Boris rocks up at Glasto
QUESTION Did Boris Johnson once perform at Glastonbury?
BORIS Johnson performed at Glastonbury with folk singer and Labour Party activist Billy Bragg in 2000.
The encounter included elements of high farce, but emerging through the bluster were some perceptive observations that wrong-footed Bragg.
At the time, Johnson wasn’t an MP, but editor of the political magazine The Spectator. It was his first visit to Glastonbury, and he missed his stop on the train.
‘I think I must have been in a trance,’ he joked.
Bragg remonstrated with Johnson for his pronunciation of Glastonbury as ‘Glar-stonbury’.
Johnson took it to the festival’s founder, Michael Eavis. ‘Now, look, do you say Glar-stonbury or Glastonbury?’ he asked. Eavis replied bluntly: ‘Glastonbury.’
They headed off to the henna tattoo tent. Bragg had a Sagittarius sign and Boris had the word ‘respect’ in Sanskrit printed on his arm. ‘It’s just dandy,’ he said before putting on a jester’s hat.
That evening, Bragg invited Boris to make his debut on the Glastonbury stage. He delivered an excerpt of Homer’s The Iliad in classical Greek from memory. The audience looked stupefied.
Boris was then surrounded by nudists. He proclaimed: ‘I fully support your right to be nudists. I’m right behind it!’
Then he began to wind up Bragg. ‘I feel at home here. I feel these people represent a strong libertarian ideology. In fact, I would say there are a lot of natural Tories here... I just saw someone selling mushrooms. This is capitalism, this is commerce. What you’re looking at is the triumph of rightwing ideology.
‘These people arrived under their own steam, paid £87.50 and pitched their own tent – isn’t that a metaphor?’
‘It’s capitalism, innit,’ said Boris. ‘This is a capitalist extravaganza!’ Bragg had the last word: ‘It’s time to switch off, folks, he’s gone off the deep end.’ Jean Murphy, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.
QUESTION My book club challenge is to find a novel that will make the other members cry. Any recommendations for me to consider?
I SUGGEST The Ghost Runner: The Tragedy Of The Man They Couldn’t Stop by Bill Jones. It tells the true story of John Tarrant, a great, but sadly unrecognised, long-distance runner.
He was denied the opportunity to run as an official athlete by the Amateur Athletic Association of England because he had been given £17 in expenses during a short, but unsuccessful, career as an amateur boxer in his teens.
To take part in athletics events, he would hide at the start of AAA road races and, when the starting gun went off, throw off his cap and overcoat and start running. Such was his ability, he usually won. After many unsuccessful attempts at getting the AAA’s decision overturned, he went all over the world, winning long-distance events and marathons, building up a huge collection of trophies.
Try as he might, the AAA would never accept him because of its strict amateur rules.
It’s a heart-rending tale of a man who only wanted to run with a number on his shirt.
The finale to the story will have even the hardest heart in floods of tears. Tony Garton, Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire.
SKALLAGRIGG by William Horwood is a book about the life and death of a young lady with cerebral palsy, based on the author’s relationship with his daughter.
One of the characters who plays an important part in the story has Down’s syndrome, which inspired me to work with people with learning difficulties. Richard Tocknell, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
SORREL And Son by Warwick Deeping would be my choice. Deeping was a writer of light romance, but in 1925, he published the heart-wrenching story of one man’s efforts to protect and bring up his young son, Kit. The tale is one of resilience, desperate and demeaning effort, sacrifice and, above all, the deep and consuming love between a father and son.
The description of the father’s slow death from cancer is a masterpiece of emotion. I defy you not to shed a tear. Arthur Russell, Worthing, West Sussex.
TRY The Onion Lover’s Cookbook by Brian Glover. Martin Oxley, East Grinstead, West Sussex.
ON holiday in Majorca, my wife bought me Stephen King’s The Green Mile. The first 50 pages were like wading through treacle, but I persevered. I was sitting by the pool when I came to the heartbreakingly sad denouement. To my wife’s surprise, I started sobbing like a baby. John Murphy, Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire.
THE Journey by Conrad Jones is an eye-opening book that will hit other emotions. It is a story of a young lad and his family fleeing from a war-torn area of Africa and trying to reach the safety of Europe. Not everyone makes it. Nigel Firth, Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
QUESTION What forgotten sports are in need of revival?
FURTHER to earlier answers, at school in Sussex in the late Fifties, the main competitive game was stool ball, which was played by 11 players on each side.
The wooden bat was short-handled, round-headed, with a lighter cricket-type ball. The target was a stand with a square board on top, which the bowler tried to hit to bowl you out or you could be caught out by a fielder. Its rules were similar to cricket, with the winning team being the one that achieved most runs.
I have never come across this game anywhere else. Caroline Hirons, Worcester.