‘Her phone only came out once – to film her winning Poohsticks’

Maggie Alderson and daughter Peggy, 18, slept in the woods in Hampshire and discovered a world without screens

‘Load up the 4x4, it’s festival time, we’re stuffing the cool bag with nibbles and wine…’ sang Peggy in tribute to Adam Buxton’s Festival Song (very funny, it’s on YouTube) as we set off for Hampshire for our three nights in a yurt.

I thought it wise not to explain the difference between festival camping and camping camping. For her generation, overstimulated since birth, I feared that living in quiet communion with nature – and your mother – making your own fun as well as your own dinner would be an appalling prospect.

In fact she was excited to arrive at sustainable campsite Adhurst, where the exotic round dwellings are spaced out between trees in a lovely woodland setting. Peggy ran into our yurt and out again: “It’s like the tent in Harry Potter!”

Indeed it was. Much more spacious on the inside than you would think, and furnished in high boho chic with a metal bedstead, old Persian carpets lining the walls and a log burner. With a hot-water sink and Calor-gas stove just outside, nobody was winning a Duke of Edinburgh Award here.

Yurt-owner Alison Lubbock arrived to welcome us. When I asked for tips on where to go, she seemed surprisingly vague, giving a “that way” hand gesture. We headed off in the direction of Alison’s wave into true ancient woodland, with the rattle of a woodpecker in the distance.

No guide, no map, no signs, no visitor centre, just nose and fancy-following. The path we chose took us down into a meadow with a meandering river at the bottom and a perfect Poohsticks bridge. The only time Peggy’s phone came out that day was to film her stick winning.

We got enjoyably – just scarily enough – lost on the way back, discovering a rope swing over the river and foraging wild garlic, eventually navigating our way back to camp using the position of the sun.

And that’s how it went on. Watching the leaves and bluebells unfurling a little more each hour. Lying on the bed, gazing up at the tree canopy through the window in the top of the yurt. Cooking dinner over the fire bowl (which was more of a smoke bowl until we got the hang of it), topping up the flames with handy twigs.

Even walking through the trees to the wood-shack composting privy in the middle of the night, by the light of the moon, seemed magical.

For an over-stimulated generation, sometimes less is more.