“My wife says, ‘Camping is a tradition in my family’. It was a tradition in everyone’s family until we invented the house.” I often think of that joke by American comedian Jim Gaffigan when I’m lying in a tent at night, the rain hammering away beside me.
We’re off camping again, among millions who will take advantage of our non-ability to go anywhere hot without hassle by sitting under a canvas, wearing two jumpers at night and trying to find a comfortable position to read with a head torch.
Like many fellow metropolitan ponces, my destination of choice would be the south of France, one of the push factors being that England is so expensive to holiday in. With just 250,000 second homes compared to France’s 3 million, our summer housing market manages to be more acute than our normal kind.
And so we go back to nature.
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Britain, and England in particular, is very urban. It is the most cultivated, and most artificial of countries, with a population almost uniquely disconnected from nature. This explains our extreme sentimentality towards animals — at the time of writing the alpaca is still alive — and our romantic ideas about the countryside, which co-exist with a callous indifference to its destruction, both of native species and river life from pollution.
It also explains why we are such a nation of campers, despite having a climate almost comically unsuited towards the pastime. Camping has proved a strangely resilient form of holiday, despite people having more disposable income in general, and more distant trips becoming affordable. Our family never went camping as children, and I don’t even remember friends who ever tried it, yet almost every parent I know now does it, often quite regularly.
It's a particular social scene very popular among certain London types, the people who bring hummus to Clissold Park picnics, who buy their daughters those illustrated books about empowering women, who might actually drink Brewdog’s Barnard Castle Eye Test beer, who have great taste in food and culture and terrible taste in politics. At some of the bigger campsites, such as Eweleaze in Dorset, huge swathes of Haringey, Islington and Hackney can be found. It’s like a seasonal migration of north Londoners, watched by anthropologists who are so impressed that they all manage to find their way to Weymouth each year, in search of fresh-baked artisan bread and yoga.
Yet camping in itself is one of the most classless of past times. Unlike foreign holidays, where some people go to Andalusia or the Canary Islands and others to Tuscany or Provence, campsites will contain all multitudes. Probably uniquely, it’s where you meet all the English, all together, in their natural habitat, which explains the special atmosphere, a shy friendliness. This has been the case since the craze started at the start of the 20th century, when after the first British camping club was formed its president noted how “almost every division into which society in England is split has contributed to the ranks of the Camping fraternity of today”.
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But is it actually fun? I’m not sure. The first time we went camping was with a young baby, which I highly recommend. There’s nothing like being woken up by a piercing scream at 4am, a scream that also wakes up your neighbours who will spend the whole day resenting you. You’re still drunk, because it’s impossible to sleep on the ground otherwise, and you’re also wearing all the dry clothes you brought because it is so cold. And the ground is all wet and dewy when you step outside. And the toilet is… well, the toilets.
That first camping experience was on “eco” site, which means having the inner glow of saintliness while visiting a toilet which is literally just a medieval-style mound of excrement covered with sawdust. The perversity of paying money to live as our ancestors did, in an age of rampant fecal-oral diseases and sheer squalor, is a mystery.
It’s a hugely popular British pastime despite everything being completely at the mercy of the elements. On one of our earlier trips, I spent the entire first night holding up the tent as the rain and wind crushed its feeble structure, water coming in. In my other hand a beer, doing that British thing of pretending the rain doesn’t make everything completely shit. That this is, technically, a holiday. Not for the first time, I wondered, I could literally be at home on my sofa, warm and completely confident in centuries of advancing plumbing technology.
Clearly it has its challenges, yet for the children it is a small taste of the freedom that my generation of neurotic parents has largely denied them, a real-life Famous Five/Hardy Boys adventure. As for parents, I’m not convinced anyone actually enjoys it. Once while at a Eurocamp I remember a Belgian family opposite us, with three young blond children, and a bedraggled blond dad who spent the entire time lumbering up and down, carrying things, looking after children, applying sunscreen, chopping. He didn’t smile once the entire week, and inside was probably muttering “living the dream” sarcastically in Flemish.
But then the rain clears, and the children quieten down, and you get to stare at the fire. If I were going to come up with some cod-evo psych explanation, then I suppose it most mirrors the environment our species grew up in, with large groups sitting around a flame with only the stars above — always the most hypnotically beautiful moment of the holiday. It’s a completely fake, ersatz form of traditional living, which is of course the best kind.
In his landmark television series Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski made the point that “the largest single step in the ascent of man is the change from nomad to village agriculture”, something he ascribed to “an act of will” by mankind. So why on earth are we desperate to go back? Well, like most ancient traditions, it’s an invention of the Victorians.
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There were long ago enthusiasts for getting back to nature, including Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, or Life in the Woods in 1854. A keen camper, he once built a campfire that was so successful it ended up burning down 300 acres of wood. There was also John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club and once camped with Theodore Roosevelt, an event which inspired the president to build America’s system of conservation.
But by far the most important figure, and the man called the inventor of modern camping, was Thomas Hiram Holding, whose 1908 work The Camper's Handbook was the founding text of the movement.
Holding had been born in Shropshire in 1844. His parents were Mormons, which at the time was a very recent movement and considered a dangerous cult, one that practised polygamy. The Mormons had originated in upstate New York but after repeated attacks from neighbours trekked en masse to the safety of Utah. Popular with the then largely Anglo-American population in the northeast US, it also attracted converts from the UK and even today Mormons are overwhelmingly of English ancestry.
Yet the trek across America was brutally tough, and for the Holdings it would be heart-breaking; they lost two of their four children on the journey and the devastated family returned to England. But the unfathomable awfulness of the American trip perversely gave Thomas a great love of the outdoors. He had first experienced camping on a plateau overlooking the Mississippi river and sought to recreate the sheer natural beauty of this experience back home.
In Britain, the new interest in the outdoors was specifically linked to urbanisation. In the 1870s and 1880s the cost of food plummeted, mostly due to the opening up of huge areas of North America to farming, as well as improved storage and transportation; the countryside in England, long in decline, further emptied. “As fewer people lived in the countryside, memories of rural life became hazy and romanticised,” Matthew de Abaitua wrote in his history of the craze, The Art of Camping. A population that had become alienated from the countryside was now keen to create an idealised version.
In 1886 Holding went to the west of Ireland with three friends: two of the men were “fairly much married” and the other two were to “study the characters of the settled and sensible men who had become sobered and broken to the most earnest duties of life”, as he put it. A late Victorians lads’ holiday, it was arguably the first modern camping trip, and they travelled by bike, since “cycle camping” was also tied up with the new popularity of cycling.
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The cycling scene in late 19th century Britain often had a progressive and proto-feminist edge to it, and many female cyclists also took part in the Victorian women’s football movement. Unsurprisingly, then, Holding was very keen on encouraging women to camp and remarked on “How quickly they pick up the making and mounting of a tent and its appliances, the cooking and the tidying up, and how they take on the bathing.” There was even a female contributor to the Camper’s Handbook, a “Mrs F Horsfield” who described it as a break from domestic chores. Well, up to a point.
Holding began a craze that would grow to huge heights after the Second World War, always a passionate evangelist for the outdoors. Camping, he explained, “keeps old men young” and "revives his taste and love of the country”. He advised that “it enabled a man to get away from his family; or his family to get away from him for a spell” and “It makes men more tolerant of the domestic life”.
The last one, of course, is the key. People go camping so that they can appreciate home again, enjoy the absurd luxuries of a power-shower or bath, a dishwasher, a sofa, even an actual bed. It’s a very strange way to view holidays, like going to a failed state just to appreciate the transport infrastructure back home. Indeed, it’s more like a medieval pilgrimage, where the whole point is to suffer rather than simply “enjoy”.
But we do it because it’s our tradition — even if, like all the best traditions, it is entirely invented.
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SubscribeAs an American I lived for a while in England years ago and went camping (yes, in the rain and under an old-style canvas tent), and that other great UK tradition: a caravan holiday where lots of pale Englishmen sat on deck chairs next to their caravans, soaked up the sun and turned very red.
There’s a chummy companionship to UK campgrounds and caravan sites and when the sun finally appears the countryside is wonderfully green.
Camping is not quite so popular in the US although there are certainly camp sites usually run by the state or federal government. Hiking (and overnight camping) is more popular here and the guy who kicked that craze off after WWII was an Englishman called Colin Fletcher.
Fletcher served for the entire war as an officer in the Royal Marines, including a stint in the Arctic and Mountain Warfare Cadre, so he knew a few things about outdoor survival. In the 1950s he hiked the length of California one summer and wrote a book called The Thousand Mile Summer.
Fletcher’s magnum opus was The Complete Walker which is filled with all the hiking, map reading, and camping advice you’ll ever need. His approach was quite down to earth as befits a former Marine. The layer of trail dirt on your body rarely needs to be washed off because it’s ‘wholesome’. Tents are rarely required because a tarpaulin stretched between branches or sticks usually suffices. His advice regarding bears (not a problem encountered in the UK) is basically to throw something at them and tell them to b*gg*r off (black bears are rarely aggressive; Alaskan grizzlies are a different story).
I love the wilds of the US, but there is (or was) so much homely charm to the English countryside. I hope the UK preserves its natural heritage for generations of campers to come.
Ah, all the way from America. You must be familiar with the Carry On films by now. Carry On Camping, being one. Not only that those pale Englishmen turned very red, but, turned very, very red when a wardrobe malfunction of the kind as suffered by the good lady in the photo at the head of this piece happened. A still from Carry On Camping, I believe. Well, it is. But the north London family guys would be very well-read, instead, having missed the commotion as they would be buried in a good book.
Ah! I see the photo has been replaced, by one hardly more edifying than the first.
Absolutely nothing wrong with smutty humour!
“…Probably uniquely, it’s where you meet all the English…”
Well, you might just find the odd Afro-Carribbean family, but I’ll take any bet that you won’t find any families of Indian descent – not even those born and bred here for a couple of generations. I’m convinced the first day you will see an Indian family at a campingsite in Bognor Regis is the day an Indian is playing center back in the England Football team. 2357 is my current best guess.
They are too clever to pursue this nightmare of a holiday.
In my life I lived about 17 years out of camps – or ‘Camping’ Much rough, on foot or small boats, but the majority out of various vehicles, or trailers pulled by a Truck.
About 15 years ago I was living in a vehicel, we had been living in the Canada for the previous year and a half, and the second winter decided to head to the South as one winter camping without electricity in the North is fine, but a second a bit much.
We passed through this charming town in The Deep South, great Natural beauty, the people seemed nice, so I did my thing, which is construction, for a year and then headed on – but came back a couple months later as I realized that town was about as good a place as I have seen, and bought a fantastic bit of land, so much nature it is like a nature reserve, and began building my houses, and just stayed, and a few years ago I realised I just do not care to travel anymore… As a life long drifter this amazed me – but I have enough, and I just can’t be bothered – my anual trip back to UK has been stopped by covid – 2 years now, and as I am personally anti-vax, may never be able to return to my old UK – which is sad, but not that much, UK is not what it was when I left it decades ago…
As someone who lived camping as my thing – I just am not called to it anymore, I guess age. My family want me to take them on long, remote, road trips, but I seem to just be content …. The article made me nostalgic though.
Camping does put one at a local level, ( 99% of my camping was not in campgrounds). It puts one in nature unlike day visitors, it is a really good thing, I am glad I got to see the world that way – I regret wasting my life that way though – but at least I got to see a lot of stuff.
I cannot bear camping and I live in a sunny country.
Camping? Yuck.
Indeed, my last (hopefully forever) camping trip put me off it for life. Folding myself into a too-small tent for many hours during a torrential rainstorm, a torture only interrupted by frequent dashes to the facilities because the on-site food vendor’s Thai curry gave me the worst food poisoning I have ever experienced. All that in a field in Lincolnshire, surrounded by New Age types who couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to join in with their pagan sun ceremonies or learn how to make wind chimes from shells.
By the last day I was so exhausted I gave my tent to my neighbor on the condition they took it down for me, and I promised myself I would never be so foolish as to go camping again.
My husband calls camping “natures way of promoting hotels”. I hated it as a kid and consequently my kids have never experienced it.
There is nothing attractive about camping. Why anyone would voluntarily embrace the misery of it I have no idea.
Agreed! The first and last time I went camping was with the Girl Scouts when I was ten. Sleeping in tents, having to use shared public bathrooms. Even the happy campfire memories couldn’t eclipse how much I hated it all. Never again.
I have done camping. Everything about it was horrible. The cold, the discomfort, the lack of a flush toilet! Madness.
Great timely article.
ON the continent, campers often stay for many weeks and take wide screen TV’s and full size fridge-freezers, but I do agree there is something special lying in the tent feeling tentatively apprehensive as the wind and rain batter the canvas.
I guess many being former Scouts/Guides will want to relive those nostalgic memories as adults too.
In Canada ‘car camping’ as it is called is very popular – although many people now bring huge recreational vehicles to the parks. One of the attractions is that by some consensus we all let our kids go feral. The kids love the freedom and roam all over the place while the parents stay slightly drunk all day at the camp. The other real attraction is that cell phone coverage is often non-existent or spotty so you can tell your boss that you will be out of reach for the trip.
Spot-on. The added attraction for kids is the campfire, sticks, knives and all manner of other ways to introduce a bit of well needed risk into their lives..and not having to wash much is somehow always popular.
Hello Ed, very interesting meditation on camping. This makes me want to… go camping. I may try it when the weather becomes drier (but before the summer heat starts in December).
Nice observation that we have too few second homes not too many. Very Ed West for originality and insight.
Every one should have a second home
Great article. Very funny and right on the button. Camping fine for kids but I have spent enough desperately uncomfortable nights under canvas for it to have any fond memories. Worst experience was a force 9 gale on Lundy Island…Glad the previous, very cheesy, photo has been replaced.
I miss the replaced byline however. I found its characterization of the camping world as a classless utopia, and that as attractive, was spot-on. Our human existence is impoverished by everything that divides us, richer when our human communion is broadened (even when our communion consists in shared misery!). And though class predates the industrial revolution, technological existence only further divides us; see Neil Postman’s “Technopoly” on how there are always winners and losers in the wake of every technological “advancement.” (And this is to say nothing of the divides it creates between individuals within the same strata.) Therefore any sort of return to nature—including human nature, we might say—as hapless as it may be, answers a longing, becomes something of a return to Brigadoon. A place where we all get along. Which is why the replaced pic that evoked the utopic “age of love” that was the 1960s was on the mark as well. (Flag away!)
“A change is as good as a rest” as they say! I came late to camping via being late to music festivals but I think the satisfaction comes from making a little home in nature for a few days, leaving everything but the essentials behind so you can see life and even basic chores with new eyes. Best done not too often or too long I find!! Being occupied doing basic stuff somewhere new can be a great pleasure I have found, speaking as someone who has travelled via yacht and RV for 18 months including the Bahamas and the USA East coast. Saw plenty of tents in the gorgeous USA State Parks there, many accompanied by kayaks, fishing gear or deer hunting rigs of course.
This was wonderful. Whimsical yet profound. Camping does indeed promise a return to something fundamental to human existence, a promise we will chase willy-nilly, as ill-equipped or craft-less as we may be (lean-to, anyone? roofs and walls really are an impressive bit of techne: https://youtu.be/_piHZ3CpRk8). The craze probably speaks to how diseased is modernity, the product of Enlightenment abstraction from so many things but our corporeity first and foremost. Urban life didn’t always forget/destroy nature. We have the universal mechanization of life to thank for that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some drying to hang on the line. Right after a quick visit to the composting outhouse.
I cannot speak for camping but I have been on pilgrimage and one had to expect fairly basic accommodation as part of the deal..
I love the idea of other people camping. Especially on campsites so I can work out how to avoid them.