More 'The Joy of Wild Camping'

This time it's an article by Chris Townsend on wild camping and why anyone should ever want to to it.

I like his references to childhood, the creation of dens and camps. As a young child I used to make tents from my parents' towels - much to their annoyance no doubt - tying my father's garden twine onto the corners to attach homemade wooden tent pegs, all held aloft by my mother's washing line.  I think my influences for this came from the 1974 Swallows and Amazons film, and my father's reading of The Hobbit by Tolkien to me.

I can also relate to the references to our nomadic past. Seeing the happiness of my 18 month old son as he sat under a tarpaulin that I rigged for him in the sitting room on a recent rainy Sunday got me thinking. We'd never done that before, but as he sat covereded by his duvet with his toy dinner/cook set he seemed most comfortable. I wondered if the experience of being in a shelter with a cover over ones head, was maybe hard wired deep into our psyche or subconscious harking back to our ancient nomadic past.

Anyway, enough of my musings - here is Chris's article

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