Cropredy Memories

[hendo (Dave)]

Following comments on the 2013 line up thread I just thought it would be good to chronicle some of the special memories of Cropredy from people on this site.
Try and remember the more 'off the wall stories.'
I had been to  a couple of Cropredys in the 80's. Following a divorce I met Sheen in '95 and friends invited us to Cropredy . We slept in their caravan awning in the Caravan field.
Over the next year we made new friendships and found ourselves being invited to join the Glooston Convoy ( 12 people at the time).
So 96 we arrived at Cropredy Field 2 and just followed our friends routine. Tents/campervans in a crcle around a gazebo/village hall table, candelabra, gnomes,toilet tent, white picket fencing!
It was a 2 day fest then, so s gentle Thursday. Pitch a tent, beers on the gravestones, dingbats from the canoe club, get a prog.

I forget the yr but still 90's. one morning we were cooking breakfast, a communal activity, when this bloke wandered through our 'camp' killing a gnome and disrupting the 'Keep of the grass'(!) sign
He was Australian and had flown across specially to meet his sister and do Cropredy. So we called him Sydney (see what we did there) kidnapped him and cooked him breakfast and obviously offered beer and chardonnay. He helped to wash up, we talked music, played cricket (cropredy ashes) and 3 hrs later his sister came looking for him. He blamed being jet lagged.
 Perhaps not a great story but 15 ish yrs later we still wonder if 'Sydney' still does cropredy and it epitomises field 2 cropredy for me in the late 90's and that big village fete feel to the fest.
Ok chaps, let's have your stories. There's a book in this. 'Cropredy by Talkawhile'

[Addie]

Soon as I think of something that doesn't put me in an even worse light on here I'll get back to you.  

[hendo (Dave)]

Soon as I think of something that doesn't put me in an even worse light on here I'll get back to you.  

Oh come on. Just give us a decent drinking story

[GubGub (Al)]

I'm sure there are plentybut the first one that comes to mind is from my first Cropredy in 1991. It was not only my first Cropredy but my first festival at the grand old age of 27 and I was very excited. I had only fairly recently discovered Fairport and Richard Thompson who was also on the bill that year. I attended with my brother and I remember it was a hot Friday morning as we drove up from his place in Kent.

Obviously everything about the Cropredy experience was magical to me but the thing I remember most was wandering over to the arena. The music started late on the Friday afternoon in those days and the field was not very crowded at the start of procedings. Nevertheless we sat down next to a young couple (on the ground. This was pre chairs/sciatica/eating all the pies). Almost as soon as we had sat down the girl next to me turned to me and said, "Don't I know you? Weren't you at Bulmershe?"

Bulmershe was a college in Reading from which I had graduated 5 years previously. As it happens we didn't really know each other but she had remembered me from around the campus. A true "small world" moment made more so by the fact that the very first people I bumped into on the field the following year, without any contact in between, were the same couple.

[Henry Tompkins (Pete)]

Yes, let's keep this going. Great stories Dave and Al.  

[Simon Withers]

I think these will stand as memories...from 1983, I have just started looking through a whole box of photographs...mainly of my artwork and some of which I scanned about an hour ago...Among the prints of my artwork I came upon a modest number of images...Fairport, Fairport with John Benns (I think) and Whippersnapper.

[Photo over 400 days old. Removed by Admin.]

[hendo (Dave)]

I promise I won't do lots but.......
I have a running joke with a friend who 'smoked' at the time. We had been standing watching the stage for 25 mins, from  just to left of the sound tower, level with the top of the bar.
She says ,'when is Ralph (Mc Tell) coming on?
I say,'He's just doing his fifth song'.

[Barry]

I will never forget sticking my head out of the tent first thing on the Sunday morning in 1979 and being nose to nose with a rather startled cow! (I wasn't exactly unsurprised myself  )

[KascadeDan]

I have a friend who I meet up with every year, and each year our initial meeting on the Thursday has been an awesome story.

2009- The first year we met. We had been talking to each other via YouTube comments and messages, and he suggested we meet up at the festival. The only problem was, the only video on his channel with him actually in it was framed in such a way that he looked really tall. He also had long hair in the video, and I knew he was only a year younger than me so I was looking for a tall guy with long hair about my age. Turned out it wasn't the case at all. He was shorter than me and had just had his hair cut, luckilly he recognised me from my videos (Ironically, he now has long hair again and is taller than me).

2010- I always go for the meet up at the pavilion at 12 on the Thursday, so I told him that's where we should meet. Upon arrival, the pavilion was absolutely packed with people, and I thought Oh no, I'm never gonna find Matt...unless that's him laying on the floor playing Ukulele of course...

2011- One of his group that he goes with had a bad back, and they were able to get on the field on the Wednesday night with a disabled pass. So I told him which gate we would be arriving at on Thursday morning, and he came and waited for us. While he was waiting, someone stopped to ask him something thinking he was a steward, so he decided to just go with it and pretend he was. Which explained why, when I arrived, he was standing at the gate directing traffic.

2012- Probably my favourite one. His lot normally camp in field 6 and we usually camp in field 2, however this year we decided we were going to camp in field 6 as they give you more space (we had not previously been given room to put our awning up), so I told Matt that we might be joining his lot, and so we didn't make any meet up plans. As we arrived on Thursday morning, we realised we didn't know which gate to turn off at the get to field 6, so we went the usual way and ended up on field 1. I was just getting out of the car, and I was getting my phone out to ring him and tell him where we were, and his lot pulled in right next us. Completely unplanned.

Sorry that was a bit long, but as you can see out meet-ups are never just ordinary. I can't wait to see how we meet up this year

[Darren_j]

Although I went to a few early 80s festivals in my teens, lack of money/work pressures/holiday plans etc etc  meant I didn't start going to festivals again until the mid 2000s.

Even then, Cropredy always seemed to clash with my partner's carefully planned holiday schedules. So it wasn't until 2010 that we actually made it to Cropredy and it's meant we were either arriving at Cropredy on the way back from our holiday destination or dropping in on the way there.

In 2011, having stayed up til the early hours drinking and chatting with Norwegian Hells Angels on a ferry back from Denmark (everyone else on the ferry seemed to go off to bed early..), we then had a race against time to get off the ferry, drive to Oxfordshire, get on site, get wristbands etc before Fairport Acoustic came on stage. I remember standing at the front of the stage with five minutes to spare thinking "made it."

[Shane (Skirky)]

Listening to the Friday part of the total history year half way up the field with a somnabulant Mrs. Skirky and hmulley, chomping on doughnuts donated by a kindly passer-by when the former stirred just as The Guvnor announced "...and now we come to 1969". "Oh, **** me, is that all we're up to?" she muttered, before rolling over and catching another forty winks.  

[Dad Volt]

Many,but the one that always pops in to my head first is 1993 sitting with the lovely Mrs K. Listening to The Fallen Angels singing "The green rolling hills of West Virginia" in the sunshine thinking that in 4 months (or so) our firstborn would be saying hello and life was pretty special. :-D

[Jack Westwood]

Yes, similar to the "When's Ralph on?" situation, I was very impressed one year to be stood standing with Justine listening to Andy Fairweather Lowe performing "Wide-Eyed and Legless" with Fairport. Just at that moment, a young toper who was, coincidentally, in exactly the same condition as the title of the song, barged against us, quite accidentally and harmlessly. He then apologised and focused on the stage. "That's a good rip-off", he said. "Didn't think Simon could sing like that" then wandered off into the darkness....!

[mickf]

My first Cropredy was 1984 - My wife and I were living in Cornwall at the time and had stopped the night before at my brother's house in Coventry, as he and his family were coming as well.  So we had a few refreshments at his house and got up on the Friday late morning with the mother and father of hangovers. We got to the festival and pitched the tents as best we could and thought a hair of the dog would be in order.  Long story, but my brother and I ended up going back to the tents for a few minutes sleep. We ended up missing the entire evening and were suitably chastened on the Saturday morning.... Didn't stop us going back to the bar though!

[Dad Volt]

Bootleg Beatles in the absolute tipping it down rain,dancing like a mad thing and watching the raindrops caught in the spotlights & twinkling!  

[hendo (Dave)]

My first Cropredy was 1984 - My wife and I were living in Cornwall at the time and had stopped the night before at my brother's house in Coventry, as he and his family were coming as well.  So we had a few refreshments at his house and got up on the Friday late morning with the mother and father of hangovers. We got to the festival and pitched the tents as best we could and thought a hair of the dog would be in order.  Long story, but my brother and I ended up going back to the tents for a few minutes sleep. We ended up missing the entire evening and were suitably chastened on the Saturday morning.... Didn't stop us going back to the bar though!

We took a couple of young (early 20's) cropredy Virgins with us when it was a 2 day fest. They threw themselves in to getting v relaxed at the Lion and then on filed 2 on the Thurs. They made it to the stage field early evening on the Saturday.

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

Lovely thread this!
I still get a tingle when I remember walking onto the field for the first time in 2004. I had a kiss and an autograph from Ric for being a Cropredy Virgin, and we saw so many shooting stars that first night I wondered if we'd wandered into a kind of parallel universe!
We somehow sit near the same family every year - a few months ago we saw them in Cardiff so turns out they're local to us at home too!
I couldn't hold it any longer during one FC set just as they started singing Red and Gold so I stumbled my way thru the crowd to the loo, standing on the foot of one Ralph McTell who was gently singing along......
Robert Plant coming on the stage to sing Battle of Evermore   wow
Meeting TAWs at the bar, the cricket club, the pubs, in fact near anywhere selling alcohol!  
Drinking cider with breakfast whilst we watch everyone struggle with their tents (sorry!)
Making friends. We always chat to those around us, and we've met some lovely and interesting people over the years. Particularly remember a chap camped next to us who told us about his idyllic life in Cornwall. A man completely at ease with life!
Chatting to Nick Reg for about an hour and not knowing who it was until we arrived back. Doh!

[Jack Westwood]

I did manage to over-refresh one Cropredy regular (that is 'on-stage' regular, no names, no pack drill!!!) about 5 or 6 years ago.  Having been in our company the previous day he was feeling a little worse for wear when he awoke and staggered over to our wagon at the crack of 1300hrs on the Friday afternoon.  We opened a litre of Smirnoff which we both scoffed with pomegranate juice.  Then he went back to bed at around 4pm.  That was his Friday at Cropredy!!

[vanessa]

This sounds a bit like an obit column but here goes!

Can't remember the exact year but it was a hot sunny one at the turn of the century!

We arrived at aprox 10am and drove straight onto field 2. We were a few rows from the front and were pleased to see a mini 6x bar set up at the front of the field! 
We agreed the last tent up would buy the beer and after a few obligatory 'getting it up' , 'erection' and 'pole' jokes got to work. Hubby and I had a traditional frame type tent but there were two of us so we made good progress. Our friend Glen had a dome tent which he had used many times before. The poles were ready attached and you had to just grab the top of the tent pull it up and it all fell into place a bit like putting up an upside down umbrella. We were not hopeful of victory against this modern upstart!
We finished our tent and turned round to see Glen still scratching his head surrounded by tent material. Hubby went to help and for some reason they decided that the problem was the attached poles had been 'tampered' with since the last time it had been used and proceeded to remove  and rearrange them! In the meantime the sun was climbing in the sky and the temperature rose. I noticed that the friendly banter had stopped and tempers were starting to fray. I made an executive decision and magnanimously wandered over to the aforementioned mini bar and purchased the aforementioned first round! 
Once this was consumed Glen decided the tent was beyond saving. He was going to sleep in the f***ing car. He grabbed the tent ( this time with a different handful of material ) ready to throw it in the skip and the poles gracefully untangled themselves and the tent erected itself! 
We stopped laughing when we heard cheers and a round of applause. We turned round fully expecting a celeb to be wandering through the campsite only to discover we had been the source of the mornings entertainment! Bows were taken and I was dispatched to the mini bar to purchase a victory round! ( unfair me thinks ) and another splendid Festival was well and truly under way.

[Amethyst (Jenny)]

Worst memory...  Sitting in the middle of the field enduring THAT thunderstorm... 2009?

 I was a bit of a wimp there ...  

Best memory..  Being there for the very first time in 1990 and immediately realising that this is the place I want to be every year...  I was drawn into the surreal magic straight away....
(And happy to say that the magic has never left me)