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Brief essays inspired by family camping
Tom’s Field campsite
Tom’s Field is a popular campsite on the Southern end of the Isle of Purbeck, which is not really an island so much as a hearty peninsula situated on a turn-off from the holiday traffic crawling West through Dorset. Like so many of the Cool Camping selections, Tom’s Field struggles to maintain its allure...
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The Al-thing of the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift
At Whitsun, the great meeting of all the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift took place. Named the Al-Thing, it was a group camp of 60 to 70 men and women and their children in over a hundred tents, arranged in a semi-circle on a large flat common bordered by a wood.
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Kindred of the Kibbo Kift
They were the most intriguing and inspiring of English reform movements, an elite cell a few hundred strong, already nine years into their existence come the occasion of the dedication to the Long Man of Wilmington: they were the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift and they loved camping.
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Glastonbury – 10 Things to Consider When Taking Children to a Festival
Glastonbury is many things to many different people. To the hippies in the Green Field, Glastonbury is a space for spiritual enlightenment. To the kids moshing around in the mud before the Pyramid stage, Glastonbury is a chance to get wasted and listen to bands. To my two-year old son, Glastonbury is a tractor-and-lorry...
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Camping in the rain
We have been on a camping tour of South West England, beginning at the Port Eliot festival, moving onto South Penquite Farm atop Bodmin Moor, then up along the coast and over Exmoor, descending steeply at Cloud Farm in Doone Valley.
It rained all the time. It rained in the morning when the...
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Sussex days out map
We finally bought a car late last year and have spent every weekend since exploring the area. I have plotted our favourite local destinations for a family day out onto a Google map. So if you are camping or new to Sussex, here are my ideas for days out with children.
View Sussex days out...
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Keep the campfires burning
A campfire should be at the centre of any camp yet few sites allow you to set one. Sussex is well-served for campfires, with Spring Barn Farm and Blackberry Wood being the closest places to allow them.
For our annual “iPodival”, a gathering of a dozen adults and an ever-increasing haul of children, we...
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Vintage camping in 1908
I spent yesterday in the British Library with The Campers’ Handbook by THH Holding, published in 1908. A sepia photograph shows us the author at camp; he is a chunky and kindly chap, grey at the temples and with an amenable unkempt moustache, relaxing in a straw boater and collarless white shirt with the...
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Tent reviews
We went for a stroll around a camping fair held in a field at the back of Middle Farm, near Lewes. Dozens of tents were pitched for the inspection of prospective buyers, from the Vango Dart 200 – a pop-up festival tent – to the enormous Wolf Lake 7, a grand’s worth of polycotton...
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The Angry Head
It’s the beginning of Bank Holiday weekend and the traffic into Dorset crawls past accident after accident. On the verge and in the central reservation, the beautiful dandy faces of cars faces have been bashed ugly, as if set upon by jealous brutes. The unlucky participants stand around dazed, compressing bumps and scrapes with...
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