.  

“See any spaces?” she asks Phoebe.

The road is packed with traffic, so the last few miles are the slowest.  Passing through the village, one or two walkers, laden with their own packs, struggle alongside the road, trying to work out where they’re going.  The coach crawls down the hill, through Pilton, and into the coach park.  It’s busier than Victoria.  Coaches and buses unload a stream of tired, aching, excited, smiling festivalgoers, most of them clad in the festival uniform of wellingtons, shorts, and baggy hoody or waterproof.  Ellie, Lauren, Abi, & Phoebe get off, stretch, wait for the coach to be unloaded, then stagger, encumbered by their bags, over to the queue to get in.  

And the queue moves slowly.  Too slowly to make it worth carrying your pack.  But not slow enough to make it worth while your taking it off and sitting on it.  Ellie can hear a couple of Bastille fans behind chatting excitedly about seeing Dan again.  She can hear a couple of rumourmongers in front inventing new stories about Madonna and Oasis.  Lauren’s complaining about her feet.  Of course, they’re all wearing their uncomfortable wellies so that there’s less to carry.  Perhaps that’s a mistake.  Approaching the gate, everyone in the queue starts checking their wallets and their pockets to make sure, for the tenth time today, that they’ve got their tickets with them.  And, as always happens, one or two can’t remember which pocket they stashed the golden ticket in and start to panic.   

Finally, Ellie’s through.  Abi’s already on the other side waiting for her.  Lauran and Phoebe soon follow, but they rest for a while before heading off on the last mile down the hill, heading in the direction of the opposite side of the valley, towards Dairy Ground and Paines Ground or wherever they can find to camp. That right hand side of the festival site, the west, towards the Tor and the setting sun. That’s where all the campsites are. In Ellie’s mind they go on for miles and miles off into the distance. Campsites so far away she’s never been to them. Like when you’re in Hackney and there are these places like Romford or Hornchurch that you’ve never been to. She asks herself whether there is anything out there in those far off campsites. Anything other than more and more tents? She’s heard about a mythical cider bar that everyone tries to find. Maybe that’s out there somewhere. Maybe there’s some unknown stage that no-one goes to as well. Maybe that’s where Madonna and Oasis will do their secret gigs.

Past Woodsies, past Silver Hayes, rest for a while.  Round the back of that farm right in the middle of the site, the one that’s fenced off. Across to the railway, take another break.  Then head off towards the back of the Park, looking for a place to camp.  They’ve got one big tent, so they need a decent sized space.  They sort of leave it to Ellie to decide, defer to her greater ability to organise, but when they get to the hedge crossing the path, she suggests they split up to look.  There are more spaces the further out you go, but you don’t want to go far because that means you’ve just got so much further to walk to reach the stages every day.  Phoebe and Lauren find a place on the right side of a hedge, close to a path.  Near enough to Arcadia and the Park. Lauren charms a couple of lads into moving their tent a yard or two so they can fit theirs in next to it.  Lauren always puts more energy into getting to know the locals.  The lads offer to help, but Abi and Ellie are determined to set it up themselves so just tell them they’ll let them know.  Of course, it doesn’t go as smoothly as they’d hoped and the lads enjoy watching them try to sort it out, but they do. They get the tent up nicely.  Then they can break out the cans of cider and chat up the boys.