10 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT CAMPING
SOME PEOPLE THINK THAT CAMPING IN THE UK IS ALL ABOUT SITTING SHIVERING IN A DAMP TENT, TRYING TO PICK ANTS OFF YOUR SANDWICHES AND LISTENING TO THE RAIN HAMMER DOWN ON THE CANVAS. AND THEY ARE EXACTLY RIGHT. BUT WE HAD BETTER GET USED TO IT, BECAUSE A COMBINATION OF DEADLY VIRUSES, UNEMPLOYMENT AND ECONOMIC COLLAPSE MEANS WE CAN FORGET ABOUT SUNNING OURSELVES ON THE GOLDEN BEACHES OF SPAIN, OR RELAXING BY PALM TREE-SHADED HOTEL POOLS IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. IT’S A FACT THAT WE’LL BE HOLIDAYING UNDER CANVAS IN THE UK FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. BUT EXACTLY HOW MUCH DO WE KNOW ABOUT CAMPING? IF THE ANSWER IS ‘NOT MUCH’, THEN WE HAD BETTER START LEARNING. LET’S GET THE BALL ROLLING WITH… 1 FOR HIS role as Sid Boggle in the 1969 film Carry on Camping , Sid James adopted a “method acting” approach in order to get in character. The actor spent most of 1968 sleeping in a tent in the garden of his Highgate house, so that by the time filming started in October of that year, he was completely in character. His performance as a sexually frustrated 56-year-old bachelor earned him praise from many in the business and he was tipped to take the Best Actor award at the 1970 Academy Awards. Unfortunately for Sid, that accolade went to Bernard Bresslaw, who played Bernie Lugg in the same film, with Peter Butterworth, who played miserly campsite owner Joshua Fiddler, taking the award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role.
2 ALTHOUGH there is no patron saint of campers, Catholics heading for the campsite can still get heavenly help when they need it. If they mislay a tent peg, for instance, they could ask St Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, to find it. St George, the patron saint of boy scouts, could be asked to intervene if they are having trouble putting up their tent. And Saint Fiacra, the patron saint of haemorrhoid sufferers, could be beseeched to intervene if their piles swell up and they don’t have any Anusol at the campsite shop.
3 AND THE patron saint of hernia sufferers, St Conrad of Piacenza, looks after anyone who has just tried to take a soaking wet, 6-berth canvas family tent off the roof rack of their car.
4 FOUR INTO a TwoMan Will Go was to be a 2019 gang bang porn flick set inside a two-man tent. Filming was fraught with technical difficulties from the start, with the male star, three female stars, the director, the cameraman, the lighting engineer, the sound man and a fluffer all crammed into a 6-foot by 4-foot Millets CampMaster tent. When the director called ‘Action!’ there was simply no room for the male lead to get a bone on, and the film was canned.
5 IF YOU take your
tent across the Channel to France, you’ll find that camping in that country is a very different experience from camping in Britain. Time is an hour in front, everyone speaks French, and they all drive on the wrong side of the road.
6 CAMPING comes with many problems, not least of which is that there is no door to knock on when you want to attract the attention of the occupants of a tent, perhaps to borrow a tin opener or complain about their radio. According to The Camping and Caravanning Club of Great Britain, the widely accepted method is to stand by the front of their tent and shout “Hello! Knock! Knock!” followed by a short, embarrassed laugh.
7 FOR MANY years, camping scientists worked on a solarpowered doorbell which could be fitted to the front flaps of any standard tent. However, in testing, it was found that the button would only work if the fabric was extremely taut, otherwise the entire mechanism and the door itself just sagged in a bit, and the project was abandoned.
8 THE SAME scientists spent many years trying to develop a letterbox that could fit into a tent, allowing campsite owners to pop in leaflets about camp shop opening times and cafe menus. However, under testing, all the spring mechanisms developed proved too heavy and caused sagging of the canvas. This, along with the inability to get a 100% waterproof seal led to the
research being abandoned.
9 DUE TO its unpleasantness, for most people, camping is a holiday activity limited to just a couple of weeks each spring or summer. Scouts founder Robert Baden-Powell reversedthis trend, spending fifty weeks each year under canvas, only coming in the house for a fortnight when he was on his holidays.
10 THE TINIEST ever tent was owned by the world’s smallest man Calvin Phillips. The lightweight 2-man ridge tent measured just 8” at its highest point, and packed down to fit into a rucksack the size of a Weetabix. Whilst camping in it, Phillips and his wife – the world’s smallest woman Ada Phillips – slept in sleeping bags the size of McDonald’s
Apple Pies.