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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
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| Rained-out festival has left the fields in chaos | Rained-out festival has left the fields in chaos |
| (5 months later) | |
| Minninglow, Derbyshire The Y Not festival site is still a mess, but a walk along the High Peak Trail underlines the resilience of nature | |
| Ed Douglas | |
| Fri 18 Aug 2017 05.30 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 18.21 GMT | |
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| At the top of Gratton Dale, turning into Mouldridge Lane, the familiar white-walled pasture had been transformed. Diggers and tractors swarmed across the fields, beeping frantically. Grass had been churned up everywhere, and serried ranks of portable loos leaned like wearied soldiers. I was baffled. Was this some sort of war re-enactment? | At the top of Gratton Dale, turning into Mouldridge Lane, the familiar white-walled pasture had been transformed. Diggers and tractors swarmed across the fields, beeping frantically. Grass had been churned up everywhere, and serried ranks of portable loos leaned like wearied soldiers. I was baffled. Was this some sort of war re-enactment? |
| Then I saw the word TONY spelled out in giant letters in the middle of the busiest field, only the Y was drooping and the N was the wrong way round. | Then I saw the word TONY spelled out in giant letters in the middle of the busiest field, only the Y was drooping and the N was the wrong way round. |
| The penny dropped: the Y NOT music festival held here a fortnight before had ended prematurely in muddy mayhem, its closure blamed on heavy rain. | The penny dropped: the Y NOT music festival held here a fortnight before had ended prematurely in muddy mayhem, its closure blamed on heavy rain. |
| For the next mile, I paused every so often to take in the scene: heaps of bagged garbage, mounds of ruined tents and broken poles. A half-deflated sleeping mat on top of a trailer caught the breeze and landed at my feet on the muddy road. | For the next mile, I paused every so often to take in the scene: heaps of bagged garbage, mounds of ruined tents and broken poles. A half-deflated sleeping mat on top of a trailer caught the breeze and landed at my feet on the muddy road. |
| I turned off, to go along the High Peak Trail, which follows the line of the old railway. | I turned off, to go along the High Peak Trail, which follows the line of the old railway. |
| In the field ahead were two tents snagged on barbed wire, billowing like kites. Passing the farm at Minninglow Grange I saw a digger was loading refuse from a trailer into a huge skip, a still erect tent in its bucket, prompting the alarming thought that revellers were still fast asleep inside, like a dystopian version of Carry on Camping. | In the field ahead were two tents snagged on barbed wire, billowing like kites. Passing the farm at Minninglow Grange I saw a digger was loading refuse from a trailer into a huge skip, a still erect tent in its bucket, prompting the alarming thought that revellers were still fast asleep inside, like a dystopian version of Carry on Camping. |
| When the chaos was finally behind me I wondered if people had felt the same sense of shock in the 1820s when the railway came, with its gangs of navvies and sudden need for stone. Small quarries were dug into the hillside and I passed one of them now. | When the chaos was finally behind me I wondered if people had felt the same sense of shock in the 1820s when the railway came, with its gangs of navvies and sudden need for stone. Small quarries were dug into the hillside and I passed one of them now. |
| Ash trees have long since seeded the cracked walls, sycamore too, and the verges of the old line were thick with brambles, the blackberries ripening in the sun. Threaded through dry white grass were drifts of harebells, near a prickly clump of teasel, a larder for goldfinches in the winter. | Ash trees have long since seeded the cracked walls, sycamore too, and the verges of the old line were thick with brambles, the blackberries ripening in the sun. Threaded through dry white grass were drifts of harebells, near a prickly clump of teasel, a larder for goldfinches in the winter. |
| The air hummed with bees. A burnet moth clung to the tousle-headed lilac flower of a scabious. A blackcap sang, but only briefly – nature’s festival winding down to autumn. | The air hummed with bees. A burnet moth clung to the tousle-headed lilac flower of a scabious. A blackcap sang, but only briefly – nature’s festival winding down to autumn. |
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