archive entry: 4th September 2011Naturism dances2 a whole new tune @Abbey House Gardens!Britain's young naturists go to da House!

September 4th, 2001 was an awesome day, true?  

The sun shone on the righteous, lol, for the swan song of this naturist summer at Naturist Heaven .......a.k.a. Abbey House Gardens.   

A swan song for the weather, yes!   

But for naturism and its future, it was an epic, resonant overture.  

It started with a question…. is naturism just another form of retirement home?  

Well, yes, actually, but not all from a negative standpoint. Kevin Porter very interestingly told me yesterday at the Gardens that, although he has always espoused nudism, he had only done so socially for the past few years. Of course he wished he had done it earlier and feels that that applies across the board.

So, have we always been this way? Would we have all loved to have “done the rounds” in our 20s and 30s, only for priorities to stand in the way, like security, a career, a family, a home, multifarious ancillary responsibilities, ego issues and what with strikes last Tuesday, Arsenal in the Cup and the state of the economy etc etc etc?

I think Kevin has a point and the obvious conclusion is that many naturists take up the lifestyle late because default of all the above leaves a vast hole in their lives to fill.

Another prime mover in the dearth of the teen and tweenie element in nudism is probably our obsessive society. Those age groups these days are pied-Pipered into a virtual reality world where you are your brand, or nothing. There are no "Lacoste boobs," no "Nike skin," so naturism is antipathetic to the younger generations’ lifestyles. The Naturist Foundation has the right idea, allowing dressed teens among kids (who you can’t keep the clothes on) and older nudists (who are past caring) in a rather odd dressed crab sandwich called “clothes optional”.

But it is my understanding that too many clubs are far to strict on enforcing nudity; hence no younger members.

Another own-goal is the blanket discouragement of the “single male” as is he were some lascivious pseudo-rapist. Damn, I am a single male and the chance for me to do something untoward would be a miracle of biblical proportion.

The point I am making is the result of this “ban” and I am not sure if the clubs are being illogical or simply deviously clever. Like it or not, men and women are equal but they are not the same, and thank the Good Lord for that! I  love my fmale friends , but I would hate to think the highlight of an evening out would be to chat up the likes of Daryl, Steve A, Richard and Rick, LOL!

The background here is cultural usage. The parameters are: most older naturists are married; most younger nudists are single. Therefore, singles tend to be the younger element. Moving on, since I awoke into this firmament, it has been clear to me that, traditionally, the male leads socially and the female follows, like it or not. So….. if the single male is banned from “leading” then consequently there will be no “single female” to follow.

Ergo, the “retirement home” status quo is protected from disturbance by those noisy youngsters.

Misunderstanding or deliberate?

It does seem to me that the young brigade need to break away from the old school.

Hearteningly this trend was all too apparent at Naturist Heaven yesterday, when the Alexs, Daryls, Mollies of the world provided a new source of energy that can only bode well for our future.  Since a minor coup d'état, Andrew has released himself from the CCBN shackles to say all the right things he always believed in; the Channel4 camera crew were both unobtrusive and positive. The keywords were tolerance and compromise. There has always been a “nude-or-nothing” caucus among the BN elders, which is not conducive to the naturist principles of tolerance and all-acceptance. Here it was clothes-optional, which is surely the democratic way, in the literal (consensual) sense of democracy.

The new drive is focusing now through the universities, where it will be met with newly-liberated, educated, inquiring minds. It has always been a tradition, even in my university days, that young social events and activities were started by students and others then followed.

The country will also be scoured for minor Abbey House Gardens’s, an interest of all generations, but infinitely more young-person-friendly that the cyclopic club circuit.

Also a catalogue of venues for non-lascivious discos (not Steamy-Specs's no-dress-code variety) is being investigated, with positive naturism-sensitive management planned.  Daryl and I are already looking towards out-of-season parties and dances.  We have a venue, in Brighton, but it will take time.   Then maybe eventually .....a YBN roadshow?  Why not!  

The missing persons? The dinosaur societies, the nudist clubs! They and the BN old school will be left to their self-locking devices. They have a very important, indispensible role to play…. but not in the new world.

And all of this will not be naked; it will, as I said above, be clothing-optional, a complete break with traditional BN prejudices. That allows naturists and their non-nudist friends to share our wonderful lifestyle together. Who knows; naturism may in time cease to exist as a word as we become gradually homogenised.   

Then one of our main visual barriers,the “-ism” of being naked, will be removed.

So, yes, naturism as we know it is an old person’s retreat. But….. soon it will be naturism as it is forgotten.  

The new wave is rolling on to our shores.  

Thank you to Amanda, Rakhee and the ZKK crew for such a positive, pro-active, unobtrusive atmosphere you created, which only enhanced the visitors' confidence in your impending programme and not least increased confidence in ourselves and our community.

Thanxxx2 Andrew for pulling the carriage for this whole affair and for representing our lifestyle in the only way it can do to sustain itself.  

Thanxxx, too, to the clothed visitors for being such a heads-up important part of the meeting of lifestyles  

.....and of course thanxxx2 Ian and Barbara for as ever providing the unbeatably perfect surroundings for the day and the concept.

Especially thanxxx2 Alex, Mollie, Daryl and all the younger guys, for the ideas, for being the power-source and the energy and for leaving me (us) with breath-defying optimism for the future of our lifestyle.

Oh.... and for being the beautiful new generation of UK naturism.  Luv'U'all!

All is cool in out here in Naturist Country. 

Will Golden reflects on British Naturism Day at Holkham Beach

Well my good friend, Joeberks (InTheBuff), came up with the wheels, punished overall by the whiplashes of a 240 mile round trip.

How off the beaten track is this venue? Well, Satnav's dulcet tones left us at Wells-next-the Sea, whence we had to take further directions (twice), arriving after a further round-trip at about 1:45pm. The powers that be kindly warned us of the ample hike from Lady Anne's Drive carpark, but failed to advise us that there was what seemed a further 2-mile walk from the BN beach campsite to the sea itself. It is the first nudist beach I have ever visited that is wider than it is long! Knowing that the Wash (just up the road) is notorious for it's 20-mile tides, one kept an ever-vigilant look at the long-distance tidal threat to the tentsite. Having never visited the Sahara, I have not seen so much sand.

The usual suspects were there to keep us well fuelled with tea and to cajole us into beachvolley, unsuccessfully in my case (injured reserve; sprained ankle). The refreshment tent was kept busy by over a hundred supporters who largely simpered back to their solitary retreats in the dunes and their exposed windbreaks on the beach itself. Yes, the wind was reasonably strong, so much as to sow the grain of my quinoa lunch across the beach. Next year's maize harvest should be a bumper crop!

The wind had other victims. There had been a proliferation of greenfly in these parts over the months and the email message had obviously reached harlequin@ladybird.eu. The beach was infested with millions of our colourful European invaders, with the xenophobic wind tossing them repetitively on their backs in a humorous flail of tiny legs. The main worry was not the inconsequential nips and bites, but how many made their involuntary way into our lunches.

A changing weather forecast, no matter which website you counselled, turned out to be pessimistic. High cumuli teased us throughout but it was very simply a sunny day at the beach, despite the wind. Considering the North Sea is one of the Northern Hemiphere's coldest seas, rumoured to supply Tesco with ready frozen mackerel, the water was as a warm jacuzzi. Punctuated with the occasional splash of the youthful fry of naturism's future shoals, a keen crowd of BN human basking whales and porpoise dotted the shore line and was ill-advisedly coerced into a hearty photographic run from the sea. Frighteningly, this is due to adorn the pages of next year's Country and Coast magazine with local historic images harking back to naked Vikings, charging and hollering in a coastal invasion.

The peaceful image of the traditional British Naturism day therefore took on a temporary more boisterous hue that eventually saturated into the calm of a warm evening, tempting so many to stay beyond their scheduled departure.

As the sunny day dozed gilded towards 6pm, I reluctantly folded away my tent and headed back with Joe via the concrete and tarmac confessional boxes to financial penance. The thought prevails of a place in the sun beyond maps, where even the most diligent creditor could never find his David Livingstone.

And yet, Holkham Beach remains enchantingly an escape TO rather than an escape FROM.  

archive entry: 30th August 2008The Naturists at Shoreham Beach

The last weekend of August 2008 summed up Shoreham for me.
I thought I would record it for posterity!

opening diary entry: 12th November 2010Back to Nature. Shoreham called to me!

There wasn't much left!

My two nephews were grown up and there was just my sis n me. I was born sexually neuter so I never had my own kids. I love my sis, but naturally not as a lover. And there was never anyone else. I don't have the anatomy, the hormones or the mindset. The nephs were the way out, the way forward. I became a foster father. I did a good job I guess. But it had to come to an end.

That's when it hit home. I was still Edward Scissorhands. I was back in a society that felt the need to beat me down when they knew about me. Running up Buck Palace Road, hit by three cars wasn't the answer.

I couldn't even die, just bruised.... inside and out! So it was a long road of ridicule and abuse ahead.

I thought I might just get it over quickly. Where better for the nation's only natural Ken doll than a nudist beach, where the ugly truth would be venomously punished by a lynch mob.

I chose Shoreham Beach. Why not Brighton? Fate I guess! I stepped out like a lamb in a wolfpack. A neutered lamb too, not even breeding stock, only good for the food chain. I walked, waited.... nothing! Well, ok, not strictly true! The beach is twice the length of Brighton Nudist Beach, but it took me an hour to reach the far end. Beaten up? .......No!

I wasn't ready for this. One by one, the basking nudists, cast against the stormwall soaking up the suntrap, engaged me, not in abuse, but in chat. I'm different, so very different, but nobody mentioned it. To them the hot weather in April was a far bigger surprise. Where was I from, had I been here before, they didn't recognise me! Well you would think they should if they knew me? A mixed crowd, single guys, several couples or groups of naked sexagenarians, one or two families, even with kids.

The kids would give me hell, right? Hell, no! I was tempted to ask, "Can't you people see, I'm different, disabled, inadequate?" But I couldn't. I couldn't ruin their day by embarrassing them. Maybe they didn't notice! Blind, dazzled by the sun?

No it wasn't that at all. It was something I had never imagined in my life before, something I had never experienced out there in mainstream Babylon society, with its sexual obsessions and its penis elitism. These people, these naturists, were treating me as just another guy on the beach. .......which I was!

Yes, I was no different, because we all had something in common. We were all naked on a beach. And I am still no different, because I never left Shoreham Beach. That beach came with me everywhere. It accompanied me to Abbey House Gardens, on the World Naked Bike Rides, to Studland, Holkham, the Naturist Foundation, on the TV in the Great British Body. It danced with me at Starkers and Nudity, the naked discos.

Now I rarely visit its home on the south coast. But we are never far apart. Shoreham follows me everywhere, because I am just another guy on its beach!

Join me sometime and you will hear its waves rolling intimately in the background!