Mine was in 1964 with my parents and little brother in a borrowed tent, which was just a square of fabric, no inner tent. We went to the Black Mountains. It was August Bank Holiday. No sleeping bags. Dad insisted that beds made of bracken would be fine. They weren't.
It was absolutely freezing. The only time I have been colder was in the Lake District at Easter.
Mum, Dad and me were kept awake by the cold, drank tea all night. Brother was practically comatose and had to be run around in the morning to wake him up. Strangely enough, they went and bought a tent thereafter.
Don't forget to leave a review of the campsites you have visited this year or last!
Very first trip was as a teenager with two friends in a small borrowed tent - 'wild' camp in a farmer's field near a stream at Rievaulx Abbey. Disaster - nobody took a stove so bread and jam - except after the first night the bread was found ravaged and outside the tent!! Packed up, walked into Helmsley went to the loo and got the bus home.
Next was as a couple - borrowed tent - no groundsheet, but with a camping gazebo stove on a basic site near Chapel St. Leonards! bad weather but the trip that hooked us and the rest is history!
2006, in a 3-person Vango tent, no EHU, tent just big enough to fit a double airbed, and very low, with my late partner, at a large independent site near Chichester with lots of statics.
We attended as part of a car rally.
That got me hooked on camping.
DK
------------- Apple The Campervan - A Van For Work, Rest & Play!
- 2027: ? NL+DE+FR
- 2026: FR+DE
- 2025: 17/77
'24: 10/49; '23: 9/47;'22: 8/46; '21: 9/34
* Ex-tenter
* Treat life events like a dog: if you can't eat it, play with it or hump it, p1$$ on it and walk away!
My earliest tenting memories from the late 1980's are a bit hazy, either all went well, or it was so bad that the memory has been obliterated.
I do remember OH going to hobby weekends with a tent and coming back filthy and often wet and cold, so I wasn't keen. And he took young S a lot, he loved it.
I started going with a girl guidey sort of friend who was a very keen cycle camper and tried to persuade me to come with her. I refused the cycling, but did consent to taking my car, and surprised myself. We did a few trips in the UK, and then in 2000 started going to France. OH joined me in 2004 when the friend moved away, and we used a tent twice a year until 2011 when we inherited some money and bought the first campervan. He uses that all the time for the same hobby weekends, and we camp in France a couple of times each year. I seldom camp in the UK, as there's little time available in between the hobby weekends....And no, I don't want to go on those.
Don't forget to leave a review of the campsites you have visited this year or last!
1st trip I can remember was with the Cubs back in the late 50's. Seems to recall we were around 6 to a tent.
Camp was set up in the orchard of the Akela's farm with some of the Scout troop helping run it.
]My first ever camping trip would have been with the Scouts, somewhere near Oxford probably in the early 1960s.
Next one would have been with a friend in his ridge tent, somewhere around Worthing in 1967.
First one in married life would have been in a borrowed Bedford Dormobile camper, touring East Anglia and Kent, in 1969. Just found this, my new wife and the camper in 1969.
Couldn't afford to buy a camper-van so we bought a tent and had a few years with that until our daughter came along in 1975. The 3 of us had one holiday in the tent in the Lake District, but we found it a bit tricky so we bought a caravan.
Post last edited on 15/01/2026 13:19:11
Post last edited on 15/01/2026 13:20:57
------------- Best Regards,
Colin
Don't forget to leave a review of the campsites you have visited this year or last!
I remeber going Camping with the Parents in the 70s, I think in a Trailer Tent, and later a Caravan. The First camping Trip under our own steam was in 1990, and a Group of Mates Drove down to Charmouth and Camped in a field in a Scattering of Two Man Tents.
As an "Adult" My wife and I had our first camping trip in 2010, and we have Camped constantly ever since.
The First Trip was around Europe, Camping in Prague, Krakow, Budapest and Zel am See, With an Hotel Stop on the way in Nuremburg, and in Dunkirk on the way home. The Tent was a Borrowed Easycamp off my parents, along with all the other kit. We met some Fabulous people of our trip, and given all sorts of advice going forward.
In Krakow, I was introduced to the Coleman Dual Fuel Stoves, which is where my Collection began (now, I have about 5 x 426 3 Burner Stoves, 2 x 424 2 Burners, 2 x Coleman 502 Single burners, 2 x Coleman 533 and Coleman /AGM 520 from 1944)
In 1947 we had gone to visit my grandmother in Calais. The house on Boulevard Curie has been damaged from the bombing. The elder chidren, my siblings and cousins, were in a tent in the garden. I was in the house with my parents.
I obviously set up a howling and footstamping to be able to join the other children. The adults relented and I joined the campers.
It was a cold night and soon I again started to howl and paddy to go back into the house.
So as a child I was quite obnoxious, a skill that I managed to maintain throughout my adult life
Must have been circa 1968 and my early teens. Neighbour (with son of my age, we were pals, but at different schools) invited me to join their family (Aunt, Uncle and much older cousin) camping trip to Wales.
Interminably long journey from London to coastal campsite somewhere near Aberystwyth IIRC, in an old Transit minibus with a smelly leaky exhaust (sure I suffered Carbon Monoxide poisoning to some degree - I didn't feel good for days!). No/few motorways back then, and a knackered old minibus, reckon that must have been an 8 hour journey at least!
Camped in relative luxury for the time, we (my mate and I) had a 'Pneumatic Tent Company Igloo' inflatable tent with integrated SIG provided for us by his family, so no creepy crawlies! BUT, it was single skinned and canvas, so near paranoia drummed into us about not touching the walls when wet! - must have been drummed in REALLY well, as here we are around 60 years on, and I still remember!!!!! One thing that fascinated me at the time was the way it was inflated, could have been done with a car tyre pump, but this was all 'High Tech' (it was sold as an extra for the tent!), a spark plug was removed from the van engine and a hose fitted in it's place, the engine started, and the tent magically erected itself pumped up by the van engine! Think it probably horrifies me now, thinking of those airbeams being inflated with PETROL FUMES!!!!!!
Can't be sure, but think the adults had a largish frame tent.
Don't recall much about catering arrangements, but no lasting memories of starvation.
My parents for sure had never been camping (I expect Dad had during the war at some point during army training/deployment, but never spoken of!), nor were likely too, so no prior first hand experience or for that matter knowledge really.
Must have been an overall positive experience, as went camping a few years later in early 70's as an adult, this time in Lake District - and with the same Igloo tent, which I borrowed. Tales to tell on that trip when the airbeam burst - but that's another story!
Been plenty of camping trips since then, in assorted tents, and for last 8 years with the caravan. From what I'm sure was a VERY basic camping intiation, can't imaging/remember showers and hot water being available (so probably didn't wash much!!!), nor fancy toilets, it started a lifelong love of camping.
PS. I've still got the Igloo tent, they didn't want it back. Burst airbeam repaired sometime soon after it burst, and been successfully used a few times since. Been dragged out the loft not too many years ago and trial erected in garden to seen if still serviceable, it was. By comparison with modern tents it's a huge holdal and weighs a ton! - more than my modern 3 room 5 berth steel poled Outwell! Probably rated as 4 berth in that optimistic way tent's are oversold, but has worked as two adults and an 8 year old, but quite OK for two adults and moderate baggage. Now quite collectable and worth a bob or two I believe.
Still camp in a tent when we do our trips to France for Le Mans 24Hr race and D-Day related events, but truth be told, they are getting fewer and rarer as age and illness take their toll on camping pals, think I'm the only one really up to it now, despite being the oldest of the bunch!
The tent my parents bought was a large ridge tent with a green and white striped flysheet. Very distinctive. It died in a gale at Salcombe sometimes in the 70s.
Don't forget to leave a review of the campsites you have visited this year or last!
Quote: Originally posted by Colin21 on 15/1/2026]
.....
Next one would have been with a friend in his ridge tent, somewhere around Worthing in 1967.
......
Somewhere likely in the late 1980s, my Dad's cousin gave me his ridge tent dating back to God knows when! - I suspect 40s or 50's!
I did drag it out of it's huge heavy bag (old army kit bag!) to give it a look over - all Kaki HD canvas and wooden poles, and NO ground sheet at all, and INSTANTLY decided that was far too basic (my camping initiation, and still in my possession being the relative ease and luxury of a PTC inflatable Igloo tent with SIG!), it seemed a truly retrograde step to consider it a viable means of camping!
Still got it tucked away in the loft, thought the flysheet may have some scope as a tarp in some form, but with a modern synthetic tarp (and probably 3x the size) in my inventory that packs up into a bag like a fat umbrella and weighs 'nothing', the ridge tent now has NO practical use to me. No doubt to someone it has historic value, and would suit a historic re-enactment group perhaps. BUT I won't be camping with it!!!!!
I was not allowed to do/participate in anything remotely risky by my very controlling parents when I was young, so I made up for lost opportunities and started to go camping in my 40s.
DK
------------- Apple The Campervan - A Van For Work, Rest & Play!
- 2027: ? NL+DE+FR
- 2026: FR+DE
- 2025: 17/77
'24: 10/49; '23: 9/47;'22: 8/46; '21: 9/34
* Ex-tenter
* Treat life events like a dog: if you can't eat it, play with it or hump it, p1$$ on it and walk away!
I remember not knowing anything about the ring and pin system, and struggled to peg down the poles into the ground!
I prepared and bought food along for the rally in a cool box without EHU, and worried about keeping the food between 2 to 8 degC all weekend.
Hence I upgraded to EHU since then.
Those were the days!
DK
------------- Apple The Campervan - A Van For Work, Rest & Play!
- 2027: ? NL+DE+FR
- 2026: FR+DE
- 2025: 17/77
'24: 10/49; '23: 9/47;'22: 8/46; '21: 9/34
* Ex-tenter
* Treat life events like a dog: if you can't eat it, play with it or hump it, p1$$ on it and walk away!
I camped with my parents and brother for a few years, went away to college in 1966. Camped with a friend in 1968 and 69. 68 was in Tenby in the peppermint, 69 in her parents' tent in Looe, which is where I met OH.
Quote: Originally posted by Mrs. Bonce on 15/1/2026
I camped with my parents and brother for a few years, went away to college in 1966. Camped with a friend in 1968 and 69. 68 was in Tenby in the peppermint, 69 in her parents' tent in Looe, which is where I met OH.
What a coincidence! As you have probably read over the years, I'm originally from Holland. In 1973, when I still lived in Holland, a friend invited me to go to Cornwall with her and her parents. They went each year and rented a static. So I went with them in July 1973, to Killigarth Manor in Polperro and I met my OH there. He was on the same site with 2 mates in a Vango Force 10 tent. We ended up with that tent after we got married and one of my earliest memories of camping in thattent was at Low Wray campsite in the Lakes.
A day of all things motorhome and campervan. The show is held both in the main indoor arena and across the grounds. Catering, hot drinks and food options are available. Easy access to the site and free parking included. Win one of five pairs of day tickets
Topic: Your very first trip
via mobile 15/1/2026 at 10:18am
