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Belief
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Music
7 min read

10 things I learned from Reading Festival's teenagers

Some uplifting down time.

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

Festival goers, in a cafe tent, make drinks or sit around talking
Time out in the Street Pastors cafe.
Reading Street Pastors.

Last weekend I was at Reading Festival which has become a rite of passage for teenagers from across the UK. Over 105,000 young people turn up to the festival for a weekend of music and mayhem. The typical guest has just received their GCSE results, and heads for Reading, or its twin festival in Leeds, to reflect on what they are going to do next. Headliners this year included artists such as Lana Del Rey, Raye, Prodigy, Beadobee and Liam Gallagher.  

My role at the Festival was as a volunteer with Reading Street Pastors who offer a 24-hour safe, warm and dry space. They provide a vital service for these young people, many of whom find their first festival experience very overwhelming. Volunteers serve a ‘Mountain’ of hot chocolate, loaded with cream and marshmallows, or ‘Liquid Death’ – a rebranded aluminium recyclable can of water - along with a friendly face or a listening ear.  

I got to spend time over the weekend with hundreds of teenagers who were prepared to spend hours in the safe space because their tents had collapsed, or they had forgotten to bring anything warm to wear, or their phone batteries were dead or because their friends had ditched them. I found our open-ended conversations insightful, and offered me the opportunity to learn a lot about the upcoming generation. Here are some of my observations:   

1. They're brilliant  

Too often, young people are written off as being uncommunicative, narcissistic, or addicted to social media, but given the chance, they are excellent conversationalists. I thoroughly enjoyed their company; they asked great questions, shared big ideas and offered honest, if surprising, opinions. It was actually a pleasure to spend time with them and I totally recommend it – even, or especially, at 6am in the morning.  

2. They appreciate their parents  

Of course, most of them wouldn’t tell their parents this, but to me, a total stranger, it appeared that they recognized and appreciated the influence of their parents. This was evident not only in those young people who were missing home and home comforts, but even in their music tastes. The band The Prodigy, who performed on the first night, stem from my era of music, and encompass dance, house, and rave culture. I heard many young people claim they were listening to them, or Liam Gallagher from Oasis, because “my mum/dad love them”.  Music is quite a connecting point between generations, it turns out.  

3. There’s a diverse range of political engagement

There was a wide range of understanding and interest in politics among these young people. I spoke to many who didn't seem to care about politics, feeling that politicians don't care about them and questioning why they should bother if they can't make a difference. However, I also met many politically connected and aware individuals, some of whom were aspiring to study at universities like Durham, Oxford, or Cambridge. These engaged youths expressed frustration, feeling let down by the political system and believing that politicians don't have their best interests at heart. They were aware of issues like tax increases and broken promises by political parties and expressed a sense of distrust and disillusionment. This disengagement is a significant problem, as it leaves young people vulnerable to populism. Some mentioned that in school elections, more right-wing parties were gaining attention because they seemed to take young people seriously, which I found fascinating and concerning. 

4. There’s a lack of hope

I noticed many of the young people I spoke to didn't have a lot of hope for the future. Their huge outlay of £350+ on the weekend appeared to be evidence: many of them expressed resignation that they would never be able to own a house, or were worried about the escalation of global events such as the conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine. While social media is often blamed for creating anxiety in this generation, it seems that global events and mainstream media also play significant roles in shaping their perceptions and values.  

Mental health and especially male mental health seem to have turned a corner. 

5. There are conflicting views on the environment 

Despite numerous advertisements and incentives for people to clean up after themselves at the festival, it was clear that there were two sorts of campers. While some picked up their own litter – and that of those around them, others had no intention of even taking their tent home at the end. Every year after the Reading festival, the site looks like a disaster zone, as if a hurricane has blown through, the aerial shots released of the aftermath remind me of the movie Twisters. Another wave of volunteers comes in to help clear away the debris. However, I heard one young person say: "My mum and dad didn't raise me to live this way."  Young people are not a monolithic group, and we shouldn't expect them to be. We can’t tar them all with the same brush. Some may not care about the mess they leave behind them, but others really do.   

6. Queueing is dying 

Maybe it has always been this way, and I am just getting too old for it but it seems nobody respects my tactic of getting to the front to see the big-name band by arriving at the venue early, waiting for the barrier gates to open and then picking your spot and waiting. At Reading Festival, I’ve learned that about 5 minutes before the band comes on, there’s a sudden surge of people who snake their way through the crowd claiming to be ‘just finding their friends’. I didn’t see any great reunifications. What I saw was disrespect of the good old British value of queuing. The problem is I’m too old to remember whether I did that as a teenager too.  

7. Faith is not embarrassing 

The safe space run by the Reading Street Pastors was busy. Maybe it was due to the torrential downpour that left many tents uninhabitable, but I remember it being the same last year. The young people seemed to appreciate not only the company, hot chocolate and warm blanket, but also the opportunity to chat. Volunteers offer their help to all without distinction, whatever faith background they are from. But faith often came up in conversation. I heard: “Why do you run this tent?” “Why are you volunteering here?” “Are you guys religious?” “What does it mean to be a Christian?” “What are the best bits of the Bible to read when you are feeling lonely?” “What does the Bible say about drugs?” “Can you help me with the religion and ethics questions for my A-level Philosophy coursework?” Overall, faith was discussed openly, as something interesting and positive.  

8. Mental health issues are losing their stigma 

At 6.30am a huge security guard walked into our safe space and during the long conversation that ensued, what struck me was his openness about his mental health and anxiety. There was no stigma, no shame, in talking to me, a stranger, about his struggles. He was not the only one to be open about his mental health issues and it felt like a very healthy development in our society. Mental health and especially male mental health seem to have turned a corner.  

9. Teenagers need to learn survival skills  

Shivering in our safe space at 6.05 in the morning was a lad who had come to the Reading Festival with only his t-shirt and jeans. He didn’t even think he might need a coat, let alone a waterproof tent. At the other end of the space was a lad with a full-on Calor-gas stove, whipping up some nourishing pasta-based meals for his friends. It was clear to see which of the two 16-year-olds had done the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. The expedition training and experience has given him survival skills for life.  

10. Music is a grand uniter

In my day, music fans would be glued to their television screens on a Thursday night as we waited to hear who had the number one single of the week. That hour of the week was part of our shared cultural identity and everyone was talking about it at school the next day. Nowadays, Youtube, Spotify and the other infinite ways to access music has taken away the grand unifying cultural portal that was Top Of The Pops. Yet, somehow, they provide young people with diploma-level knowledge in popular music through the decades. They all know not only the breakthrough artists and latest hits, but lyrics to everything from Sabrina Carpenter and Lana Del Ray to Oasis. On a warm summer’s evening, with the sun setting there’s something very beautiful about a crowd of 70,000 people singing songs together.  

Article
Belief
Comment
Leading
4 min read

Here’s what Pope Leo really needs, and it’s not our speculation

What the media analysis misses when projecting on to the new pope.
Pope Leo waves to the crowd.
Vatican Media.

If memory serves, there was a very positive feeling about Pope Francis when he was elected in 2013. Mind you, I had just started my first year at university and was passionately atheistic - I had flunked my ‘General Studies’ A-Level essay purely because I had nothing to say in favour of the proposal that heaven exists. It was plain enough to me that it was all unscientific wish-fulfilment - so a requirement to give balance had to be jettisoned. 

But the late Pope was so adept at doing things that sent a message, that even in my sphere it became commonly agreed that he was a breath of fresh air. Anyone would tell you that he was very down-to-earth. PR types can only dream of that kind of cache among those who have zero interest in what the company is selling.  

The less ostentatious popemobile!  

The refusal to live in the official papal apartments!  

Here was a man clearly wanting to step back from pomp, and the wealth (all that Vatican gold!). 

It is only now that, as a Catholic, I have an inside track perspective on how more complicated this all actually was. Some in the Church found some of the public piety unsettling. All churches have a trade-off to make between the gospel directive to not value treasure on earth, as well as a gospel directive to give honour to God using all of our humanity, which might involve using our sense of beauty.  

But I am not saying I agree or disagree with any of this. Francis was making a point, and it was well made. I am rather saying that there is a tendency sometimes to think of a pontiff in ill-fitting terms - often political ones. As an atheist, I crammed things into a binary of ‘good, stripped-down rationalisation’ versus ‘bad, mythological and weird’. Especially in secular media, there is a tendency to make popes answers to questions that the media have asked, and not the ones of the Church. The story is always more intricate than ‘liberal’ versus ‘conservative’. Francis was not, in the end, the moderniser some commentariat hoped for, but only because he demonstrated what should have already been obvious: that that the Pope is not ‘in charge of’ the Catholic Faith like that. 

At any rate, speculation of a similar kind is already booming around the new Pope, Leo XIV. Everyone is trying to read into every micro-detail we have. What is the significance of his being an American? Is this the conclave’s attempt to create a counter-Trump? Why did Leo come out in traditional garb (which Francis made a point of eschewing)? Why ‘Leo’?  

Rumours have already abounded that this new Pope likes to do his private masses in the old Latin; others have pointed out that he ran with Francis’ crowd - and even his opening speech touched on the late Pope’s theme of ‘synodality.’ Synodality, depending on who you ask, is either a noble attempt at decentralisation and listening to the full range of voices in the Church - or an attempt to sneak doctrinal change under the guise of being pastoral. 

My advice is to stay well away from it all. Perhaps I’m bringing my own personal journey in too much here - but people change their minds all the time. I wouldn’t want someone to judge me on that General Studies essay now, let me tell you. People especially change when given such a task as Robert Prevost has been given. Even on a purely natural view, being handed responsibility for over a billion Catholics is likely to have a sobering effect, and make one hyper-aware of every move one is about to make. 

But, more importantly, on a supernatural lens, Catholics will want to say that this Pope has been, at the very least, permitted by the Holy Spirit. Benedict XVI put it as dismally as this, in 1997:  

"Probably the only assurance [the Holy Spirit] offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined.”  

Pope Leo’s ability to shepherd the Church is not a power he enjoys on his own - it comes, as the official teaching has it, “by virtue of his office.” He gets it purely from God, and by existing in relationship to a bigger thing, the Church. It is a difficult thing to make sense of, but the Catholic view of the Pope is not really a statement about human power. It is the belief that, at some very foundational level of analysis, Jesus has agreed not to abandon those who follow him; agreed not to “leave us as orphans." The Pope has come to be seen, in time, as that foundation; as that ‘rock’. But he should always be seen within the bigger picture of God’s promises to us. 

For the meantime, the Pope needs not analysis, second-guessing, or projections. He needs prayers.  

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