Working and playing

Kew Gardens, July 2022

The Warwick Folk Festival has happened, and a whole lot more. I've got a bit of time today so I hope to get it all covered before everything starts up again.

I enjoyed my volunteering at the Festival in the Radio Comms Room again, where we issue and receive all the walky-talkies and assist with communications between all the teams: traffic, gates, litter-picking and toilets, security, music venues, transport, maintenance and more. There wasn't much to do most of the time; everyone seemed to know what they were doing and not much went wrong. 

We were short-staffed in the Radio Room this year as the deputy team leader had to withdraw through illness, and the team leader has health issues and really wants to step away. They are desperate enough to suggest I might take on the team leader job, and after I'd seen a description of the (volunteer) role I thought about it and decided to decline this opportunity. I'm happy to be an ordinary team member and don't want the extra responsibility or the time it would take up.

Radio Man was there, supplying all the comms gear, and was pleasant company throughout the event. All the other team members are extremely talkative and love to relate a long story about some event in their life, or indeed their whole life story, in detail and omitting nothing, as I wrote last year. Radio Man and I would occasionally suggest that they really could do with a nap, or a beer, or a chat with some friend, and we could manage perfectly well so why didn't they take a break and leave us to it? Despite this, all the volunteers are very friendly and generous, and I enjoyed my time with them even though I completely misjudged my shifts and missed most of the music. Various other local friends were also volunteering in other roles and it was nice to catch up with a couple of them.

After a day or two to catch my breath I was off to see mum and dad, who continue to soldier on with all the appointments with the various health professionals. While I was there we went to the dental surgery to pick up a form so that a home visit can be requested, we had a finance meeting via Zoom, and we were visited in person by a District Nurse and a more senior Occupational Therapist than before, who assessed the front step for a ramp and measured up the shower room to see what adaptations might be possible for better access. She is planning to bring some equipment that might help dad to move between bed and chair. Mum and I also made some major improvements to mum's filing systems, producing a sack of paper for recycling in the process. It was a longer visit than usual and very productive.

My birthday has been and gone, so I have now entered my 60th year of life, which is a little hard to believe. Anyway, UJ wanted to treat me to a night out - she recently attended a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford and was so impressed that I think she just wanted to repeat the experience. I chose very differently. On Saturday we went for a very good guided walk in Birmingham, then to see the film 'Barbie', then off to Chinatown to eat and finally a comedy club. It was a really good day with only two disappointments - the weather (it was cold and rained constantly throughout), and my favourite Café Soya was closed for refurbishment (although a nearby substitute wasn't bad). UJ and I continue to discuss British accents and colloquialisms, most recently the use of the term of endearment 'cock' in Manchester, which is all very confusing for her.

More volunteering

Pat, August 2022

Straight after the Games ended, I went north to celebrate Sister D's birthday. It was a lovely break, and we visited some National Trust gardens while I was there, as well as lots of other enjoyable activities with the family. Immediately after that I took charge for a few days of another trainee Guide Dog named Pat, who was quite early in her training but much more well behaved than many of the other dogs I've looked after. The weather was too hot to go out much during the day, but we spent some  quality time in the garden. I also arranged to visit a friend's cat while she was away in Edinburgh, and there was a walk and a meal out with the Buddhists, and the boiler got serviced, and the car needed a bit of work done, and I tidied up the garden, and altogether there was lots to do.

I also spent some time with Radio Man - remember him, from Warwick Folk Festival? We had lunch in a cafe, we went for a walk, we watched some badminton at the Games, we played with Pat in the garden, and we visited Bletchley Park. Then I put a stop to it, as kindly as I could. I found that it was very difficult spending exclusive time with someone else, which means that welcoming UJ is going to be a challenge. Yes, she's supposed to be coming over again, but without the cat which is staying with her parents. She keeps postponing her arrival date - at the moment it looks like it will be early October.

Then it was time for my next stint at volunteering, at Shrewsbury Folk Festival. This event is similar to Warwick's festival but much bigger, and I was assigned to something called the Task Force with no further information other than how to report for duty. It turns out that the Task Force's job is to do whatever is asked for by other teams - for example, to move a piano, to take up the striped plastic tape that delineates camping, parking and other designated areas, or to patrol the site making sure everyone is happy and trying to fix it when they are not.

Fourteen hours on duty divided into seven two-hour shifts is requested in exchange for the price of a weekend camping ticket, with the option to arrive before the masses so as to have the pick of the camping locations. I had a look at the programme and tentatively circled a couple of acts each day that I'd like to see, and when I got my shifts nearly all of them coincided with something I would have liked to see. I got one changed, and for one shift I patrolled the stage where the performance was happening, but I missed a few acts that I would have liked to see. And nearly all the shifts seemed to coincide with mealtimes so I ended up eating at strange times of day.

It was hard work - much harder than for Warwick, and more tiring than for volunteer stewards in other teams whose job might be sitting at the side of a marquee watching a performance for four hours. But at least it was more interesting than sitting at the top of a tower watching out for fires and more pleasant than picking up litter. After patrolling the site for four hours, or spending an hour hammering in pegs to secure metal barriers, I wasn't fit for as much dancing as in previous years. On one shift I had to deal with unhappy campers who had been directed to places where there didn't seem to be any space and so had been driving round for quite a long time. They all appreciated that I was trying to help them but it didn't make the job any easier.

I met quite a few of the volunteers who had been at Warwick, and some new volunteers who were unexpectedly connected to my family - two musicians who live round the corner from H+B, and a shop manager who knows Cousin Y as they work for the same organisation. But missing acts that I wanted to see because of shifts or fatigue probably outweighs the benefit of the free ticket, so I may not volunteer for this one next year. And the event itself isn't as good as it used to be pre-Covid, so there's even a chance I'll try a different festival next year - I've got my eye on a couple of them.

The Radio Room

Adams restaurant, July 2022

After my first two shifts volunteering for the Warwick festival on the main gate, my next two shifts were in the Radio Room. I had no idea where this was or what it would entail, but it turned out that the 'room' was a large motor home inhabited by Radio Man plus a lockable shed and a lot of radio equipment and two more Radio Assistants.

I turned up at the start of my shift and was given an introduction by the previous volunteer, as Radio Man was nowhere to be seen and the two Radio Assistants were at a site meeting. The radios were being used on different bands by the main site, the security team, the gate team, and the 'Wombles' - the term used for the volunteers who clean the site and the toilets. My job involved keeping an eye on all the kit, receiving and handing out the radios, and being the link to the outside world via a separate mobile phone for proper emergencies like fire and child abduction. 

The key impressions I formed during the first hour of my first shift were as follows (in order):

• There doesn't seem to be anything to do
• That previous volunteer keeps talking at great length about himself - oh good, his shift has finished now
• Ah, Radio Assistant 1 has arrived and he is actually giving me some useful information and insight into the role
• Oh, now he's started talking at great length about himself
• He's still going
• I'm getting a really detailed account of his trip to Thailand where he was sent by the RAF to do a couple of hours work and got to stay for a whole weekend
• Hooray, Radio Man has emerged from the motor home, maybe I will be saved
• Oh dear, Radio Man is standing behind Radio Assistant 1 just rolling his eyes at me; that's no help at all
• My goodness, the RAF paid for him to become qualified to teach and now that's what he does. I feel a little bit sorry for his students
• Radio Assistant 2! Maybe... no.
• Some people have arrived who appear to need something and are being helped by Radio Assistant 2, which has distracted Radio Assistant 1 who has gone to join in, thank goodness, at last
• There really doesn't seem very much for one person to do, let alone four people
• Now Radio Assistant 1 has gone to get something to eat
• Radio Man, who seems to be the one in charge, reassures me that yes, there isn't much to do at the moment, but things will get busier once the Great British Public turn up and start causing trouble. He shows some interest in me. This is novel.

As soon as they could see I was a fairly sensible and responsible person, Radio Man and Radio Assistant 2 went off to have something to eat, leaving me on my own with all this gear after a few minutes of instruction and an hour of listening to people mostly talk at great length about themselves. They reassured me that they would have radios with them and would intercept any complicated questions that came in for the Comms team.

The job was quite strange. My role involved handing out radios and cleaning and recharging them when people bring them back, and showing how they are used if someone really hasn't used one before. There was a sheet about what to do if a child or vulnerable person is lost, which was fairly terrifying, and I was told there would be a rehearsal at some point, which thankfully took place while I wasn't working. While I was on my own there were a couple of calls, one asking me to look in the tent next door (where they didn't have radios) to try and find a missing bus driver, and another to point out a mistake on the child/vulnerable person sheet.

Eventually Radio Man and Radio Assistant 2 came back. Radio Assistant 2 was a jolly man who liked to talk, so he was often up and chatting with his mates. Radio Man was quieter and more interesting - he lives in South Africa much of the time, and the comms stuff is as much a hobby as a profession. He's been working with the Warwick team for about 30 years, but he doesn't much like folk music. Towards the end of my first shift he started showing me how the radio comms works using diagrams of transmission and receiving frequencies.

I didn't have to work on Saturday, because I'd been invited by a friend to go to a VERY fancy meal in Birmingham (I have included pictures of three of the 'courses'), but I volunteered for an extra shift on Artists Reception on Sunday morning. If there wasn't much to do in the Radio Room there was even less to do in Artists Reception by that time on Sunday, as very nearly all the artists were already there. But I could have a chat with interesting people as they wandered through asking to borrow a biro or some tape, and two performers did turn up within my 3.5 hour shift.

After lunch I was back in the Radio Room, and there was much less talking about themselves and much more talking about how the lost child incident the previous day had not gone all that well, and because the event was drawing to a close lots of people stopped for a chat as they brought their radios back.

I haven't said much about the music. If you imagine a continuum, from the real folky end with a cappella tunes from Ireland or Scottish jigs: all mouth organs, fiddles and accordions, to the folk/rock end with amps, guitars and drum kits like my favourite Oysterband or even Billy Bragg, then Warwick Folk Festival is nearly all at the hardcore folky end of things. While I like folk, I prefer it to be towards the folk/rock end of the continuum, and I did catch a couple of acts that I liked, but most of the fun for me came from being part of the team and meeting and working with interesting people in a field. And thankfully it didn't rain and the temperature dropped, otherwise we would all have been cooked inside the marquees.

Radio Room, Warwick Folk Festival, July 2022