Story & pictures by John Novis
In June 1987, my two young daughters and friends set off for the annual Glastonbury Festival. I had a Volvo estate car with roof rack at the time so was able to take more than enough for the planned four days. We arrived on the Thursday morning and found other families and friends from my hometown in a perfect group tent pitch conveniently near the food village and main stage. The car park was quite a distance from the pitch so there were a number of treks to get all the gear from one place to another. Nevertheless, once settled and all tents were up, we were set have one hell of a great four-day Glastonbury party.
About halfway through the festival I decided to take a stroll and check everything was ok with the car. To my surprise the car park was quite different from when I arrived; it has become another huge crammed campsite with cars chock a block next to each. Once I located my car it occurred to me there would be zero chance, in an emergency, of making a getaway. However, that was not a worry, we were here till Monday morning when everything would be clearing nicely. There was something odd thing about the car, though. A group of revellers were using my tow bar to secure a guy rope supporting their large open military style tent. I was a bit miffed and thinking of asking them to use some other means of support other than my car. But then, hey, this is Glastonbury! It would be churlish of me to interrupt their fun to move the rope and what actual harm was it doing, nothing, leave it. So, I wondered back to our pitch grabbing a veg burger and Somerset cider on the way.
Sadly, Monday morning arrived after an amazing gig that only Glastonbury can deliver, yet happy to get going, looking forward to a long hot bath and savour the weekend’s memories with a pint at the local.
All packed in the car, my friends and daughters climbed in and off we set on the road back to Brecon, Wales. As we were edging, with other festival goers along the country lanes of Pilton, Somerset suddenly we are pulled over at a police roadblock. I didn’t understand. The police made me follow their car to a ‘festival’ makeshift police station and asked us all to vacate the car. They were accusing us of drug dealing. I still didn’t understand until they explained that my car was connected to a tent in which serious drug dealing was going on. I twigged they thought we were the dealers because of the F***ING guy rope! We were at the station for hours and hours while they stripped the car to bits, my daughters (10 and 8 years old) were in tears because they thought their father was going to be taken away which resulted in us all being distressed, as well as hungry and tired. Come early evening they realised they had the wrong people and sent us on our way. I said they managed to ruin a fantastic weekend and now all we wanted was to get home and forget all about it this awful experience. They actually apologised and said inaptly that it was all part of the ‘rich tapestry of life’. The real drug dealers of course, with their fun weekend, handsome profits and convenient tow bar were well on their way home by now!
5th May 2020, Chiang Mai Thailand
