Sheba Johnson gets ready for Cornbury
Above: Cornbury
The Swifts have arrived and are doing their bird thing, the temperature is hitting double figures for the first time in months and for me it’s time to consider booking the family festival ticket. Not Glasto or Bestie of course, far too ‘street’, I’m thinking more along the lines of the Cornbury Festival . Is this another example of feckless optimism triumphing over reality or plain foolishness?
I was first attracted to the idea of the Cornbury Festival three years ago by a flyer picked up in Waitrose . After a few glasses of wine one Sunday evening after reminiscing happily about festivals attended as a teenager such as Reading and Windsor, I booked a family ticket on the Cornbury website. Next morning the harsh realities of said festivals hit home, dining on cold rice pudding out of a tin, kipping in a damp sleeping bag, unspeakable loos, some really good music but some incredibly long drum solos and pretending (as a non smoker), that I was really good at smoking dope when in fact like Bill Clinton, I never inhaled.
But, the deed was done and pioneering spirit prevailed, my family and I went. We were rewarded by days of endless sunshine and had a fantastic weekend but in a completely new way to festivals of my youth. Waitrose were the main sponsor and their camp shop stocked cold Sauvignon Blanc, Caesar salad and French bread, not a chip van in sight and on production of my Waitrose account card I was allowed entry to a wooden floored haven of white sofas and served cold Pimms, utter middle class heaven! Cath Kidston had a stand that appeared to be a testosterone free zone and I bought a lovely hat in defiance of the scoffing sounds from my disloyal family. Life couldn’t get better, oh yes, nearly forgot, the music was excellent and so uplifting to re-experience the buzz you get from the reverberating bass at the front of a concert. Elvis Costello gave his all, Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel again made me want to come up and see him sometime and Amy Winehouse made it to the stage all on her own, unencumbered by tattoos and life.
Cornbury is undoubtedly a festival for the possibly self-deluded hip middle-classes but whilst being a derided sector of society and almost obsolete these days, I feel we deserve our fun too. There’s food of high quality, good music and yes, I do include local band ‘Stannah and the Stair lifts ’. There were loads of clean loos with soap and paper and most importantly, no queuing. My children were free to safely roam and storm the mosh pit if they wished and they thought the whole thing was quite cutting edge. Cornbury is actually the antithesis of cutting edge but if that’s the impression they have, so be it!
Of course there will always be a downside and camping in a field these days is not preferable to staying in a boutique hotel but my top festival tip is that a bottle of wine, an eye mask and earplugs make the camping experience slightly more tolerable. Last year despite this, two noisy drunks pitched their tent a few centimetres away from mine and they charmlessly drank, swore and verbally fought the night away until 5am when they passed out but their drunken snores continued to deprive me of sleep. I felt much better when I’d posted the two pairs of stinking trainers that they’d carelessly left outside their tent, into a nearby recycling bin in the hope they might go home, it always pays to be green.
This year’s big names include Crowded House, 10CC, KT Tunstall and Nick Lowe, the head liner is Paul Simon. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he steers clear of any self indulgent, long drum solos. It’s a testosterone thing!