Aerosmith and Camper Vans

Last weekend I journeyed down to Download, near Derby, to the biggest rockfest of the year. My main remit was to keep my boys happy, but I love this kind of music too. I probably sound old fashioned but I just think, oh, no... whenever the 'stars' feel they have to swear and stuff. ACDC and Myles Kennedy didn't seem to find it necessary. You basically camp up in a field full of litter, next to some over-flowing toilets and walk 2 miles to get to the gig. Once there, you're stuck in a massive pen with 100,000 other rock fans. There's food all over the place, 4 stages that merge into one cacophony of sound if you stand at the wrong point, and no chance of finding anyone you know. This is fine, even strangely enjoyable when the sun shines, but when the heavens open, it's no joke. It remained beautiful until the last few songs in Slash's set. After that it poured. We retreated to our trusty camper van but decided to ignore our wet clothes and venture out again to see the living legends that are Aerosmith. Steve Tyler was amazing! What a voice and what a showman. Spinning like a dervish in his gold spandex, he sang his lungs out. We all went home tired, dirty, smelly but happy. (Finds of the Festival were singer with Slash - Myles Kennedy, and new band - Them Crooked Vultures. Check em out.

The Big Hoose!

After a refreshing swim, I settle down to some lunch and then walk the gardens of the place I once worked and played. Cameron House, formerly the home of Sir Patrick Telford Smollett, it is now a full-blown De Vere Hotel. It was, however, a stately home when I first ran along the grassy lawn by the family jetty. I was, well, 6 when I first stepped off the launch and joined in the Sunday school games. Mmm... 1967. It was a sunny day, like today, and the gardens were made all the more mysterious by the wailing of peacocks and the bleating of exotic geese. I got to know the Smollett's through the church, St Mungo's, and always found the local gentry personable and kind. Patrick would hail me in the supermarket, even though he did call me by my last name, whereas Mrs Smollett was more of a mystery. She was, in my opinion, like Grace Kelly in looks and seemed more distant, in a movie-star kind of way. I still see her from time to time, and she still looks beautiful. After a childhood of once a year visits, I eventually sang at their daughter's wedding. I think the song was 'By Blue Galilee', and I think the daughter's name was Gabrielle. After a few more years I became an employee of the Smollett's, working as a game-warden, shop-keeper, fairground attendant and ticket collector in the Loch Lomond Bear Park. I wandered, blinded by hay fever, through an assortment of fully-grown Himalayan, European Brown and Canadian Bears, protected only by luck and the odd clump of dirt. They were great days and I still keep in touch with the various survivors. Patrick would, from time to time, yell at me from a high turret as I lay sunbathing in the bay, bobbing in the gentle roll of Loch Lomond. "Murdoch! I don't pay you to float!" Time moved on and, after the sale of the estate, the Smolletts moved up the hill to a smaller pad. I visited the new house once, where, after several huge whiskies, I was introduced to the black piano where Irvin Berlin wrote White Christmas and where David Niven, perched on his boney elbows, recounted many an anecdote. I now swim and exercise in the building that has managed to form such a constant part of my life. And, I might add, have the odd wonderful meal. Cameron House - I salute you!