My Journey into Naturism

A Short History of Firsts

By JohnGW

The earliest time I can remember is summer of 1959 when I was 15 on Dartford Heath. We were having a family picnic and I had a few minutes of nude sunbathing away from everybody, hidden in the bracken. Subsequently, I don’t remember any naturist activity until the blazing hot summer of 1976 when I was occasionally naked on our little plastic cabin cruiser on the Thames and skinny-dipped several times. This boating and skinny-dipping pattern continued on the Rivers Thames and Wey until we had our first continental holiday in France in 1981. On this trip we stumbled on the Bretignolles naturist beach in the Vendee but I only stripped off for a few minutes among the rocks as we had three generations of family with us. When we went back the following summer I did visit this beach again for nude sunbathing and swimming.

My first naturist swim was at about this time (1982). On one evening I visited a swim in Staines advertised in H&E and subsequently started swimming with other skinny-dippers at Tooting Bec Lido before official opening hours, paying when the kiosk opened as I left. After a couple of summers this stopped when Wandsworth Council decided to put heavy security fencing round the pool.

My wife's first nude sunbathing was in 1986 on the banks of the Loire when we were camping near Blois and I went skinny-dipping. My first early morning nude rambles were also made on this holiday through the maize fields and woods next to the camp site.
The next year we had our first naturist beach holiday staying at the (textile) Phare de la Coubre camp site near Royan where we took our first naturist holiday snaps. We had these developed by Bonusprint rather than take them into a shop.
At this time we started regularly camping on the South Coast near Hastings and using Fairlight Cove naturist beach but after several more textile camping holidays near nude beaches we took the next step.

This was to have our first dedicated naturist holiday - a fly-sail week on a skippered yacht. On this trip I had my first full 24 hours naked which included my first nude snorkelling, the first time other people took nude pictures of me on their camera and a first nude walk with my wife. Although she started out clothed she did relaxed later for her first nude ramble.

Our next two naturist holidays were apartment holidays on Paxos and Formentera respectively followed by our first true naturist camping at the South Hants Sun Club (since closed).

We then tried our first true naturist camping holiday at one of the camp sites in the Cèze gorge. With our usual nose for the wrong thing we chose le Ran du Chabrier, the worst of the four, which I now find has a somewhat sleazy reputation. We were either lucky or completely blind to the other activities because it did not put us off and from then on we tended to camp exclusively at naturist sites on holiday.

We also joined our first naturist swimming club in the early 90s. This was the Swansea & District Leisure Club who at the time ran a Sunday lunchtime swim at the Victoria Pool (since demolished).
When not in Wales we started having our first naturist weekends where we would be naked from Friday until Sunday evenings. This was at the Red House near Maidstone, a real-ale pub in the Kentish countryside with naturist camping in the rear and bar service direct to the nude area. Unfortunately it now has new owners who are not naturists.

Since then we have continued with winter sun in the Canaries and naturist camping in the summer until our trailer-tent died on a French autoroute, so we have now started renting chalets on naturist campsites.