The Secret DJ on how Glastonbury changed his life

We always met at the Tiny Tea Tent if we were lost. And we always asked for “some tiny tea please” in teeny-tiny voice. We even did the steam lodge properly, as it was the only place you could approach clean. We’d see how many could crush into ‘Minuscule of Sound’ for shits and giggles. The answer is 22 – until one of the wall panels collapses.

“Beak! beak! beak!” – I can still hear a Liverpool voice selling cocaine back when it was strictly for celebrities. An amazing
lift when it was nearly over and we had nothing left in the tank.

And no politicians, no matter how awesome, would ever consider attending to win us over. ‘Cos we were scum, not nice, well-heeled voters. Every year I pray for it to rain, not because I am a bad person, but because I had the most fun there when it did.

Over a 15-year period we helped turn Glastonbury from a crusty mud-fest to what you love now, and the organisers barely acknowledged we existed and were happy to forget about us when suddenly everyone wanted to go. We we were the first to do many of the things you now enjoy, but under threat of violence from both police and security.

Watching it on the telly from your sofa has no more resemblance to what’s happening there than watching a major sporting event compares to being one of the players. And even as I reflect here on the page, I know that when I go there again I will love every minute. And as ever, I’ll find something highly weird on the periphery and never see so much as a falafel, guitar or pop starlet.

And I also know that despite every awful, middle-class ‘pop-up’, for every plastic DJ and badly chosen megastar, there will be kids and workers there for the first time who, like me, will one day look back and say, “those were some of the best days of my life.”

Ultimately, it’s up to us all to make – and live – our own Summer of Love, every single year.

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