It was great to quaff beer in the warm sun, check out some cool bands and pretend that I am still down with the kids.

However, I was flummoxed by the sight of children about my son’s age – just 16 months – who were being dragged around the festival site by their parents.

Who on earth would take a baby to a massive rock music festival? There is nothing positive a small child could possibly get out of it.

Some festivals, such as the Big Chill, accommodate children but most, such as Roskilde and Glastonbury, do not. Still, that doesn’t stop some parents from taking their kids along for “the experience”.

The poor kids I saw at Roskilde were caked in dust and baking in the hot sun as they were subjected to deafening music and increasingly squalid conditions. (Anyone who has ever been to a large music festival knows that any bush, wall, bin or tree will be used as a makeshift toilet eventually.)

Scenes witnessed by friends at last year’s mud-splattered Glastonbury included toddlers in tears as they were being hurried along through giant puddles by selfish parents desperate to see the next big act perform.

It is at best naïve and at worse cruel to imagine that anyone under the age of about 10 will enjoy themselves at such an event.

That’s why Mummy and I took turns babysitting (we were staying with friends who live nearby the festival site, not tenting it at the disgusting campsite – I’m way too old for that). One of us would be out having fun at the festival while the other would be having fun with Golden Boy.

Sure, it meant that we both saw less of the festival than we would have liked. But sometimes sacrifice is what being a parent is all about.