Ever wondered what happens to vehicles that expire in the roadwork sections of the M25? Approaching the M2 junction, the driveshaft broke on our hired minibus. Using the remaining momentum, I steered between the cones and waited for the free recovery truck to take us to a safer waiting place.

This turned out to be a huge compound of Portakabins, trailers and road-building equipment, spreading across a field somewhere near Darenth. We were dropped in a wired-off section with three blue cabins: one with (surprisingly clean) toilets, one with a kettle, instant coffee and tattered copies of Hello!, and a third with a bank of huge TV screens: here sat a cheerful woman with the unenviable job of scanning CCTV footage to spot stranded vehicles or accidents. All more pleasant than we'd expected - but how were we going to get out of here?  

Repeated calls to the 'breakdown and emergency' number provided by the van hire firm went unanswered. The AA promised to send a vehicle big enough to take the seven of us plus all our stuff 'within 90 minutes'. No need to move the dead van - the hire company could sort that out - and there was still time to get my boyfriend's band to their gig.

But when the AA did arrive two hours later, it was with a two-passenger van, and all the guy could do was offer a lift home for two of us and a flat-bed truck to come later to take the van and the rest.

The friendly CCTV-monitor provided a list of local taxi firms, and even phoned her mum to see if she knew anyone with a van. But the only minicab firm willing to send cars out to the depot for a run to Walthamstow said there'd be a two-hour wait even for one. At the other end, the promoter - mid-festival - tried to rustle up some transport, but could only come up with a little Polo.

It wasn't going to happen. We may have been less than 20 miles from central London, with one of Europe's busiest roads running nearby, but it might as well have been deepest, darkest East Anglia.