Latitude, a tale of hair dye and bottle theft

So I’ve survived festival season, each weekend sending me collapsing into a bath/solid bed and cursing that I would “never work a festival again” (spoilers, I usually do.) so I thought I’d write about them. lets start from the beginning.

Latitude started with a stumble. I’d joked to some girls on the train about how middle class the deal was, dragging my backpack to the cubbyhole and shoving it to the side. They went uncomfortably quiet and I knew my line about being worried Latitude was a “gap yaaah” (gap year but obnoxious) type of venue. The train ride dragged on and I eventually, after wrestling with my tent and marching through the crusty dry hay I had set up a base camp. In a stumble at friendship I offered my service to a blue haired stranger in a sleeveless tee shirt – we later debated if it was a vest or not. He said he was fine, but upon seeing my put my stuff away offered, no … insisted, he fix up my shambling tent. The dad instinct had kicked in.

I mingled with their neighbours and met a butch biker chick, an androgynous punk guy with tie-dye clothes and a pink/purple fringe who despite his heavily city kid energy was also surprisingly outdoorsy, and an English lit student who shared my deep seated love of Belinda Blinked. We were taught the radio call signs from the scrappy crew of hotbox officials and smirked at how bluntly on the nose the radio co

des were. After the official meeting we slinked off to see the empty festival ring. Glowing signs and projections on the bridge, as well as trails into the woods that showed us sneaky bars. Obviously as a Welshman I couldn’t help but make all the cheap double-en-tandras near the sheep. These were also the cluster of people I spent me evenings with.

The second/third day and I dowsed myself with glitter. Glitter beards, golden face paint, the works. I was fully following my dreams of being both a legend of Zelda forest spirit living by the river and guiding kind people to where they need to be, whilst also being a moustachioed man from the 1920’s/40s that twirls his facial hair and hosts the finest secret speak-easy parties in all the land. It was the gold face paint shoot that won me a runner-up prize for directions hair dye. My shifts were spent my time trying to crack the fella working with me, and it took me 4 hours but I did manage to make him go from deadpan with polite chuckles to an occasional sincere laugh.

On my birthday night I entered the speakeasy, expecting it to be a jazz bar. This was a mistake. It was spoken word poetry. I slinked away to an oxygen bar (literally inhaling squash, not my thing) and began my mission, trading a rubber duck - like that guy who traded a red paperclip - for something more exciting. The flavoured oxygen bar place was more than willing to help and beamed at me about the proposition. There were drunken photos and when they had found out about it being my birthday insisted I did a coffee shot before trading the duck in for a tambourine. They were truly lovely, both extremely Irish and incredibly kind. I want to hang out with them again.

at a point in the evening someone caught my eye, a tall man in what i can only describe at "slutty peter pan" garb doing circus acts for fun. I went to investigate. He introduced himself as "Dandelion Chalice" and explained that he was a pagan, an ex-circus-performer, and a lush employee. He also tried to sell me some rave gear after I complemented his look, to this day I don't know if I'm impressed by him or slightly concerned, there's only so much enigmatic wankery i can handle.

Finally on one of my shifts there was an older woman named Veronica. she was in her 70s and i was paired with her for part of my shift. however, she turned out to be the adventurous type, telling me about all her travelling plans and how she'd even visited North Korea. in the family camping area there were a pair of bottles left out under a gazebo, and although alcohol was completely legal at the festival the glass bottles were to be confiscated. with the severity of a policeman she whipped out a notepad and scribbled a message to the owners of the alcohol before looking for a sensible cup.

when she couldn't find one she placed two deliberate cereal bowls on the table, flicked the lids off the spirit bottles with a flourish, and decanted the spirits with a theatrical flourish. it was alarming that this 70 year old was more mischievous than i was. "we're called OWLs, Older White Ladies. means i can get away with so much more because people just see sweet grannies." she justified, the bitter irony being that I'd been talking with the deadpan guy before she tagged in about airport security and how hes always made to clean his beard beforehand. this also earned her the nickname "Veronica the Bottle thief" and god i wish she had a blog.

Its just a shame that I was too bitter and sleep deprived to fully enjoy George Ezra properly and that Marina overlapped with one of my shifts, plus hotbox camping tended to be tight with the treatment of the festival guests, not providing the perks I'd grown accustom to such as a comfy seating and cheaper staff food. However I did add a few new artists to my repertoire.