So, Son has turned 18 and in a moment of madness we said he could hold a party in the garden. ‘It’ll be freezing at the end of September,’ I warned him, and we haven’t got any room in the house for anyone to stay over.’

‘It’s fine’ he said airily waving his hand. ‘They can bring tents.’

The words ‘It’ll be fine’ featured a great deal over the following days. I grew increasingly worried. Especially when he finally gave me the guest list and it had 65 names on it.

‘65 teenagers!’ I shrieked.

‘Oh, I forget to include me,’ Son said. ‘So 66.’

Thank goodness for the train strike. Because without a means to get home the day after the party about twenty said they couldn’t come – but still … 46 teenagers!

The day dawned warm, bright and clear so at least they wouldn’t freeze to death overnight. I’d told them all to get the tents up and ready BEFORE the party started. ‘It’ll be fine’ Son said again. ‘Everyone will help out.’

Everyone did not help out. At just gone midnight I discovered a poor lad trying to pump up a ten-man tent. The pump was broken. Various teenagers eventually came over to help and tried to blow the tent up with their breath like a balloon but as the tent was the size of a roundabout they were unsuccessful.

I left them to it and charged off to yell at five teenagers who’d decided to have a go on the (broken) trampoline.

The music was bone-shakingly loud, the lights danced around the garden and food and drink was plentiful. Everyone seemed to have a good time, but I was rather dreading seeing what the garden would look like the next morning.

Luckily Son was very good at tidying everything up, but I was disconcerted to see the ten-man-tent boy had given up on the pump and had gone to sleep with his head and torso inside a sleeping bag lying on top of the completely flat tent.

The following day, sleep deprived and twitching with stress I remembered I was going to see UB40 at Dreamland with a dear friend. More loud music and lots of drinking but the average age of the audience was considerably higher.

We got there early. Why oh why do big bands get you to buy tickets from 5pm but then don’t actually come on until 9? It means that you get there nice and early to get close to the stage but by the time the main band goes on you feel like your feet have melted into your shoes and your back has been filled with concrete.

The crowd were good humoured and clearly had loved reggae for a long time. Most were in their 50’s and above and were chilled and ready to have a good time.

This was apart from a small group of 40 something women who over the hours had sharp-elbowed their way to the front alongside us. They had strange contraptions on their back which we realised were feeding them Jack Daniel’s. Remember, these aren’t 16 year olds smuggling in alcohol because they are too young to buy it – these were well-dressed fully-grown women!

We watched in fascination as one of the women got more and more drunk. She was bouncing around ricocheting off the people standing around her causing everyone to start tutting quite loudly. The atmosphere was getting more and more tense, until eventually, a poor bloke, bringing cider back to his wife, bumped into one of the women.

Instant outrage! The woman who’d been bumped into started yelling at the man, and I marvelled at her hypocrisy as she’d been slamming her backpack against me and my lovely friend for the last half an hour. (In fact I need to apologise to my lovely friend because when she offered to swap sides I agreed straight away and she ended up getting terribly bashed. What kind of friend am I?)

Anyway, the guy carrying the cider started trying to explain, but she wasn’t having any of it, and her friends began to circle, and started shouting too. Someone pushed someone else and then it all kicked off. Within seconds two huge security guards appeared out of nowhere and catapulted their way over to the women, and the very drunk woman with a backpack was hooked out by her straps and we never saw her again for the rest of the concert.

‘It’s all go, isn’t it?’ my friend said. I agreed and pointed out how much better behaved my son and his friends have been the night before.

I tried to work out what the support bands were doing then realised how very old I was. The first one was a charming guy who chatted to the audience and – apparently this is the correct word  – ‘toasted’ over the records being played by his DJ partner. He also kept saying ‘Oggy Oggy Oggy!’ which made me feel a hundred.

It was entertaining and the reggae was good to listen to as the sun burnished the Dreamland stage. And then the next support act came on. Two men, one at the decks and the other walking around. The music blared out and the man with the microphone wandered about occasionally singing along to the lyrics being played by the DJ. It was basically reggae Karaoke. It has been explained to me that this is what it is all about. DJs mixing tracks together. ‘So what was the guy with the mike for?’  I asked a knowledgeable young person – they just shrugged, so I am none the wiser.

I did wonder what was the point of going to see a live concert if they just played records and sang along to them – but who am I to judge?

Eventually UB40 (featuring Ali Campbell) came on and the crowd went wild. From the first blast of trumpets and beat of the drums it was clear we were watching old pros who’d done this for years. The production was excellent but I was glad I had in my trusty wax ear plugs. Like the last time I went to a concert my watch kept flagging up increasingly concerned warnings about the noise level and the state of my ears, but I was safe in my little wax world where the volume was just right.

They played all the classics, ‘One in Ten’, ‘Please Don’t Make me Cry’, ‘Cherry Oh Baby’ and of course, the one that got the biggest cheer – ‘Red Red Wine’. I’m not a particular fan of UB40 – I don’t think I’ve ever bought any of their music – so I surprised to find I knew all of the lyrics so stood and sang along with the crowd.

My favourite part of being at Dreamland was that it was open air, the park looked great as night fell and the lights went on. Also, it was nice being in a crowd of people that all looked like they would remember Tiswas.

There was a pair of women dancing in front of me who were the coolest of the cool. One had her white hair tied up in little pixie knots and a huge white punky shirt, while her friend rocked a black leather jacket with grey dreads dancing on top of her head. I watched them sing the lyrics to each other, laughing their heads off and waving their arms and thought what a wonderful thing it is to dance to loud music as the moon rises with a cheerful crowd of people around you – it’s the same whether you’re 18 or over 50. I must do it again soon.