It was Glastonbury. I forget the year. Michael Jackson had just died and we had been in a beer tent for two days straight with Bodger from the kids tv show, Bodger and Badger. We had been keeping the train in motion, awake for 48 hours and counting, but Bodger was insisting we stay up and order more Black Rat Cider. He was due to go on stage in 15 minutes. The first show of the day. 8am in the kids tent. He wanted us to come and watch the show. For moral support. We had become best buddies in those manic 48 hours leading up to this point. But yet we still had not met his puppet sidekick, Badger. If we wanted to meet him we had to come to the show. I didn’t think it was the best idea in the world. The guy wasn’t able to walk straight or string a coherent sentence together. Never mind do an hour show to a packed audience. But I went along with his plan. We all did. Partly just to see how it would unfold, but also to catch him if he fell. To have his back. Moral support. We sat there, in the crowd. Waiting like the rest of them. Waiting for Bodger. The anticipation in the air was thick as 8amapproached. Would he even make it to the stage? And what state would he be in when he walked on? I was getting concerned. And then, as the clock struck 8 and not a second late, he appeared from behind a curtain, his trusty puppet Badger in hand. The crowd went wild. He tore straight into magic tricks. Pulling rabbits from hats. Juggling. The works. I still don’t know how he did it. I guess it was muscle memory or second nature by that stage of his life, but he pulled it off like the pro that he was. He had the entire place in the palm of his hand. Working the crowd like a wizard. Me included. I was right there. Excited as the rest of them. Whoopin and hollerin. Every now and then he would look down at us with a knowing glance to signal he was still with us. His crew. It actually turned out to be the best show of the weekend. Up there with neil young. What a world we live in.
