For first time visitors, more used to the brusqueness, aggression and I-know-my-rights self-centredness of modern city life, this rustic mellowness can initially prove a shock. You’ll sit down for a coffee or a roll-up in the Tiny Tea Tent and immediately your neighbour will strike up a conversation with you as if you were old friends. You’ll have bombed-out strangers asking, “Sorry, mate, would you mind letting me have a swig of your water bottle?” You constantly find yourself catching people’s eyes, and exchanging the same conspiratorial look which says, “Yeah. Great, isn’t it?”

But these traditions can only be kept alive if there is among the crowd a sufficiently high proportion of Glastonbury veterans to show the novices how it’s done. In the old days, this function was largely fulfilled by the vast numbers of (mostly benevolent) regulars who used to get in free by scrambling over the fence. But more recently this has not been possible. Because of dire threats from the local council to withdraw the festival’s licence unless visitor numbers (monitored by helicopter) are kept to a strict limit, fence security is now so ruthlessly tight that the old crowd can’t get in.

At the same time, thanks to relentless, ever-expanding coverage by the BBC, Glastonbury has changed from being a large, semi-private party for the cognoscenti into the most hideously oversubscribed social event in the English summer calendar. Registration and rationing were introduced, making it even less likely that the Glasto veterans who set the tone could get their hands on a ticket.

In many ways, this year’s slow ticket sales — after a run of several years in which they sold out within a day — is the best thing that could have happened to Glastonbury. Regulars who’d given up on the hassle of trying to compete for a ticket will have said to themselves, “All right. Let’s give it one more try, just for old times’ sake.” This year’s Glastonbury will, I predict, be one of the best ever. But then that’s another side-effect of the Glasto vibe: tragically hopeless optimism.