UNDER CANVAS

I suppose it was a lack of alternatives which persuaded us to go camping in the first place. Young children, shortage of cash for holidays, that sort of thing. So we piled everything and everyone into the car and drove into the Brecklands, full of hope, ending on a campsite in Thetford Forest about halfway between East Harling and Thetford, which had the river Thet on one side and the Peddars Way on the other.
As things turned out we loved it, and so (I think) did the boys, who could take off into the trees and do their own exploring and still be back for the next Camping Gaz meal. The weather, by and large, was dry and hot, and over the next few years, as we slowly improved our equipment and our techniques, it remained so. In fact. those summers in the late 1970s provided a series of fine holidays - tempered by only occasional downpours.
Camping remained on the family agenda for a number of years, and our range widened - the South Coast, the Cotswolds, Scotland, and even France and Switzerland. Some of this also included week-long walks along the Peddars Way, camping at night and walking during the day when it was usually hot and sultry, and sometimes with foggy and damp early mornings.
The boys grew up, and while two of them never went camping again the other two did, one maintaining a watching brief on the Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path - in terms of the official guidebook - the other, now living in Canada.
As for me, the thrill of packing stuff into the boot of a car or a rucksack, and taking off, never went away, and for several years in a row, and despite being in my 70s, I also went off for a solo camp back into the Breckland forests, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Reading, walking and exploring. It was while doing this that I 'discovered' - and I say this advisedly, as generations of folk had 'discovered' it before me - the little known church of West Harling, which nowadays stands on its own in a forest clearing surrounded (the first time I saw it, anyway) by an ocean of nodding poppies. It was breathtakingly beautiful.
My delight in solo camping finally came to an undistinguished end, however. I had pitched camp at my regular site and, the weather being fine, set off each morning for a walk in the forest. On this particular day I found myself sauntering along a long, straight forest ride with nothing but banks of conifers for company and occasional visits from songbirds, and a passing squirrel. Then, in the far distance ahead of me, there came into view a lady accompanied by a small child.
Now, I don't know if solitary 70-year-olds wandering in lonely places set off alarms or constitute some sort of a threat, but after some minutes of walking, and with the gap between us closing, I suddenly noticed that the strolling lady and child had disappeared. I walked on, puzzled, for I could not see any turning off the main track, and could not understand how they had suddenly gone from view.
All became plain when I passed the mysterious spot and noticed the two of them trying to hide in the undergrowth under the trees about a dozen yards from the track. I walked on, and after a few minutes could not resist a glance behind. Sure enough, the pair had emerged from their hiding place and were now walking away from me as quickly as they could.
I wondered what the lady was thinking, and what the child had learned that day. As for me, now nearer 80 than 70, I have never been solo camping again.