Who's The Daddy: Yurts, wellies and wisdom - the Glastonbury generation gap

This isn’t, as they say, her first rodeo. She’s been going to gigs parent-free for around 10 years now and is a festival veteran of some repute. The only one she hadn’t ticked off her list was “The Big One” and thanks to getting lucky with a ticket for the first time in years, she’s achieved a long-standing ambition.

I don’t need to hand out lectures anymore about not buying anything at a festival from lantern-jawed men with Mancunian accents wearing Adidas tracksuit tops, because that would be met with a roll of the eyes and a quick change of subject.

These days, festivals are blessed with showers, flushing toilets and washing machines. The last (and only) time yours truly went to Glastonbury in 1992 the Turdises were such a shock to my then delicate sensibilities that I held it in for the entire four days. After 33 years working in journalism, I’m a bit less fussy now.

This year’s line-up, like back in 1992, has been criticised for being what the kids would’ve said 10 years ago as being a bit “Meh”. However, I maintain that music festivals are a bit like going to the races, in that you could have the time of your life at either without clapping eyes on a band or a horse.

The one thing that festival-goers pray for is a dry weekend. Because when a dust bowl has a few hours of solid rain that’s trampled on by tens of thousands of people in an advanced state of refreshment, it quickly turns into an assault course - Tough Mudder.

Luckily for Daughter #1, the festival weather forecast gods seem to be smiling, so there’s no need to pack the two go-to staples of the experienced festival-goer’s wardrobe - a poncho and wellies. Those items in the past have saved my life. Probably literally. Acres of shin-deep mud is no one’s idea of a good time (Hurricane Festival near Bremen, Germany, 2013. That year it lived up to its name). And a lifelong mate who was there with me gave a piece of advice that I’ll never forget. “Don’t take anything to a festival that you wouldn’t be happy burning afterwards.”

And how right he was. Of course, now aged 55, the prospect of camping in a field and lying on the ground all night in a tent is about as appealing as watching Liverpool win the Premier League title, and even more painful. Day festivals are about my limit, and even then the last couple of hours are filled with lower back and leg exercises, all the while fretting how busy the car park’s going to be (90 minutes to get out of Neighbourhood Weekender in Warrington last month - absolute joke, I’ve been on Poll Tax riots better organised than that).

Anyway, the closest we’ll get to Glastonbury now is watching out for Daughter #1 on TV from the comfort of our sofa. And that’s just about far enough thank you very much.

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