Druids and extraterrestrials in the Kent countryside

It’s not every day that you get to meet a Druid, but an ancient forest in Kent is probably one of the likeliest places to come across one. Having read many Asterix books, I was expecting the Druid to be dressed in robes, with a long beard and a pointy hat, and I was rather disappointed that he looked just like your average male Waitrose shopper from the Home Counties. But, on the other hand, I was thrilled to discover that there was an elf sitting in front of me in the audience. He was wearing a snazzier shirt than any of Tolkein’s elves managed, but I suppose fashions change, even in Rivendell.

The Druid and the elf

Our Druid told us that Druidism is one of only two religions originating in the UK, the other being Wicca, and that it all starts with trees. It sounded like a very sensible spiritual path, with honouring and respecting nature as the main element. The rites surrounding the different times of year, such as equinoxes and solstices can be practised at home alone or outdoors in a group, which sounds pleasingly flexible – and it’s perfectly possible to be a christian Druid or an athiest Druid – but he didn’t mention whether there are any elvish Druids … yet.

We were at Camp Wildfire festival which was delightfully quirky and combined the practicality and outdoorsiness of a Girl Guide summer camp with the zany eccentricity of a 1960s hippie fest. You could try bee-keeping or basket weaving, learn how to lie in an ice bath (without dying, presumably), have a lesson in forensic investigation or do a few acrobatics on a flying trapeze.

I learnt that black ice cream is delicious; that canoes don’t have to travel on water; that Boy Scouts can win a Marmite badge (what for??) and that extra-terrestrial prog rock music is called cosmic dross.

And then there was the marvellous talk on biosonorisation. It was called ‘Making Music from Mushrooms’ but the speaker explained that his mushrooms had unfortunately died and so he was using a snake plant instead. He fixed little receptors onto the snake plant and then linked the plant up to a synthesiser which was programmed to turn the plant’s electrical signals into sound. It wasn’t terribly catchy as music goes, it was more of a beeping on several different notes, but was a fascinating idea. Then he fixed a person to the plant and we listened to the different sounds that humans and plants make together, and then he finished up by joining a whole circle of people to the plant. But sadly we couldn’t hear that music because a large firework display had started outside.

And then there were the guns. Not being a country folk sort of person, I’ve only ever fired a gun once. That was during a staff shooting competition at school, and I was terrible at it. Unsurprisingly the winner was a German teacher who’d done his military service in East Germany armed with a Kalashnikov. After that sort of training, a school rifle competition is just a piece of Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.

But here in deepest Kent, there were weapons aplenty – from the truly scary to the only faintly annoying …

I decided to go out and hug a few trees instead – a far less stressful way of enjoying the countryside.