Sian Davey, 1995

My first Glastonbury. I was 24 living in Bristol. I caught the train and hung out with a bunch of people on there, one of them gave me 2 strawberry acid tabs. I think I was fairly green at the time because I didn't know what they were.

Arriving at the festival I was with a crew from Bristol, I didn't know them that well so I was determined to find Paddy. This was pre - mobile phone days so I sign posted religiously the whole site, everywhere. The notes wrote 'meet me here on the hour.' I still have one of those handwritten notes. I walked and walked miles posting these up. It was typically torrential rain and my boots kept being sucked up into the sticky mud - and then I tore the anterior muscle in my shin. It was painful, but love is a determined thing. At 1pm i went to the meeting place the Red Cross Tent notice board not imagining that he would be there. But he was. He was there. I hugged his friend Yvonne who had found my note and Paddy and I went off to the festival. I pulled out the strawberry acid tab and we took them. I remember so clearly I had no idea what I was taking. But what followed was the funniest 24 hours of my life. We didn’t stop laughing. Paddy would say to me don't speak to anyone because it won't sound like you think it will. So we arrived in the cinema field and I asked if there was room for me on the bench and I was told there wasn't one.. and so on. We went to the travellers party at the back of the site and I was enveloped in gooey, warm, soft pink marshmallow. We became the most perfect party companions ever.

Paddy and I separated 4 years later. Two years ago I went to see him in his hospital bed for the last time, he had a brain tumour. He died that week. That muscle injury still hurts like hell at times and I'm always transported back to that exquisite weekend with my first true love.