I’ve just asked my husband to give me a few words beginning with ‘E.’ He gave me – Evergreen, Event, and Enter. So I’m going to free-write for a few minutes and the only rule, is that I have to get each of those words in. It’ll be nonsense and rubbish, but the piece will be raw material for something to be worked on later. Freewriting is not usually something to be shared, but here we go anyway…

The queue was moving too slowly. Cath was freezing, dressed for the better weather that had been promised. If that wasn’t bad enough, the event organiser made her wear a filthy hi-vis jacket with a sign sellotaped on the back of it, reading ‘STAFF,’ covering the fact that the jacket was for a First Aider. It had sounded like a great deal, do a couple of hours work at the entrance gate and get into the festival for free. She’d been there four hours already and still people were arriving. Two artists she loved had already played, her absolute favourite band, Enter At Your Peril, would be on the main stage soon, and she was bursting for the loo. Then inspiration struck.

“Bob,” she shouted across the turnstiles to her fellow ticketmaster. “Can you radio base to say I need someone to take over please?” She then mouthed, “I need to go.”

“Go where?” he shouted back.

“I need to GO.”

“Awh right yeah, hang on.” Bob got on the radio and Cath continued to stamp tickets ignoring shouts of “can she have a pee, please Bob?”

Eventually Cath was rescued. She ran past the Portaloos and straight to the main stage. She got there just as it was being announced that Enter At Your Peril were not coming on until later. There was some booing and some shouting as a terrified looking kid with an acoustic guitar came on stage. Once he got going, the crowd sang along with his cover of an Oasis classic. Cath was singing along when she felt someone pull her arm out of the crowd. “We’ve got a fainter.” her captor shouted. “We need someone back stage.” Cath was pulled through the crowd and past security by the side of the stage, through the curtain to the back stage area where she saw a crowd standing around some someone lying on the ground.

“What do want me to do?” said Cath.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You’re the first aider.”

The ‘STAFF’ sign was being trampled on by Oasis fans.

“You’ve got to help him, love. We need to get Evergreen on that stage.”

Cath recognised the members of Enter at Your Peril standing around the lead singer, who was lying on the ground.

“What happened?” Cath asked, kneeling on the floor beside him. “Did he bang his head? Drink too much? Take something he shouldn’t?”

“Worse! A huge spider fell on his head just before we were due to go on.”

“And it bit him?!

“Nah, he’s afraid of them. He fainted.”

Evergreen groaned and opened his eyes. “Where is it? Is it still on me?” He jumped up, shaking his head and jumping up and down.

Cath stamped her foot. “There! He’s dead,” she lied. “Squished under my boot.”

Evergreen turned to her. He held her face for a moment. “You are my hero,” he kissed her and the band ran on to the stage.

“Yeah,” she said, as the crowds roared. “And you used to be mine.”