An Irishman's Diary

ALTHOUGH the Electric Picnic was otherwise trouble-free, as usual, I have to report one minor stabbing incident on Sunday night. I witnessed it myself, in fact. To tell the truth, I also perpetrated it. But all I can say is there was provocation involved.

The air-mattress on the receiving end of the attack was refusing to deflate at the time; which, as I say, was Sunday night. It was late. We were tired. Another week of work and school loomed.

My family and I had survived camping in the rain. But the stresses of decamping in the rain were beginning to tell. Our belongings had multiplied in size, as they always do on family trips, and the task of fitting them back in the car was complicated by the fact that they were all now covered in muck.

Then there was the mattress, which long after I opened the air-valve was still bloated and making a nuisance of itself: like a drunk who refuses to leave the party when asked. I tried the motorised deflation device, but that didn’t work. I tried manipulating the valve while squeezing the mattress. That didn’t work either. Finally, I stuck my car-keys through the plastic. That worked.

It was a tense end to what in most other respects had been a very enjoyable weekend. Beforehand, several friends had questioned my sanity when I said I was bringing three children. But in the event, children were all the rage at this year’s festival, with the family camping area tripling in size. And while my wife has been exhibiting signs of post-traumatic stress disorder since the event – when people ask if she enjoyed it, she tells them it’s too early to say yet – I found the experience great fun.

One of the weirder events during the weekend was when a young security man, learning I worked for a newspaper, suggested I write a story about all the irresponsible parents who had taken children to the festival. At first I thought he was having a joke. Its family friendliness (except for a ban on teenagers) is a corner-stone of Picnic policy after all. And surely he had seen me with my own kids? But no. Despite being barely out of his teens himself, he was deadly earnest, and went on at some length about how this was a “totally unsuitable” environment for children, what with “drink and drugs and everything else”. I politely defended the festival that was employing him as best I could against this slander. But such was the strength of his indignation, I did so in a detached, hypothetical way, while hoping that my four-year-old son would not interrupt us at any point and call me “Daddy”.

Certainly there was alcohol at the festival (outside the designated children’s play areas): where in Ireland is there not? As for other drugs, I’m sure they were around too; though they weren’t especially obvious. And on the subject of “everything else”, well, all I can say is you didn’t see much of that during the sort of hours you were likely to be out and about with children.

The most alarming spectacle I witnessed, even late at night, was mass male urination: against trees, walls, fences – anything that allowed for a modicum of frontal cover (itself a sign of some restraint, I suppose). If you stood still anywhere after 10pm, you ran the risk of being mistaken for a piece of site furniture, with unfortunate results. But it was useful to witness this, if only so that you didn’t commit the error of sitting under any of the trees next day.

Such issues aside, I would suggest that the Picnic was eminently suitable for children: not just because of the many things for them to see and do – and based on our experience, the muck alone would have been enough entertainment – but because people seemed to be much friendlier and better behaved there than they are in real life.

I won’t mention the strange woman who stopped and hugged me one night on the grounds that I looked a bit “sad”: because that’s the sort of thing that gave hippies a bad name. But there were countless small courtesies and kindnesses offered, especially when you had children.

Still, the experience is not for every parent, I suppose. Take Aston “Family Man” Barrett, bass-player with the Wailers (Bob Marley’s old band) who were one of the weekend’s highlights. In an interview with The Ticket, he clarified previous newspaper reports that he has 52 children scattered around the world. The more modest truth, he said, was a mere 40.

“Hopefully some day I will see them all at once,” he added, touchingly. And perhaps next year’s Electric Picnic might be the ideal place for a reunion. But if he’s tempted, I would caution him to be more prepared for camping than we were: if only by learning how to deflate air mattresses, and so on.

Another thing I would do if we were going again – and this would be even more advisable for him – is bring something bigger than a four-man tent.