If you're watching Glastonbury at home on the telly, chances are that Oxfam just looks like a big cloth banner pinned to front of the Pyramid stage and maybe not a whole lot else. But in fact, just as we've helped to oil the cogs behind the scenes at huge shows such as Live8 and Live Earth, we've got a small army of volunteers helping Glastonbury run smoothly, writes Stuart Fowkes.
The 1,800 or so in bright orange tabards dotted around the perimeter of the festival site, tirelessly directing the drunk and the confused back to their tents 24 hours per day, are all provided by Oxfam, as is a Land Rover to deliver tea and biscuits to each of them twice a day.
At the business end of the festival on Thursday, the stewards need to get 4,000 people safely on to the site every hour. Throughout the event, they deal with all kinds of enquiries. Last night, it was left to our stewards to calm a terrified girl who thought she'd caught trenchfoot from the mud and rain because her foot had gone bright purple. Rather than helicopter in the paramedics, the stewards had to point out it was just the dye in her wellies running. Without laughing too hard, of course.
On the high street, to most people we're about charity shops and second-hand clothing, and similarly at Glastonbury we cart 10 tonnes of wellies, waterproofs and fancy dress on site to sell. Even without Lost Vagueness and its chapel of ill-conceived last-minute nuptials this year, we still shifted 500 wedding dresses before Friday. We're responsible for a high proportion of the ridiculous outfits worn by mud-caked punters in photo galleries all over the place.
It's always interesting to see how the weather dictates so precisely what we sell - cold and dry on Thursday, so the blankets and fake furs sold out, then torrents of rain on Friday, so we sold out of waterproofs and boiler suits. When the now-legendary apocalyptic rains of 2005 fell, Oxfam sold £12,000 worth of waterproofs in three hours to eternal optimists who forgot to pack their wellies alongside their pear cider. The one constant? Silly headgear, which sells in bucketloads for four days straight - you can never have enough silly hats at a festival.
We've also been trekking round, catching up with bands who we've linked up with over the past couple of years. Fatboy Slim, Hot Chip and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly all played shows in a converted Oxfam shop last year, and Editors are keen Oxfam supporters, too.
Elsewhere, it's a case of meeting celebs backstage to see if they're up for supporting our campaigns - yesterday, for instance, James Blunt signed a giant pair of underpants we're using as part of a campaign this year, which he did with the studied air of a man well used to signing underwear.
So that's us - 15 years at Glastonbury, £2.5m raised through the festival and more than 300,000 people signing petitions on everything from arms control to climate change. We're as much a part of the festival season as cider vans, dodgy loos or the Pyramid stage.
