The modern family way to embrace festivals
Features As three generations head for Latitude 2018, Jan Etherington, her daughter and granddaughter suggest how to get the most from it
Three generations face the music together, as comedy writer Jan Etherington and her husband, Gavin Petrie, head to Latitude Festival with their daughter (Lucy), son-in-law (Nigel), granddaughter (Daisy, 18) and grandson (Jackson, 14). from Richmond, where just about every band played at the Crawdaddy Club in the Station Hotel. I was never allowed to go, though some of my friends – the hip girls, with hitched-up skirts, Dusty Springfield eyes and Cathy McGowan hair – went. But I was games captain, a Sunday school teacher and my dad collected me from the church youth club, where I played badminton.
During the Summer of Love, I got engaged. While my friends were off to Reading or Knebworth, I was married, with two children and a very sensible attitude, which didn’t include carting them off to muddy music venues. Yet, as my son and daughter got older, I found a new freedom: I became a music journalist. It wasn’t the start of a rock ’n’ roll lifestyle: I still had to do the school run … in suburban Surrey.
When I married for a second time, in 1984, it was to Gavin Petrie. He’d been editor of music magazine Disc in the Seventies and had been to every festival on the planet and suggested, at the age of 50, I attend my first – Glastonbury. I read the weather forecast and refused. It was 1997, after all – the Year of Mud.
Six years ago, when my daughter Lucy and her family left London for Suffolk, we upped and bought a house 20 miles away. They were pleased we were close enough to babysit, but utterly ecstatic that our neighbour was Latitude Festival – a three-day event often called “family friendly”. For me, that’s a huge bonus: it’s Radio 4 in a field. Apart from the music headliners, there’s ballet, Gardeners’ Question Time … oh, and there’s a pop-up Waitrose, what more could you need!
The Latitude attitude is: “Be nice. Have fun.” Families picnic by the stage and nobody treads on them; fathers dance with the baby; teenagers try to look moody, but can’t stop smiling; and my generation bop along at the front.
This year, Latitude is even more special, we’re celebrating Jackson’s birthday, the end of Daisy’s A-levels and are all signed up as extras for a new Danny Boyle/ Richard Curtis film.
Mostly, we do our own thing, meeting up to eat, swim in the e lake and wander in the Faraway Forest. Once, we found Ed Sheeran playing a set in the woods. Which left me wondering, given he lives up the road, does his mum come, too?
Top tip for the over-er-60s rockers
Use the loos (they’re clean!); get a henna tattoo; seek out new bands
Take food or furniture. There’s plenty of seating around the arena, and a fabulous selection of different food stalls. My first festival was Glastonbury in 1989 with my best friend Caroline. We had £5 each and a one-man tent, which we wore on our heads at the end of a confusing night. My future husband was there too, mixing cocktails in a plush family tent overlooking the main stage – prime real estate. I decided I liked a man camped in style.
Glastonbury back then was quite hardcore, a bit of a culture shock for a girl from Surbiton. There were a lot of drugs, but I was content enough to spend my festival days with a box of wine and a packet of wet wipes.
I did have a bit of a wild blow-out in 1999 – my last festival before having kids – but what happens at a festival, stays at a festival. (I still maintain that Keanu Reeves did helicopter into the field when I was having breakfast.)
I took my kids to London outdoor music events from age dot, but the first proper one, at seven and four, was Latitude in 2007. We watched a ballet by Matthew Bourne, heard Hanif Kureishi and went to a spa.
You know your festival is gentrified when you think: “My mum and dad would love this!” Although, as music journalists, their stories put mine to shame, they love music and are fun to hang out with – plus, they live so close that we can pop back for a shower.
We go to Latitude every year. It started small, with a play area and face-painting, but the line-up was so impressive. Daisy sat on her dad’s shoulders to watch Arcade Fire and Jarvis Cocker, who performed C---- Are Still R Running the World. Daisy, who has a memory for lyrics, loved it, so we had to do a bit of creative censorship and for years she sang “Cats are still running the world”.
Those days of i innocence are long gone, however, and this is our first Latitude with two grown teenagers. I can no longer chase them around with sunscreen or insist we meet every hour. Jackson has become an art school muso-nerd – he’s there to see alt-J. Daisy is celebrating the end of her A-levels and loads of her friends are going. We’ll be milling around like old rockers, drinking craft beers and reminiscing about our wild youth.
Top tip for the mid-life ravers
Book the family camping – babies are preferable to drunken teenagers Forget you were young once. Leave the kids to their own devices Unlike my family, I was born to be mild.
My mum had a fairly colourful past, but has (mostly) kept that at bay since having my brother and me. However, at Latitude, she’s off, dancing away and being louder than the music.
My dad thinks he’s the next Thom Yorke and belts out tunes, trying to hit the right notes, telling you useless facts with increasing enthusiasm.
Nana is eccentric and hyperactive at the best of times, but at Latitude, she’s in overdrive: roaming off, only to be found with random people who she’s offered to put up for a weekend.
My granddad (Grumpy) watches his wife with her new “friends” and nods along, mumbling in his deep, Scottish brogue. Jackson moans about being away from his room and sticks close to Dad. I am the peacekeeper and I like to keep everyone corralled – though it’s like controlling puppies.
My plan is to be sensible around my parents for a while, then run off and hang out with my friends, and then back to the family for home comforts and sleep. Latitude has never been about drugs or drinking, but it is the end of school – and the end of A-levels – it’s a release after months of study.
By the end of the weekend, we may be as embarrassing as our parents.
Top tips for a first-timer
Find the mobile charging point! Patronise the grandparents. Grumpy saw Hendrix at the Isle of Wight in 1970