Sunday, August 28, 2011

Beware the future

This is about canals, but not yet.

First what is this place?

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A car park?  A van showroom?  No a Campsite.  At least it purports to be.  It is the Folkestone site of the Camping and Caravanning Club.

For over 20 years we have been members of this august institution, but I’m feeling less and less a part of it because it has become over run with people who don’t want to touch grass.  This camp site is one of the very few that doesn’t permit caravans, but even then it is becoming overwhelmed with motor homes.  In deference to them the club has put in all those hard standings you see in the picture.    How do you hammer a tent peg into that lot?

How long before some bright spark suggests that they concrete over the whole lot to save people getting their feet wet walking to the operating theatre clean toilets?   Maybe then they could think of putting a roof over it to keep out the rain.  The monthly glossy club magazine devotes about four times a many pages to reviews of tow cars as it does to tents.

There is one advantage.  After about 8 pm it’s lovely and quiet because the others are all inside watching telly or DVDs. So we can sit outside and watch the sunset in peace. No ball games or frisbees though – not allowed.

We like to consider ourselves to be superior beings because we have tents.  Quite a few tents actually, a two person, a three person, a four person,  - and another two person I had forgotten.  Well they are cheap and we like them.  This year we camped for the Cambridge Beer Festival in one of the two person tents, the sort you have to crawl into.  Last summer a week in Shropshire in our very unfashionable 4 man tent made of good old cotton canvass.

I have to confess though that we also have something which is not really a tent but a sort of shed on wheels.  This to us is as a luxurious as we ever want to get and we even feel guilty about having gone this far.  Meet our trusty 15 year old Dandy folding camper modelled by Grace on her first ever camping trip last week.

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Note that we are on the grass.  The “Holiday Site Manager” (they used to be called Wardens), offered us a hard standing.  I nearly spat, but he was quite a nice man.

“What has all this to do with canals?” you ask.  Well it’s the creeping luxurification and sterilisation of what is essentially an outdoor pursuit.  If you read the boating mags now you’d think boating was all about luxury kitchens and wet rooms, underfloor wine stores and electrical gadgets.   Its hardly likely to attract people who appreciate wildlife and industrial archaeology and just messing about on the water.  This will inexorably lead to people demanding more gentrification and sanitisation of the canalscape.. Already there are people complaining about trees along the towpath.  It’s the thin end of the wedge.

PS should you see Herbie out and about around Braunston this week, shout “Hello Rick /Marilyn” for they will be in charge while we rest at home.

6 comments:

Andy Tidy said...

Neil
I found the Yorkshire waterways a refreshing change where the boats were shorter, older and generally less sophisticated - but also much used and much loved.
We had a trailer tent too but sold it when we got the boat. I never felt the Caravan Club liked tents unless it was an awning attached to a lump of plastic! They certainly hated groundsheets....

Vallypee said...

Is anyone allowed to have a camp fire these days? My brother used to have a trailer tent like yours. They used it for years, but I've only ever camped in two man tents and built camp fires to cook on. I do wonder whether this would be permitted in these days of health and safety mania.

Mike Muir said...

Comment from a stranger in a strange land!
I started camping with the (UK) Boy Scouts, when I got hooked on motorcycles I still camped (my 1967 bought Black's of Greenock tent is still with us!). Moved continents, and now have 3 tents all about the same size by body count! We also have a tent trailer, which will sleep 6. Over the years (34 here in Canada) we have noticed a drift to motorhome "camping" but most sites still have spaces for regular tents. Last week we spent 3 nights at a Provincial park with 3 of my neices, using the tent trailer plus 1 of our tents, on a grass site. Wonderful break, bathrooms were clean with loads of hot water, and relatively uncrowded due to the motorhomers not wanting to walk.
Mike in Garnet, Ontario, operator of Garnet's slowest Triumph, 1956 TRW.

Unknown said...

I heard the Government are floating (excuse the pun) an idea to increase moorings for affordable family homes along the waterways and am wondering how that will change the landscape.

I have a little CL (max 5) site here at Farleigh Wood. We do have a hard-standing but I always encourage people to park in the grass whenever possible. I assume they are like me and do not want to be lined up like a regiment; looking into each other's windows

The only problem is we don't have an on-site toilet; it is a short walk away.

Sarah said...

Couldn't agree more Neil as you might have guessed!
Particularly disappointing that its the Camping and Caravanning Club as they we suggested to us as a less sniffy alternative to the Caravan Club when we had our much loved 1974 CF Dormobile.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful to see Grace out camping. Bet she was so excited by it all!
We've just had a great few days in touch with grass at the Towersey festival - lovely music, countryside, company..
When are you taking Grace and Jacob to Towersey then? :-)
Carrie