For market traders who do music festivals the hardest day’s night anywhere is Saturday night at the Reading Rock Festival. That is, if you’re actually stupid or desperate enough to keep your stall open for trade. The longest hard day’s night however is Saturday at Glastonbury.
Saturday night at the Reading Rock Festival best ends early, say within an hour of the last band completing its act on the Main Stage. After that most people buy a chili-con-carne and chips and wander back to their tents. Hundreds of others however, stagger around pissed out of their skulls or high on a wide variety of illegals. More often than not it’s both. It really can’t be a hard day’s night if a trader has any sense. You don’t want your bright well lit stall with all its lovely breakable merchandise shining out into the night as an invitation for serious trouble from outside gangs or inside thugs so it’s best to cover the frame with tarpaulins and turn out all but one light soon after midnight. Even then there’s a strong possibility of violence and thieving. The reality of Saturday night at Reading Rock after midnight is protection not trading. We tried it once like the fools that we were. Never again!
Saturday night at Glastonbury is different. It’s happier. More relaxed. People buy food twelve till two then wander around generally in good mood, looking at merchandise on the many stalls that stay open and chatting to stallholders about the stuff that they’re selling. Quite a few are buying, others just want to talk. It’s all very good natured. Teenagers, students, adults thirty to forty and quite a few oldies. We’ve never had a bad experience which is why we stay open all the way through. I say never but there’s always the chance you’ll take a fake twenty. It’s happened to us more than once.
The night divides into three. The first part is midnight till two a.m., the next two till four, and finally there’s four till six. Each period has its own well defined character, different to the others and interesting in its own way, both for the people it brings and the diversity of experiences along with them.
I’ll start twelve to two. Most people are happy. They’ve heard the main event on the Main Stage and now they can start convincing themselves it really was great, and yes they’ll tell all their mates in the world outside that it was simply fantastic. It has to be fantastic because they paid all that money to see it! They are set to play their part in what is best called the great delusion. The main event, you see, the great star, was crap and well past their prime and somehow the music fan knows it but the reality has to be hidden because they’ve done the thing that’s worth all that mileage in cred. They’ve just come from Glastonbury and can proudly tell the world. Been there and done it. Seen Jimmy Horsefeathers or is it Suzy Kazoo!
Okay, so most people are brimming over with righteous happiness. Now it’s over to the veggie food stalls!
Our stall has always been situated on the main drag to the Main Stage. Its midnight and a thousand kilowatts of halogen light everything up like a Blue Supergiant. A beacon of thousands of semi-precious crystal chips on our gem trees radiates out into the dark. We’ve both already worked hard during the day and we’re continuing on through Saturday night hoping it gives us a bonus. It’s not the kind that bankers and company executives get but that doesn’t matter. They’re the clever ones who contribute so much to the economy and we’re just festival jonnies. Yes of course, but think for a moment about what these other people actually do! I mean really do. They bankrupt companies, award themselves large sums of other people’s money in huge bonuses and salaries for looking smart, talking shit and doing little else, and the shareholders who actually own these companies get a return of close to sweet nothing for their investment.
As for ourselves we know what we do. Use our intelligence to sell people good value commodities.
Midnight till two a.m. Lots of people still walking up the muddy footpath that runs alongside all the stalls on the drag. The stalls are well lit and their traders affable and ready to chat. Most people passing by will go back to their tents sooner or later. Small places, tight spaces. Anything fragile likely to be crushed and broken. We know it and they know it. This is not really a time for buying our gem trees. They look delicate and easily breakable. Roll over one in your sleep or forget where you put it and tread on it on your way out the tent and you’ve thrown away money. It’s the same for the thin, easily breakable agate slices. Anything fragile bought on a Saturday night is likely to go snap, crackle and pop by the morning.
The trees are ‘out’ though we’ve sold them. As this is the best of the three periods during the night the items we sell most are jewellery; earrings we make of semi-precious tumble-stone in silver-nickel fittings at two-fifty a pair, or quartz crystal and other semi-precious pendants such as amethyst or rose quartz, on silver chains or leather thongs at much the same price. Then there are the little resin animals mounted on pieces of polished marble or granite that we customise with gold pen lettering... For Mum from John. Glastonbury 2010, whether rabbits, tortoises or frogs. The small ones two-fifty, adults three quid. All well glued on with araldite. They have to be. Many people try and prise them off with their fingers. See, they don’t come off! I thankfully confirm. Not like you darling, a saucy trollop in fishnets once said with a wink.
Twelve to two its boys and girls. A gift for the lady making a shag certain back in the tent. It’s always a gift for the lady! Girls never buy boys anything this time of night and its rarely guys or girls on their own. Most often a few guys together. School-friends or workmates, and sometimes a married couple of oldies enjoying a warm night’s stroll and taking in the easy ambience with a box of Chinese noodles and veg. It’s a time for sharing and friendly conversation. People often curious to know what it’s like working a stall.
Two till four everything’s quieter and the noise of our generator cuts into my tiredness. Louise will soon bed down in the camper van leaving me to begin toughing it out. I’m done in by three but I don’t fall asleep. Most stalls have shut down but not ours. There are still sales to be made. Not many because people have generally vanished but there’s still money out there if you’re up for it. A hundred quid, maybe more. It helps pay the extortionate rent.
Two till four people are either insomniacs, toilet desperados or people with problems that are often part of the same thing. Can’t find a toilet anywhere! What they actually mean is can’t find a toilet that’s useable! Then there are those who’ve just had a row in their tent. Some otherwise good natured bloke whose girlfriend just had an unheralded period all over his todger and needs to find a water tap fast. Forget about selling him anything and try to be helpful so maybe he’ll remember you in the morning. Come back and buy her some earrings as a burnt offering. The people who can’t sleep are often sad cases. There’s no helping them and no helping you! They just want to talk and you’re the three hour audiotape. They go on and on. There’s no, “and Joe I know you’re getting anxious to close,” and no getting rid of them either, except with really harsh language then you take a chance on them getting nasty so you don’t do it. You just keep yawning but they don’t understand. After telling you their life history they talk about the cat then it’s their fucking pet ant they’ve known for years and what it likes for supper and why it’s called Sibelius and how it once had to be rescued from a pot of Sainsbury’s marmalade. And suddenly you hate that fucking pet ant! Not because you hate ants but because it was stupid and fell into the Sainsbury’s shit.
So you think it’s all over. It’s not! The girl with the period has left her tent and gone looking for her boyfriend who’s washing his willy somewhere, and she’s turned up at the stall and meets the insomniac. And now I’m hearing she’s also got a pet ant. A lady pet ant that she calls The Duchess and how maybe they should get together and start a colony. The ants, she means, and I’m standing there listening to it all and feeling desperate and thinking, there are a quarter of a million stories in the naked music festival… This has been one of them.
The two to four crowd are a drain on just about anything you’ve got left. They may be interesting but they’re a drain nonetheless. They mean no harm. They’re just full of themselves and their problems. Quite a few buy quartz crystals and go for the double terminations. Others buy chunks of rose quartz. The wee small hours are the Comfort Zone, a time of need for loving and healing, of compassionate listening. Listen, okay I’ll listen, I’m a listening person, but I’m also there to suggest how they can help themselves with a crystal. And our stall at four a.m. is an empire of light in the dark. All the other traders are asleep except Mister Toastie who will soon be grappling with a mountain of sliced bread.
And so four o’clock comes round and it’s time for another cigarette to prime my already raking cough. My eyeballs are popping as I stare out of the light into the pitch black dead of night with the halogens roasting a legion of flies. You ping against the glass then you die! So sad! Four till five-thirty is the time for strange unexplained wanderers or sad early risers with bladders on the pop. Talk about strangers in the night! There I am engaged in a deadly battle with my eyelids and some strange female in a tattered dress wearing outsize Wellingtons looms out of the dark towards the stall, clump, clump, clump, asking me for a light. She can’t see anyone there with me, especially a woman, so she’s sizing me up to share her chlamydia and just about anywhere will do. I mean like the grass at the back of the stall! I mention my wife in the van being a mean minded light sleeper, praying she disappears back into the space-time distortion from whence she came and she does. Swallowed up by the night.
Five o’clock and a couple of lads stagger over. We’re the only source of light in an ocean of darkness. I’ve got my Player on low and I’m listening to Buddy Holly. They like that. One buys a large red-eyed frog with blue lips on Aberdeen granite. I customise it for his younger brother. There, three quid. Every little bit helps. Oh, it’s very good. His friend wants the big upright squirrel on marble for his Mum. I customise that too and likewise seal it in bubble wrap. Six quid, it all mounts up. Quarter to five. Still dark but cometh the first faint glimmer of light, electric that is, finding its way out of the wooden shutters of Mister Toastie’s rig. He’s in there all right, fiendishly separating five thousand Kraft slices. Everyone counted in a long running total. His mind just a cheese slices calculating machine. I cannot help feeling a certain admiration. A man whose entire existence is given over single-mindedly to buttering slices of bread and counting cheese slices.
I cannot help contemplating. With such determination Julius Caesar conquered Gaul and the Romans built a whole Empire. And here’s this uncrowned King of the Toasted Cheese Sandwich planning his campaign for Sunday morning.
Time drags on. I feel grey, unwashed and done in. There are slowly more people about. It’s not the dawn that’s waking an army out of its tents but a need to empty its bladders. Definitely not the time to stop at a stall. Could be more expensive than anything on it. Trading is flat. No chance of selling anything till eight or nine. It’s the dead zone. Still dark but with nothing to do. I’ve just got to sit in my chair at the back of the stall with no cup of tea to keep me awake. Louise won’t be boiling the kettle till six.
Five a.m. Sunday morning is the worst time of the long hard day’s Saturday night. It’s often cold so I’m wearing plenty of layers. I’d like to shut the stall down with wrap around tarpaulins for a couple of hours’ shut eye but just can’t be bothered. It needs a quotient of energy and there’s really none left. I’ve pissed behind the van twice and feel bleary eyed. All that’s left is people watching through a dead brain, taking in the famous Glastonbury Trudge through the mud when it’s wet. All those Wellington Boots three sizes too large,
Trudge, trudge, trudge to the toilets, then it’s time to have a fag,
And get back into the tent for a chance that’s heaven sent,
To have yourself an early morning shag.
It’s the poet in me I tell myself but then I’ve really got nothing else to think about. That’s is till my mind turns to the big Sunday morning ahead, ten till two. Four crucial hours of selling, wrapping and taking money. Sales are big. Everything they looked at and didn’t buy in the last three days left till now when there are no big acts and it’s the last full day before they go home on Monday. But that’s still five hours ahead. I’ve got till six to get to before Louise brings me a drink and takes over. Then I go into the camper van and sleep. Meanwhile I’m as close to counting sheep as I’ll ever be and they don’t belong to a farmer. An hour left and what’s left of my mind wanders. I watch the minutes go by on my watch thinking of Albert Einstein! Time slowing down the faster you move only I’m not going anywhere… Suddenly I snap to. I fell asleep! Idiot! My eyes race over the stall. Thank Christ nothing’s been nicked!
From now on I’m sitting there wondering whether it was worth it. Two hundred quid more in my pocket for five hours work. Forty an hour! Stephen Hester eat your heart out! So why did I do it? He wouldn’t have, so why did I? He knows, don’t you Stephen. It’s because you’re smart and I’m thick! Clever people size up a situation in the blink of an eye and do the sensible thing. Arseholes work for nothing. That’s the truth.
Yes it was a hard day’s night and there wasn’t any good reason for doing it either. So why did I? Okay, I’ll tell you… It wasn’t for the money. Not really. I do it because I’m curious. It’s a challenging experience and I never know what’s coming my way. And I do it because it’s hard. When it’s over I know I did it. I had the grit and the stamina. It’s a personal thing. Something for me! You might think it’s a joke, staying up all night at a stall selling a few things in the dark and meeting a bunch of weirdos. Pathetic!
Well each to their own. It was tough and a challenge and it had its moments of interest. I’m that kind of man and it’s my kind of meat. You put on a suit and a tie and persuade people to part with their money and invest in a bankrupt bank. We’re both salesmen of a kind but there’s a really big difference between us. I know you all right and I understand where you’re coming from. But you can never possibly know me.
