The Four-Foot Bong: £1 a Go at 90s Festivals

Back in the 90s, one of the busiest bits of the Willy Banjo festival stall was a four-foot bong. £1 a go. The sign was written in marker pen and taped to the front of the stall.

The four-foot bong

It was plastic, acrylic, and stood about four foot tall. I think it came from Urban the Hippie in Manchester, but I could be very, very wrong. We’d set it up at the front of the stall and people would queue for a go.

What went in it was wild lettuce, a legal herb. We don’t sell it any more. It was just something we could put in so people could try the bong.

Jimmy, the Bong Master

Running it was Jimmy. The Bong Master. You’ll find him in the photos, with the sign, and in the Viking hat. Jimmy’s still knocking about. He taught himself Chinese, and he’s one of Preston’s greatest living gentlemen. He sometimes comes to our parties.

Jimmy also had his Lung: a homemade device where you pull a bag down at the bottom of a bottle, it sucks the smoke into the bottle, then you take the top off and push it back up. Very 90s festival engineering.

Dancing in front of Cypress Hill

We took it to Phoenix Festival and danced with it in front of Cypress Hill, especially when they played “Hits from the Bong”. I think that was ’97. Maybe. Don’t know.

Knebworth ’96

It came with us to Knebworth for Oasis in 1996 as well. One of the biggest crowds the UK had ever seen, and our bong on the grass in the middle of it.

Even me dad had a go, at Glastonbury. He didn’t inhale.

Then it got bigger

Later on we had a five-foot double-chamber bong, also acrylic, which I think we imported from Germany or somewhere. One year we had two stalls, so we taped two of them together.

The big bongs today

We don’t sell four-foot or five-foot bongs any more. The biggest we’ve got now are around two foot: the 60cm acrylic double percolator and the rest of the acrylic bong range, plus Chongz acrylics, which are our best sellers. We’re always looking for bigger ones. If you know someone making them, tell us.

Were you in the queue for the £1 bong? Did you dance with it at Phoenix? Let us know.

More from the last 30-odd years: The Year We Worked at Knebworth for Oasis · 21 Glastonburys · The Hypnogogic Mind Machine