Manchester Rum Festival

MANCHESTER’S SECRET TIKI HEAVEN

Every year a tiki heaven send from rum gods around the world descends upon Manchester. This year, we went to check it out, and here’s what we found. IT’S NOT SOLELY RUM

Stratford Sodas was on hand for anyone wanting a little dash away from the hard stuff, while street eats and rum cakes were up for grabs from British Virgin Island pop-up Nyammin.

THERE’S LOADS

You get to taste rums from over 60 producers, sample incredible cocktail creations by local bars, and dance to music and entertainment by a very cool DJ and festival stalwart, DJ Dom.

COMMUNITY

The festival is an real life tiki oasis, bringing together rum producers, bartenders, enthusiasts and rum fans from all over the region, the country and even the world. What’s extra special is that some rum brands on show have never been tasted in the UK before. LOCAL RUM LOVE

As well as stellar international rums, local brands smash it. The Salford Rum Company was on show with their Original, Dark Spice and Honey Salford Rum which has a cult following across the region. Manchester’s inimitable female-led Diablesse showcased a brand new expression called Diablesse Coconut and Hibiscus Rum along with other local favourites including the Spirit of Manchester Distillery and Tameside Distillery.

OUR ADVICE?

Keep your eyes peeled on the Manchester Rum Festival Insta for when tickets go on sale later this year and snap them up – they sell fast. And, in the meantime, explore Manchester’s official Rum Map and sample some of the best cocktails in the city. Created ty the founders of Salford Rum, this is guide voted for by consumers and the industry – profits form which go to Salford Lads Club. Delicious!

A HISTORY OF HERBALISM

By Emma Kay

A HISTORY OF HERBALISM by Emma Kay ISBN: 9781399008952 is available NOW in hardback from www.pen-and-sword.co.uk RRP £20

A History of Herbalism: Cook, Cure and Conjure is the fascinating history of an ancient practise. Known to some as witchcraft, to others as botany, food historian Emma Kay reveals the history of herbalism and the medicinal, magical and culinary uses of herbs. Discover the superstitions and spells surrounding the herbs in our kitchens and gardens, and the stories of key individuals who discovered them, in this immersive and intriguing new book.

Food historian Emma Kay tells the story of our centuries-old relationship with herbs. From herbalists of old to contemporary cooking, this book reveals the magical and medicinal properties of your favourite plants in colourful, compelling detail.

At one time, every village in Britain had a herbalist. A History of Herbalism investigates the lives of women and men who used herbs to administer treatment and knew the benefit of each. Meet Dr Richard Shephard of Preston, who cultivated angelica on his estate in the eighteenth century for the sick and injured; or Nicholas Culpeper, a botanist who catalogued the pharmaceutical benefits of herbs for early literary society.

But herbs were not only medicinal. Countless cultures and beliefs as far back as prehistoric times incorporated herbs into their practices: paganism, witchcraft, religion and even astrology. Take a walk through a medieval ‘physick’ garden, or Early Britain, and learn the ancient rituals to fend off evil powers, protect or bewitch or even attract a lover.

The wake of modern medicine saw a shift away from herbal treatments, with rituals and spells shrouded with superstition as the years wore on. The author reveals how herbs became more culinary rather than medicinal including accounts of recent trends for herbal remedies as lockdown and the pandemic leads us to focus more on our health and wellbeing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emma is a post-graduate historian and former senior museum worker. Now a food historian, author, and prolific collector of Kitchenalia, she is a member of The Guild of Food Writers. Her articles have appeared in publications including BBC History Magazine, The Daily Express, Daily Mail, Times Literary Supplement and The Victorian Review. She has featured on numerous national and international radio programmes and podcasts and contributed historic food research for several TV production companies.

During 2021 Emma cooked and presented a selection of historic dishes from the Regency era to accompany a new CTVC series for Channel 4 and was interviewed and filmed demonstrating Medieval cooking techniques for a documentary series on KBS-TV in South Korea.

In 2020 Emma created a Roman banquet and presented the origins and influences of Roman cooking for Channel 5 series Walking Britain’s Roman Roads.

At the end of 2019 Emma appeared as an expert contributor across several episodes of Channel 5 series, Britain’s Lost Battlefields.

In 2018 she appeared in a ten-part series for the BBC and Hungry Gap Productions, The Best Christmas Food Ever and on BBC Countryfile, copresenting a feature exploring the heritage of the black pear with Anita Rani.

I’M SARA, THE LYTHAM GIN LADY!

I escaped from teaching Chemistry and have spent the last four years making gin and my passion is now sharing information about everyone’s favourite juniper-based spirit as well as easy to make cocktails using some of my awardwinning products.

Gin & Tonic Drizzle Cake

This sophisticated take on the popular lemon drizzle cake is a treat for the grown-ups! • Cooking Time: 45 mins

• 10-12 Slices

Ingredients:

THE CAKE: • 110g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing • 175g caster sugar • 175g self-raising flour • 4 tbsp whole milk • Zest of 2 lemons, finely grated • 2 large eggs

GIN SYRUP: • Juice of 2 lemons • 75ml gin • 150g caster sugar

ICING: (Optional) • 250g icing sugar • 1 tbs lemon juice • 2 tbs water

Method:

1) Lightly grease a 900g loaf tin with butter, then line the sides with greaseproof paper and butter again. Preheat the oven to 180C/ gas 4.

This month I’m focusing on how gin can be used with food. A G&T might be the perfect drink for a sunny evening but gin is much more versatile. There are plenty of recommendations of which food to pair with wine or even beer, but very little on what to eat with gin. Since gin is quite strongly flavoured, it is best to pair it with strongly flavoured food. At Lytham Gin HQ, we love drinking gin and tonic with Indian food. Traditional Indian cuisine contains spices such as coriander, cardamom, cumin, cinnamon and peppercorns. You’ll find many traditional gins also contain some of these ingredients as botanicals so they are a perfect match. An ice cold gin and tonic makes a wonderful accompaniment to your curry in place of larger. Try it next time you order a takeaway or visit your local Indian restaurant for a refreshing change. Gin can also be used in recipes to sneak in a bit of juniperiness to a variety of dishes. Try adding a splash to homemade chicken liver pate. Delicious! Other ways to use gin include curing smoked salmon or adding a dash to your tomato based pasta sauce. Or treat yourself by making this month’s recipe for Gin & Lemon Drizzle cake.

2) Place the cake ingredients and a pinch of salt in a bowl or a mixer and beat for 3 minutes or so, till well blended. Spoon the mix into the tin and bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Remove from the oven. Leave in the tin to cool a little while you make the syrup.

3) Add the lemon juice, gin and 150g caster sugar to a pan. Heat on a low hob, stirring, only until the sugar has melted. Take of the heat. 4) Poke holes into the cake with a skewer.

The more, the merrier! Pour the syrup over its surface, tilting the tin to get an even coverage and allowing the syrup to soak in.

5) Allow to cool. Either sprinkle with icing sugar or cover with icing. Make the icing by mixing together the icing sugar, lemon juice and water.

Gin-a-Colada

Lytham Gin’s take on a classic cocktail, this is a gin based version of the Pina Colada. We like to make this with our Watermelon Gin and our White Chocolate and Coconut Rum, but it is just as nice made with alternatives. Simply fill a shaker with ice, add the ingredients and shake for 15-20 seconds. Serve garnished with a cherry and a slice of lime.

Ingredients:

• 30ml Gin

• 30ml White Rum • 60ml coconut milk (tinned)

• Maraschino Cherry

Kathleen Johnstone, A Nurse’s War: A diary of hope and heartache on the home front By Patricia & Robert Malcolmson

Kathleen Johnstone, A Nurse’s War: A diary of hope and heartache on the home front By Patricia & Robert Malcolmson Published by HarperNorth on 21st July Non-Fiction | History | Paperback | £8.99

In June 1943 Kathleen Johnstone (born in 1913) was a nurse-in-training at the Blackburn Royal Infirmary

It was then that she chose, for reasons she did not disclose, to keep a diary for the social research organization Mass Observation (MO). MO had for almost four years been encouraging “ordinary” Britons to write journals about their everyday wartime feelings and experiences. These diaries were likened to cameras that would capture the often brief and passing moments of life that were otherwise at risk of not being recorded. Diaries were expected to document immediate experiences, outlooks, and observations, and around 480 people sent in their contributions at some point between 1939 and 1945 (though many didn’t last long).

Kathleen Johnstone turned out to be an exceptional diarist. She had an eye for the details of daily life and often wrote colourfully about them. Some people she praised, others (though almost never named) she mentioned because of their quirks or irritating characteristics. She saw the comedy in numerous incidents she observed; and she treated herself with a degree of irony. Often her writing is fairly objective, in the spirit of reportage. She was sometimes happy, sometimes sad. She recorded moments of gloom and anxiety (over her upcoming nursing exams in 1944, for example), and moments of hope, especially as the war was drawing to a close.

Aside from a holiday in London and a visit to her sister’s family in Wiltshire, Kathleen spent all of the two years from mid-1943 to mid-1945 in Lancashire. She wrote in all sorts of ways about its places and residents and activities: conversations on buses; the liking of people in Blackburn for tripe; the sounds of clogs in the streets in the early morning; the many broken bones caused by the blackout, especially in icy conditions; an Emergency Hospital at Poultonle-Fylde; electioneering in June 1945; and people’s involvement in “Holidays-at-Home” in the summer of 1943, which were designed to discourage travel by train when the tracks were needed for military transport. But these special wartime diversions did not prevent thousands of holiday-makers from observing the usual Wakes Weeks, normally at Blackpool. While Kathleen

Above: Bob and Patricia Malcolmson Above: Kathleen Johnstone Above: Kathleen Johnstone and Family

went there several times herself, her more regular pleasures were enjoyed at Blackburn’s cinemas and cafes and shopping for goods that were almost always hard to find. She also described walks in the beautiful countryside just outside Blackburn, whose sooty grimness she noted from time to time, and the sudden appearance in 1944 of American troops (with money to burn, though they didn’t like the weather).

Hospital nursing meant that Kathleen routinely encountered Lancastrians in need of care. She did a stint in the VD clinic; she was involved in ensuring the welfare of new babies and their mothers. Grizzly accidents demanded immediate attention, and some victims did not survive. On 14 February 1944 a little boy was admitted “terrible” burns, and soon died. “The trouble is”, Kathleen thought, “that so many mothers are doing warwork and making no adequate provision for their children. Wages are high up here now and after so many lean years of poverty and unemployment everyone is seizing the opportunity to make money whether they are obliged to do war-work or not.” The working class was central to the life of this industrial city. Blackburn’s Infirmary was a voluntary hospital, dependent on charitable donations, and in fact about half of its funding came from the labouring people in the district.

Kathleen’s experiences were not confined to Blackburn, for on her days off work she usually visited and stayed a night or two with her parents, who lived in the lovely village of Downham, near Clitheroe. There her father was butler at Downham Hall, and Kathleen was at least an observer of and sometime participant in rural life. She wrote of the Italian POWs employed on the estate, meetings of the Women’s Institute, church services, farm families, the village shop, gardening, tied cottages, and striking features of the local landscape, such as Pendle Hill. Excursions to Clitheroe were common. Kathleen was unusual in having a foot in both city and country on a regular basis.

While East Lancashire suffered little in the way of bombing raids, almost everyone had some personal connection with wartimes events, inconveniences, and insecurities. Katheen’s main worry was for her fiancé, Bill, a POW in Germany whom she hadn’t seen since October 1939. The messages between them since his capture in June 1940 were, inevitably, few and far between; and while she had attracted interest from other men, on the home front, she had remained loyal to him. As victory was approaching in the early months of 1945, she was more and more anxious about Bill’s welfare, and wondering whether he would survive the turmoil of Germany’s collapse and return home safely to marry her.

On the day she left Blackburn’s Infirmary (30 May 1945) as a State Registered Nurse, Kathleen expressed her affection for those she was leaving. “I think Lancashire people are very generous and hospitable. I have never found such friendliness and pressing hospitality as I have found in Lancashire and I have lived in various places from the North of Scotland to the South Coast.” Almost all of her subsequent career in nursing would be based in Lancashire, where she had spent little if any time in before later 1939.

Here, then, is a diary rich in social detail and rooted in wartime society in Lancashire, written by an appealing and thoughtful person who had a gift with the words needed for the literary tasks she set herself.

A 1922 CLOSE ENCOUNTER

By Jason Gleaves, International author of ‘UFO PHOTO’- ‘The Ufology Umbrella’ and ‘UFO Encounters up Close & Personal’ published by Flying Disk Press available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. (All illustrations by Jason Gleaves).

An unnamed gentleman contacted me via email I’ll simply call Stephen. Stephen provided some brief details of his wife’s grandfather who, a few years before he passed away, had self-published his own memoirs. These memoirs came in two parts. The first part was about his working life as a mining engineer and the second about his life in general.

The man who wrote these memoirs is Richard Hathaway and he was born just before the First World War. Stephen supplied me with the details about his wife’s grandfather Mr Richard Hathaway and his close encounter in 1922 and I was permitted to read them. Here, with Stephen’s permission is the close encounter of 1922. RICHARD HATHAWAY

Richard Hathaway, born 2nd August 1913 at Irlams o’th’ Heights (Salford, Greater Manchester), was aged nine in 1922 at the time he and good friend Leo had this unknown encounter.

Five years later Richard would be leaving school and not wanting to work in the mine or mills and being highly selfmotivated began knocking on doors looking for work in engineering of some sort. His search took him to the doors of the impressive Metropolitan Vickers concern at Trafford Park. Here he became skilled as a draughtsman before getting more involved with the massive electrical engineering projects that were involved in power generation, railways, mining and many other fields. As a result, he also got a good grounding in mechanical engineering.

Through his own perseverance he succeeded in becoming a Fellow in the Institute of Electrical Engineers.

During World War two, he was involved in the development of mine sweepers at sea using systems involving high currents to produce surges of magnetism to detonate mines. At the age of forty he made the move to the NCB (National Coal Board) as Chief Electrical Engineer for the Wakefield and surrounding areas where he was involved with improving the mines electrical systems and designing and overseeing installation of mineshaft winching systems and pit head gear. He also was involved in the sad tasks of investigating mining explosions at Walton and Normanton collieries.

At the age of forty-nine he moved to Qualter Hall, carrying out similar work but this time on a more global scale. Here he became Technical Director culminating in becoming Executive Director when British Steel Constructions took over the company.

Richard always was a proper gentleman, very precise, articulate and not one to make stories up. Reading his memoirs, it seems he never spoke much about this event but he must have thought about it a great deal. As time passed and he was getting older, he had the conviction to include this story in those pages so that it would not be lost should the worst happen. Richard passed away in his very late eighties.

Looking at Google maps, the area where this encounter took place somewhere between the end of Bank Lane towards the River Irwell was described as fairly rural and near the Agecroft Colliery. Now, it is the site of a large industrial estate as far as the river. Heaton Park and Drinkwater Park are still in existence and very much as they were. THE ENCOUNTER

The following is taken verbatim from Richard Hathaway’s memoirs, and it is the first time it has been published anywhere.

“The story you are about to read is true, even though some small discrepancies may have occurred over the time which has elapsed since the encounter took place. At this time, I lived with my parents and brothers in a small terraced house at the bottom of Prestwich Street in the village of Irlams o’th’ Height which overlooked the Irwell valley. The A6 road bisected the village. Bank Lane ran down from the A6 to Irlams o’th’ Height railway station down in the valley. The road ended under the railway bridge. On the other side of the bridge were a couple of pastures, probably a quarter mile in length and very narrow, known locally as the “long fields”. One could traverse these fields on the way across the valley to Prestwich, in which district there was located Heaton Park. Heaton Park boasted a magnificent lake in which were five islands. This place was a magnet in summer for many schoolchildren and although about four miles from home, a goodly number of children from our side of the valley visited the park during holiday times.

 I had a particular school friend by the name of Leo Parkes at this time. We were both nine years old when the encounter took place. Leo and I had planned to visit Heaton Park on my birthday, Wednesday the 2nd of August 1922, weather permitting, and spend a day there, intending also to have a couple of hours on the lake and explore the islands. We intended to set out at about 9.30 am and mother prepared sandwiches for us for the day and bottles of lemon drink prepared from crystals.

Came the day, we duly set off down Bank Lane seeing that there was a mist in the valley. It seemed to be thicker over the “long fields”, but we attached no importance to this. When we were well in the fields, we were amazed to see in the mist a very large cylindrical shaped object, rather like a long pipe with cone shaped ends very much like the nose of the Concorde plane. Its total length must have been all of 150 feet and was probably 20 feet in diameter. We thought at the time that it was probably something to do with the nearby Agecroft pit (colliery), a regular haunt of hours, so we decided to investigate.

As we got closer, we saw it appeared to be resting in mid-air, about 3 or 4 feet from the ground. As we came round the end, we saw that there were lots of holes, about 12 inches in diameter in the end cone and several tundish shaped objects beneath the main body. We also saw that a suffused light came from this side. We felt no fear and decided to approach closer. When about 20 feet from the structure, we saw a large door slide open and people moving inside. They were about five feet six inches tall and dressed more or less identically in two-piece suits with tunic collars, except that the clothes were in many soft colours. A few wore a head-dress resembling a small turban. It was easy to observe that there were two sexes: one looked more gentle and I thought of these as ladies. The “men” looked sterner but still gentle and kindly in appearance. They were all slim in build and some of both “sexes” had distinctive white rings round their sleeves, which both Leo and I took to be some kind of rank. Their faces and hands looked delicate, their faces being oval in shape, with large eyes and ivory skin, very pleasant and slightly oriental in appearance. Two people, one of each “sex” came to the large opening and beckoned us to come closer. I personally felt no fear and later, Leo said that he also felt no fear. As we approached, we felt we were walking up a ramp, although we saw nothing.

As we stepped inside, we were astounded to be addressed by the lady in English: “Welcome Richard and Leopold to our ship.” They shook us by the hand and showed us round this large room in the centre of the craft. There were a number of control panels which would be called consoles today, people reading instruments and others lounging around on the couches and tables. They told us this room was a common room and that each person on the vessel had a small private lounge-come-bedroom. Our two guides took us into a small room, sat us down in front of a screen and appeared to be projecting images of our insides onto the screen. They did not assault us in any way. They then took us on a tour of the other rooms, including their own private quarters. Each of the private quarters comprised a lounge with table, a couple of chairs, working desk, bookcase and various other bits and pieces. There was also a large screen on which country scenes were being projected. We recognised some of our own immediate surroundings. A curtained off alcove contained control gear which we were informed were for driving, navigating and steering the ship. Other rooms were for controlling their armaments. Most of the control gear was way over our heads and, as I recognise now, consisted of push buttons, indicator lamps, digital and analogue instruments, mimic diagrams and screens showing the actual operation of the particular plant being controlled. They told us that the prime movers for the electrical generators were “nuclear fusion” devices as opposed to “nuclear fission” devices which the authorities on this earth would probably use for providing their energy sources in about the next 50 or 60 years. All this has come true. They said their system was intrinsically safe, whereas the system which would be used on earth would be flawed.

As far as the actual armaments were concerned, I got the impression that a length of a beam of destructive light was fired out of the openings in the cone ends towards the object they were attacking, this beam (consider it like a shell fired from a big gun) being controlled from one of the small rooms. The lethal beam could be controlled in speed, direction and manoeuvrability.

We asked what the ship was made from. They said it was a special ductile, incorrodable substance mined on their planet, and when finished it was many times the strength of steel. We asked how they knew our names when they asked us in. They said they knew by a system of thought transference they had perfected between themselves and found out our names by intercepting our thoughts after we

entered the ship. They pointed out that not many persons were actually speaking to each other but were in fact communicating with each other by thought transference. We asked if it was their intention to make war on us. The reply was “Definitely not.” They said their planet was dying; the total number of people on their planet was now only three million and they were looking for a planet similar to ours but as yet unpopulated by humans. They thought our planet was overcrowded already and the people in general were very aggressive to each other as compared with themselves. They said they came from another galaxy, but in the universe the number of Galaxies was without end and many other planets in other galaxies were inhabited by many strange creatures, living in unbelievable environments.

Creatures from planets from other galaxies, of unimaginable appearance had been spying on each other (except for us) from time immemorial. They said that our earth would start spying within 100 years. They said they had visited this planet over a hundred years ago.

Their planet, they told us, was light years away but they had perfected a system of place and distance transference which accounts for millions of light years in hours. They could not enlighten us any further as the human brain was not sufficiently developed.

Being just a couple of kids, we were overawed by what we had seen; we did not ask anything further. We could have asked many more questions, but remember, we were only a pair of children left in a state of wonder. They gave us some fruit and a shoulder hug and then set us down to the outside. As soon as we left the ship the great door closed, and the ship rose rapidly in the sky.

We walked back to where the ship had been but there was not a trace of it ever having been there, only a few cows and ourselves looking in wonder.

Our day at Heaton Park was now off, so we decided to spend the rest of the day on the riverbank in Drinkwater Park, Prestwich Clough.

We decided to keep the encounter to ourselves for fear of being laughed at. I have not heard from Leo for the past 50 years, so I have decided to set the matter down in writing for the first time, as I am now 83 years old.

I think the ship we entered that day in August 1922 would on reflection be called a UFO/UAP (Unidentified Flying Object/ Unidentified Ariel Phenomena) today, but at that time we had never heard of such things, and they were beyond our comprehension. I could not really analyse my feelings at the time, and for many years searched my mind for a reason for the encounter. Much later in life I accepted the fact that the great object was indeed not of earthly origin.

This account is set down as it happened and is a true story. The reference to nuclear power words, fusion and fission, earlier in this article is my interpretation of what they told us. They did not use these actual words.”

Before I say anything, I would like to thank Stephen for allowing me access to his wife’s grandfathers close encounter report. Stephen has showed me both parts of Richard Hathaway’s memoirs and the section marked at ‘THE ENCOUNTER’ is far longer than any other of the items he covers. It was obviously of great importance to him. These after all were his own self-published memoirs and the one I have seen was personally signed by him to his granddaughter. This goes to show that only a handful of people will have ever seen this account in writing before.

Of course, Mr. Hathaway knew the date of the encounter as it was his birthday and like many such witnesses who have followed in his footsteps he didn’t want to tell anyone about it for fear of ridicule. There are some differences in this account which does not surprise me at all. The description of the creatures is very unique and very different from those reported today. The interior of the craft is also very different, especially the furniture. The importance of this event to Mr. Hathaway is obvious for all to see. He was after all including it in his own self-published memoirs and it takes up far more space than anything else he covers.

Accounts like this have long been of interest to me and of course ufologists in our community. Now I know Richard Hathaway was 83 when he wrote it but there are no signs of problems with his memory when writing his memoirs. For example, he even uses a word that I personally have never heard of before, that being ‘tundish’. Look it up and see for yourself what it means. We must remember that this story takes us back to a very different era. For example, children at his age (nine) did indeed trek a few miles on their own to play in the park. Mr. Hathaway would not of course have been exposed to science fiction stories on TV or the movies and therefore could not have been influenced by them.

There is of course no way that we can identify what exactly happened to Richard Hathaway and his friend Leo back in August of 1922. All I can say is that this encounter was important enough for him to make sure that it was preserved for posterity in his own memoirs. We should thank him for that and wonder how many more such accounts have been left untold or are stored, long forgotten, in old cupboards and drawers. My guess is far more than we suspect. n

By Addiction Specialist Martin Preston, Founder and CEO at Private Rehab Clinic Delamere - delamere.com/addiction-treatment/drugs

With festival season in full swing, drug use is unfortunately very prevalent.

That’s why Addiction Specialist Martin Preston, has issued a warning for festival goers “to be extra vigilant and be able to identify the signs early on, before a hazard takes hold.”

Martin, Founder and Chief Executive at Private Rehab Clinic Delamere has shared some tips on how to recognise the signs of drug use at a festival in order to ensure safety before it’s too late. Early invention is essential to ensure the most robust chances of successful recovery. MARIJUANA

If someone has used marijuana, they could seem in a euphoric state, but they might also seem uncoordinated and forgetful. Since cannabis increases appetite, the person may eat more than usual. Reactions may be slower, and the user may also become paranoid and suspicious. Those who have smoked marijuana often appear with bloodshot eyes, droopy eyelids, and an overall relaxed or mellow demeanour.

STIMULANTS

If someone has taken stimulants such as cocaine, they may exhibit frequent behaviour changes, aggression, or rapid or rambling speech. They may display dilated pupils, increased energy, and a fast breathing rate. In some cases, users may become paranoid or hostile. If users snort the drug, nasal congestion is a common sign of use. Taking drugs like cocaine can damage the mucous membrane inside the nose.

HALLUCINOGENS

The signs of hallucinogen use vary depending on the specific drug in question. LSD (“acid”) might cause a person to act impulsively and experience hallucinations. Someone who has used psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”), may experience hallucinations, nausea, muscle twitching, and difficulty differentiating between hallucinations and reality. People on hallucinogens may appear drowsy, paranoid, or at peace, depending on the type of “trip” they are having. CLUB DRUGS

Ecstasy, ketamine, and GHB are common types of club drugs. Signs and symptoms of use include increased body temperature, poor coordination, dizziness, excessive sweating, clenched teeth, and slurred speech. These can be extremely dangerous and can lead to dehydration or even overhydration, both can be fatal. OPIOIDS

Opioids include both prescription painkillers, and the illicit drug heroin. Signs of opioid abuse include overall sedation, memory issues, inability to concentrate,slowed reaction times, lethargy, and mood swings. Since opioids can slow the digestive system, users often experience constipation and other intestinal issues. When without the drug, users may experience withdrawal symptoms such as serious anxiety. BARBITURATES AND BENZODIAZEPINES

These CNS depressants are often prescribed to treat anxiety and sleep disorders. Benzodiazepines include common medications, such as Valium and Xanax. A person who abuses these drugs may appear uninhibited, dizzy, or depressed. They may experience blurry vision, balance issues, and overall confusion. They may also present involuntary eye movements, known as nystagmus.

Martin Preston, founder and CEO of Delamere, has warned of the importance of spotting drug use early:

“If you suspect someone has taken drugs, early intervention is crucial to ensure they have the best chance at a successful recovery. At a festival, you should take them to the medical tent to ensure their condition can be monitored by professionals.

“Friends and family members may choose to stage an intervention once signs of drug use are apparent; if so, a professional interventionist can guide the planning process and the execution of the event for best results.

Loved ones should also research comprehensive addiction treatment programs. Treatment should include both medical detox and therapy to address the underlying issues related to substance abuse.”