What I did on my holidays....

When you're a magazine editor, you get to cover the big events in your sphere. The editor of Golf World goes to all the major championships; the editor of Rugby World visits the Six Nations Championships and World Cup. Even the editor of What's Brewing has to report on CAMRA's Great British Beer Festival.

 Me? As editor of British Naturism magazine, I have the great pleasure of four days in Cornwall reporting on Nudefest.

 Nudefest is the big summer event staged by British Naturism (the organisation of which the magazine is a key marketing tool). Every year, in the second week of June, hundreds of BN members arrive at the normally-textile Newperran Holiday Park between Newquay and Perranporth and turn it into a naturist haven. This year was the fifth staging of the event and for the first time, it expanded from four days to a week.

 There were visits to the Newquay Zoo and nearby Blue Reef aquarium, which BN members could enjoy without clothes after the attractions had closed to visitors for the day; there was an amazing visit to Adrenalin Quarry, the zipwire ride near Liskeard where members could ride at 40mph (in the nude, remember) above a lake; there were archery and petanque tournaments, fitness classes, seminars and workshops on how to campaign for naturism and how to put across to the media the case for naturism; there was even a non-denominational Christian service on the Sunday morning to close the event, at which your blogger read from the Bible.

 In the evenings, there was entertainment including a good old-fashioned singalong around the piano and the highlight of the closing night on Saturday, the nude disco. (If you’ve never been to a nude disco and seen 50 naked people conga-ing across the dancefloor, I recommend you try it; you’ll never again see a clothed disco in the same light.)

 The weather? Oh, the weather was dreadful. Howling gales, pouring rain, glowering stormclouds, only brief glimpses of the sun which is supposed to be the raison d’etre of naturism.

 Yet we naturists are fun-loving and determined souls. A lot of outdoor events were moved into a marquee or the on-site pub (not the archery, though!) and the smiles and laughter that took hold during the evenings more than made up for the lack of daytime sunbathing opportunities.

 There were more people at this year’s Nudefest than ever before, plenty of whom were enjoying their first organised naturist experience. It would be great to see them at our big winter event, a weekend in November at the Alton Towers theme park in Staffordshire (no, we don’t use the outside rides; we just take over the giant indoor water park and one of the two hotels).

 If you’re interested in joining British Naturism as a result of reading this blog post, email me at martinwarrillow169@btinternet.com, or to get more information about British Naturism and its’ activities, go to www.british-naturism.org.uk.