The Farmer Phil Experience. Arrive. Open beer. Put up tent. Drink in the glorious Shropshire scenery while the sound of a rock band wafts up the valley. We’re almost 1,000 feet above sea level in a field near the tiny settlement of Gatten, although the middle of nowhere would appear just as accurate a statement. Welcome to Farmer Phil’s Festival or as a local wag has christened it: Gattenbury.  | | It's a bit of a slope |
The first thing to grasp about Farmer Phil’s is that everything – and I mean everything – is at a crazy angle. This is because the festival field occupies half of the valley. Everyone camps on the slope at the top, while the attractions – bands, food, stalls, beer tent, kids’ entertainment etc. – live at the bottom of the hill on (relatively) flat land. So if you want to go anywhere, it’s either uphill or downhill. We arrived on Friday evening to find our friends had thoughtfully saved a camping spot for us near the entrance at the top of the site. It proved a good choice. So, with the tent up it was time to descend the fierce gradient and investigate our new surroundings. Farmer Phil’s Festival has been going for seven years – but it’s not about to go Glasto on us. Numbers are strictly limited in order to keep the small, family festival a friendly event and organiser Phil ‘Get on my land’ Harding can usually be spotted somewhere on the festival field. This isn’t the place for relentless commercialism and mind-numbing queuing for everything, let alone a 12 foot high fence and security guards. There’s no long wait for the ‘luxury’ flush toilets, for example, although the downhill slope makes using them an interesting experience, to say the least.  | | Rain, rain go away..... |
But the friendly atmosphere makes it a great place to meet new friends, as will as lending the whole event a relaxed and safe feeling. Families are positively encouraged and there's a quiet campsite at the far end of the field, as well as entertainers for the kids. These days Phil opens his gates to campers at the beginning of the week, laying on a series of music events in local pubs in the evenings before the festival proper begins early on a Friday evening with the first bands on stage. The bands take turns to perform in two marquees alongside each other, but obviously only one at a time. Friday evening was spent relaxing on the grass outside the marquees as the sun went down. All good things come to an end and in this case it was the weather that decided to have its say first. By dawn on Saturday the clear skies were gone to be replaced by dark clouds and rain, rain and more rain. | "By dawn on Saturday the clear skies were gone to be replaced by dark clouds and rain, rain and more rain." | |
And mud. Which made it impossible for anyone trying to leave the site in anything other than a four wheel drive vehicle. Thankfully an army of battered Land Rovers and Range Rovers was on hand to tow stranded cars and vans up the slope to the entrance. A morning of non-stop rain and things began to ease off enough for me to poke my head out of the tent and investigate coffee and breakfast. Other brave souls, armed with wellies and waterproofs, were also out and about and by mid afternoon the sun had even made an appearance. And by the time the rain came back the first band had taken to the stage and there was plenty of cover available. From there it was on to a thoroughly memorable drink and music-fuelled evening, much of which I… er…. don’t remember.  | | Tree-carved totem pole |
Apart from R U Experienced? The Jimi Hendrix tribute band whose singer/lead guitarist bore a startling resemblance to the long-dead guitar legend – despite coming from Telford. And then there was the very drunk man who tried to get into my tent at stupid o’clock in the morning, despite his friend repeatedly telling him he was trying the wrong tent! Sunday dawned with more rain and a lot of people nursing hangovers. Once again the four wheel drive rescuers were working flat out towing people off the fields but after a while even the rain laid off and the going got easier. So by late morning we even managed to get off the camping field under our own steam, leaving the 4x4s to tow mud-skiers around the festival field.  | | Don't forget our picture gallery |
Roll on 2006. | 
