The time was July 1989. The place was a field near Liskeard. We'd been camping in that rocky, freshly ploughed field for two nights already, having arrived for the festival a day early. It was now mid-afternoon and we were sat by tents around the fireplace we'd arranged out of the gathered rocks and pebbles making festival campfire coffee (camp coffee essence and evap milk). We had been smoking black since we'd woken and we're thinking about going to get our shit together to eat and go watch some bands. Rumours were that Hawkwind had been seen and were going to do a couple of turns.
A man approached us but for some reason he was doing commando rolls between tents, sticking his head up from behind them like a fucking meerkat then disappearing again before rolling to the next cover. It was pure comedy.
He eventually got to us and from behind a tent asked "Has it gone?"
"Has what gone?"
"That helicopter. It's been following me all day. It's the pigs. They're after me." He said.
We all looked around. None of us had seen or heard a helicopter.
After assuring him that "they" had gone. He crawled out and keeping low and we see this sweat covered bloke with eyes popping out of his head. He's seriously fucked up. He asks me if I wanted to buy some speed.
"Is it any good?" I asked him, not wanting to get ripped off.
My mate < name withheld because he may have a position of influence in a government agency now > says to me "look at the state of him. What do you think it's like?"
The logic works for me. It must be pucker stuff because this guy is the most wired I've ever seen someone. We pool some cash and buy everything he has left cheap so he can retire for the weekend before the helicopter comes back. We take delivery of a small bag of orange paste that we split knocking it back with warm lager.
An hour later I'm stripped to the waste rocking my arse off embarrassingly to Thee Hypnotics - Justice in Freedom. I'm still going 8 hours later when Hawkwind do a stint on a side stage and their smoke machine gets stuck on full for the entire gig obscuring the entire stage for the whole performance.
Thankfully, the speed had the side effect of stopping me eating for the weekend so I didn't have to suffer the lack of toilets. I didn't shit for 4 days - mercifully.
The shocking reality of Cornwall's Treworgey Tree Fayre where people died and over 300 were arrested
A dustbowl of death, drugs, dysentery, dirt and depravity
"It was like something out of a hellish Hieronymous Bosch painting or a post-Apocalyptic Mad Max movie minus Tom Hardy; a dustbowl of drugs, dreadlocks and dirt where rumours of death and depravity spread at lightning speed despite it being before the days of mobile phones and social media.
It was Treworgey Tree Fayre and it was the most terrifying, ramshackle, crime-ridden yet bizarrely fun festival that has ever taken place in Cornwall..."
https://www.cornwalllive.com/whats-on/music-nightlife/remembering-treworgey-tree-festival-most-1495294