CAMPING IN COMFORT
By RICHARD FREUND
AS a tonic for townsmen, camping is supreme. Ten years ago I could not have told my best friend how I spent my week-ends. Today camping has become popular and respectable. There is a Camping Club with many thousand members, splendid offices and exalted patrons. Camping is discussed in the Press and on the wireless. All over the country one comes upon camping "sites," groups of tents placed on an open common or near the seashore. A list of such sites is issued by the Club, which is doing good work by educating its members to " leave their sites as they find them."
That, of course, is only the first lesson, the basic rule ; English campers, being new to the game, have still almost everything to learn. For example, most of them fail to see that solitude is the essence of camping. A " camp-site " turned into a caravanserai is no better, and a good deal worse, than a country inn. A place suited to one's taste and mood has to be searched for ; no organisation can do that job for you. Years ago I found such a spot, sixty miles from London, two miles from a main road, yet so completely secluded that the sweeping view over hillside and wooded valley has hardly once been darkened by the shadow of man. A few horsemen from a distant riding-school may pass by in the morning ; one or two villagers with whom we play darts at the inn may pay us a visit to bring a rabbit or a bag of vegetables ; but • though motorists stop for picnics at a gate half a mile away not one has come to our spot for years. Motorists in this country never seem to stray from their cars. The crowded highway seems to fascinate them. They move in herds, all at once and along the same routes. Even on a Bank Holiday you can have the road to yourself if you choose byways and travel at the hours when the best people sit down for lunch, tea, or dinner.
The camping equipment available in this country is designed, for the most part, with the conception that the camper likes to" rough it." I bought most of my equipment in Germany, and whatever else the Germans may be, there is no denying that they are good at gadgets. Although I carry my tent lightly under one arm, it is as firm as a house when erected. I can stand up in it, and the wind does not get in along the bottom and lift the roof, because the ground-sheet is made of one piece with the walls. No damp enters when the doors are closed, though fresh air comes in through the window, which has a mosquito net. Along the beam is a hammock that takes the clothes without creasing them. My sleeping bag is as light as down and as warm as three blankets. It has a clean linen lining, with flaps to button across the shoulders so that the cold does not wake me when I turn.
I go to bed and get up exactly as I do at home. I learned to light a wood fire even in the rain when I was twelve. It is no trouble if you know how to do it. I should probably give up camping if I could not make good coffee in the open air ; but I can.
Some time ago I noticed a newspaper competition for the most suitable food to take on a picnic. The idiotic judge gave the prize to a particularly complicated chicken sandwich. That is not the way to live in the open : you must eat better, not worse, than you do at home. Grilled or fried meat, roast or braised fowl, and fresh vegetables from the village. It may be more trouble than opening tins, but cooking is highly interesting when you have not got to do it every day. Then there is the local beer, or wine on the Continent. And it is most important to visit the village inn and make friends with the regulars. In our little Sussex place we know every one for miles around ": Jim the farm manager, who breeds greyhounds ; Jack the gardener, who was in the navy and knows all about the Mediterranean ; Tom the pig-breeder, full of wisdom on men and animals ; the gamekeepers who always beat me at darts ; the publican and his family. We know who has married, died, or bought land. We know who was down for the Admiral's shooting party during the week. We know that they don't like the new vicar because he is uppish and mumbles. I sometimes think we know more about the village than the squire in his fine mansion. It took us a long time to get accepted, but now we belong.
We know, too, the flowers and animals of the place. Once an adder was at the door when we opined it, but that' was when we took a novice who poured milk on the ground. There is a badger, a fox with a family, there are millions of rabbits and birds. Every time we discover something new in those five square miles which, for some mysterious reason, we seem to have all to ourselves. A long time ago the agent gave us permission to camp there as long as we did not disturb the game, and I do not think we have ever done that. Apart from the different colour of the turf on the spot where the tent stands you could not see any signs of habitation when we have left. And when we return, we find unspoiled nature, a view that changes with the seasons but is always one of the finest in England, and the thrill of complete stillness. We have sat out on warm nights till the stars paled, and we have cheerfully put up our ambulant home in pouring rain. It makes no difference if you are properly protected and unprejudiced against rain- water.
I strongly deny that camping is a method of "escape," a romantic flight from more normal forms of life. It is mainly a way of spending an interesting Week-end in fresh air, with good food, warmth and comfort. None of these things are to be had in an English country inn. The evenings are deadly dull, the beds are rocky, the rooms are damp and the food is repulsive. Moreover, the change from town is not striking enough. It is one thing to walk about in the rain around the tent, and quite another to step out into the rain from the porch of a house. At the inn you expect things to be as smooth as at home, with the result that you are disappointed. In camp you accept different standards without question. You get something in return. And every time you come back to town with the feeling of having been away on a long holiday.
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