It’s Saturday night, close to midnight, in a field in Somerset. I am with my daughters Clemmie, 16, and Sasha, 18, gyrating, as much as the thousands of surrounding sequin-clad bodies allow us, and bellowing along to rapper Central Cee and his unprintable lyrics about b***hes and obscure sexual positions. Right behind us Zoe Ball is keeping an eye on her teenage daughter, who’s in the thick of the rapturous crowd. Beside her, going almost unnoticed, rapper Stormzy is quietly grooving along.
Welcome to Glastonbury, which I remember as a gathering in the boonies for smelly hippies, where you bought a ticket, without queuing, for £58 from your local record shop (or you simply climbed over the fence). Today it has morphed into the event of the summer, with more than 2.5 million people trying to get their hands on the 200,000 available tickets, paying £378.50 to watch some of the biggest stars in music.
Highlights of this year’s festival, which starts on Wednesday (and on the BBC on Friday), include Olivia Rodrigo, Rod Stewart, the 1975 and Alanis Morissette. To spend eight hours a day seeing everything Glastonbury offers over five days would take an estimated 30 years. Still, for the past couple of years my family has given it a good go. For me, it’s extra poignant because I’m a returning veteran.
I first hit Worthy Farm (the rest of the year the site’s a working dairy farm) fresh out of college in 1993, subsequently completing four Glastos in a row. That run ended after the miserable mudbaths of 1997 and 1998.
The Pyramid Stage: scene of the ultimate headline sets
Yet, two children later, two years ago I braced myself to return. The girls had finished their A-levels and GCSEs, and Sasha was desperate to see her idol Lana Del Rey, who was headlining the Other Stage.
The clincher was the camping situation. Glastonbury diehards deem me pathetic, but even when I was young and gung-ho I loathed sleeping on a deflated airbed under sweaty canvas in a sardine-packed field, with no washing for five days. And let’s not even discuss the portable loos, which – in rainy years – overflowed. Yet during my absence, upmarket glamping sites have sprung up all around the festival’s edges.
Ours cost the same as a fortnight in Greece (we’re talking at least £2,000 for five nights in a pre-erected bell tent, slightly cheaper if you bring your own bedding, more if you stay in one of the sites that boasts extras such as swimming pools). But not struggling with guy ropes, sleeping on a camp bed under a duvet, with access to hot water and flushing toilets is priceless. The overall cost for the three of us when you add up food, ticket price, accommodation and getting there comes in at around £3,580. It’s the cost of a holiday so I decided to treat it exactly like one, putting my out-of-office on, and carving out the budget to pay for it.
Accommodation sorted, next was the business of not humiliating my daughters. When I was a teenager, the notion of going to a festival with my parents would have been preposterous. But times have changed. I’ve never been clubbing with the girls, but they’re happy to watch with bemusement as I sing along word-perfect at the sets of Gen X idols such as Blondie (Debbie Harry very much still rocking it at 79).
In return, I accompany them in shimmying to Gen Z favourites The Last Dinner Party and the aforesaid Del Rey, where at Sasha’s insistence we push up to the stage barrier. ‘This is the best moment of my life!’ she screams. Yet 30 minutes later, Lana still hasn’t appeared – not unusual diva behaviour, but unacceptable by Glasto’s hyper-organised standards. She mutters an excuse about having to do her hair.
1993
Forty-five minutes in, having exceeded the midnight curfew, she’s abruptly cut off. We see her on her knees begging a sound man in a fleece to continue, but he’s unswayed. Sasha’s devastated. I give her a lecture about professionalism and the importance of punctuality. ‘Shut up, Mum,’ she yells.
I can’t pretend I’m completely down with the kids. There are moments when I sound like the High Court judge who’d never heard of The Beatles – take the moment the girls freak out at the sight of the rapper Aitch passing in a limousine. ‘Ooh, is that H from Steps?’ I ask excitedly, while the girls groan in humiliation.
Sometimes we go our separate ways – me to see my teenage heartthrob Billy Idol, now fronting Generation Sex, and them to Weyes Blood (who?). But most of the time the girls stick gratifyingly by my side, keeping their normal caustic comments about ‘cringe’ mum dancing to themselves and humouring my Eddie-from-Ab-Fab delusions that I’ve still got it. Although this may be less out of daughterly devotion and more about accessing my credit card, allowing them to shop at the numerous vintage stalls and hundreds of food stands serving everything from fish and chips to Tibetan momo (I didn’t know what they were either, but they were delicious).
2023: Julia at the festival with daughters Sasha (left) and Clemmie
Newbies are always shocked by Glastonbury’s vastness: it’s the size of 500 football pitches. Without even trying, you’re managing 30,000 steps a day. There are other unintended health benefits: being in mum mode means I’m infinitely better behaved than I was in yesteryear: barely touching alcohol. The pathetic phone signal also means I manage the longest digital detox since the invention of the iPhone.
Naturally I spend a lot of time nagging my offspring about using sunscreen, staying hydrated and eating at least some vegetables – all things I never did back in the day (but no need to tell them that). At the same time, my presence halts any bad behaviour from the girls – they grumble a bit but bedtime’s a strict 1am latest.
What hasn’t changed is that – so long as the sun’s shining (anyone who claims festivals are fun in the rain has eaten too many magic mushrooms) – Glastonbury is still the most blissful way you can spend a midsummer weekend. For family bonding it can’t be surpassed. I declare the experience ‘peng’, only to be reprimanded, ‘Mum, that word’s so 2020 – we say “fire” now.’ I’m gutted that this year both girls are behaving exactly as young-adult offspring should and choosing to holiday with friends, rather than hang out at Glasto with me. I ask, wheedlingly, if they now think I’m cool. ‘Your dancing’s still sub-par,’ Sasha says. Clemmie says: ‘I don’t want you to be cool. I want you to be my mum.’
WHAT WE SPENT
TRANSPORT £80
TICKETS APPROX £1,000
GLAMPING APPROX £2,000
GOOD AND DRINKS £500
