Going Bare!
John Harding
Copyright 2012 by John Harding
Smashwords Edition
Credits and License
Copyright © John Harding 2012
John Harding has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998. 
This piece of work is fiction and is released under the Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0), the full text of which can be obtained from the Creative Commons website. The work may be freely distributed unmodified and with these credits attached. The story may not be reproduced for commercial purposes, or for profit, without explicit permission from the author. 
I offer my sincere thanks to Turbo, my proof-reader, and to all the members on the British Naturism forum who helped correct the considerable number of errors in the draft text. My special thanks go to Col, Emma, Davey, Nick, Pat, Duncan and Hantsnat.
Please note that this book is written in British English.
The front cover for this book is by Dirk De Keyser and was purchased through 123RF at http://www.123rf.com/photo_14912162_warning-sign-naturist-resort-in-south-of-france.html 
Chapter I: Introduction
There is nothing extraordinary about me or my family. My wife – known in this book as E – and I met at University when I was studying for my Computer Science degree. We are both thirty and have two children, a boy who is nearly eight and a girl who is four. We live in a small town in North West England, both working full-time, and have two cars and a mortgage: in essence, quite unspectacular. There are many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of families throughout the UK who are comparable to us.
This book details our first taste of naturism as a family, when in August 2012 we packed our suitcases and travelled to France to stay for four days at the naturist resort of La Jenny, not far from Bordeaux. Naturism is something I have always wanted to do – and I talk a bit about this in the book – and something that my wife was quite reluctant to do, at least initially. We both grew up in conservative households and while we had both shed some of our “programming” and are reasonably liberal in our views now, I was far keener to ditch my clothes and run around naked than my wife.
I have tried to keep this book light to read, and fairly short. These are our experiences as perceived and recollected by me, they do not represent the thoughts of anyone other than myself and are told as candidly as possible. A large proportion of this book was written at La Jenny or shortly afterwards to ensure some degree of accuracy.
I hope that you get some enjoyment out of it and please let me know what you think. If you are a member of British Naturism then drop me a message to “john1981” on the forums.

Chapter II: The Appeal of Naturism
I cannot define any point of my life where I can say that it was then that the naturist beliefs first appealed to me. When I was younger, I had always liked to be without my clothes, especially when on my own and used to get sent to bed by my parents dressed in pyjamas. I would take great delight in removing the stripy clothing the moment my bedroom door closed and would climb into bed feeling the naked cotton sheets close to my skin. First, I remember removing my top and sleeping “topless” but as I got braver I would always like to sleep with nothing on, especially during the warmer months. It felt liberating and ever so slightly naughty. Even walking around my room unclothed felt more natural but I never understood why.
When I was nine or ten, I remember going to PGL – a week-long summer camp for kids from seven to sixteen – to engage in various activities and sleeping in a dormitory with around a dozen kids of a similar age. It was inevitable that we wouldn't go to sleep at the set bedtime and I remember a challenge being set to run around the dorm naked in the dark, illuminated by the weak light from the underpowered torches. Most of my peers completed it topless to howls of derision but I was one of two that did complete it every night and we even ventured outside the dormitory later in the week; it was a thrill. We were even dared to visit “the girls” but never did. I am not sure what they would have made of it!
I remember everyone being secretive in the shared showers or getting dressed under the duvet covers but it never worried me. I was fairly shy as a child and didn't just talk to new people easily, but I had no trouble being naked in their presence. After all, I didn't have anything different from anyone else, and why would they want to look at me when they had exactly the same anatomy?
In short, as I grew up I liked the idea of freedom of without clothes but had no idea where this came from as it was out of kilter from what I was being told – both in the playground, at home and at school. The showers at school were universally hated by everyone although I preferred to be clean instead of sweaty and being naked for a few moments never bothered me, unlike my peers.
I remember our PSE teacher railing about Page 3 in The Sun as being “soft-porn” and claiming therefore that it should be banned, and while I could have found an entire school of teenage boys who disagreed with her on this point, it would not be for the idea of promoting naturist ideals. One of my peers in class got a detention for having a magazine in school full of images of naked women; by today’s pornography-laden society, the pictures were tame, and while graphic were not sexually explicit. I think the teacher was imposing their beliefs of morality onto us, but at school the links were always being reinforced that topless – or even naked – people were objectionable. Personally, I did not agree with the concept of nudity equating to pornography, but then I disagreed with the opinions of most of my teachers, not least on the subject of homework!
My trips abroad were not plentiful. My parents were not overly rich and our holidays remained primarily within the UK. I therefore had no opportunity to experience the more relaxed attitude of other cultures around nudity. To me, it was my out of kilter hormones or anything other than it being an acceptable way of life, and I would grow out of it. Even the drunken strip poker that I played as a teenager almost served to reinforce this: stripping was to be “won” (or “lost”) and nothing else; normality, around other people, was to be clothed. 
The most naked I would ever get in public was in the summers in the mid-1990s. My friend and I would go on “bike rides” - often wearing just cycling shorts and trainers and we would cycle for tens of miles through the countryside. I would love the wind whistling past my bare chest (pre-chest hair!) and never quite understood the odd admiring glance we would get from girls walking their dogs across Cholesbury Common. It was shortly after I stopped cycling and took up beer that my frame went from tall and muscular to tall and stocky, so I probably wouldn't get the same glances now, but there was a thrill of riding through the Chiltern Hills half-naked! 
If it wasn't for the Internet, or at least the Internet in the privacy of my bedroom when I was sixteen, I guess I wouldn't have really stumbled across the naturism/nudism lifestyle. I wouldn't say it consumed a lot of my time, as that would be misleading, but I certainly read a lot about it. Strange as it may seem, the attraction of seeing naked girls, even in my most hormone-obsessed state was never really there – at least not as a primary motivation – but the thought of going bare and free through the woods or on the beach seemed incredibly liberating and powerful.
Every single story or picture on the 'net always had the subjects beaming wide toothy smiles and it was clear that they were enjoying themselves. I have always thought that the most beautiful part of a person is their smile; at its most genuine it’s intoxicating and infectious and a group of people smiling and enjoying themselves will always cause the viewer or reader to smile as well. 
However most of all, naturism looked daring, adventurous and unfettered by daily struggles. I even read the account and saw the pictures of a naturist wedding and my mind was made up that at some point (when I had money and time) I would want to try naturism to see if my Ruritanian and idealistic notion of what I thought it would be like, would meet reality.
By the time I was in my third year at University, I had come no closer to achieving my ambition. I had not lost interest but other, more important items had leapt to the top of my “to-do” list and I had my first, proper girlfriend in E. Within nine months of starting to date I was engaged to be married and within a further nine we were expecting our first child.
E was always very body conscious and aware of her appearance. I have never had anything like a six-pack or a ten-inch cock and learnt to accept what life brought. I try to keep my weight down so that I am merely stocky but E always had far more negative opinions about her body than she should have had. The thought of walking out naked in public would have scared her.
Of course I found E sexy, I have always loved to see her naked body and cuddle up to it but I know she didn't see it. At the time, she was fairly conservative, never wanting to kiss in public and always making sure she was properly attired. A cuddle in public could never involve my hands wandering, for example, no matter if there was no-one around to see it. In public, she had to remain “decent.”
A naturist lifestyle seemed even further away than ever and I would probably have said at the time it was a pipedream; like a six year old being an astronaut or winning the lottery. It wasn't going to happen and I began to see it as a nice concept that other people got to experience, but not me.
It was a trip to the Lake District to celebrate our wedding anniversary that started the thought processes again. Our room in a lovely little hotel on the banks of the beautiful Lake Ambleside was boiling hot; we were right over the kitchens and it was just unbearable. E and I both slept naked but I opened the full length French doors completely and strode out onto a small patio area that was accessible only from our room. 
I tried to entice E onto the patio and looked out into the trees; it was night-time and the light of the moon was the only illumination but I couldn't manage it. Instead, as naked as the day I was born, I sat on the grass and felt the cool air around me. It may have been October but it was a beautiful clear night and in total contrast from the hot airless room. It was refreshing.
I could have lain in the grass all night and it was, I suppose, my first real taste of naturism. I loved it, but was called back into the airless sweatbox by E; the thought had definitely been reawakened. 
My wife gave birth to a little girl in 2008 to complement the little boy we had conceived while we were at University in 2004 so money became tighter again. We were paying hundreds of pounds a month on childcare and while life was not hard, we didn't have an excess of money to spend on family trips abroad. 
I mentioned naturism to E a few times but she dismissed it and while Little Miss and Little Master are certainly exhibitionists – they have stripped off in the garden before (and at other people's gardens) and neither of them think much of wandering around the house naked – E was far less so. She would wander around our bedroom at home with nothing on but that was it. If we were to go on holiday it had to be for everyone, and not just for me.
In the mean time I also read an erotic series called “Summer Camp” by Nick Scipio that was set in the 1970s at a nudist camp and although the family were also swingers, it was the care-free and relaxed attitudes of “The Pines” that I began to long for. It was tempting and I wanted to try it. Of course I know it would be different to what was written in a semi-fictional book, but it still flamed a long-held desire and I began to suggest to my wife that it was a lifestyle worth trying.
This would prove far harder, as naturists don't always get a great press.
Chapter III: An exceedingly brief summary of naturism as I discussed with my wife
Naturists can probably skip this chapter, but for the non-naked amongst us, here is a very brief introduction to the world I wanted to introduce my family (and me) to. 
I have used the term naturist in this book as I prefer it, although naturism and nudism are terms used interchangeably, but as I discovered some people and groups argue they are different and others do not. In essence, the general gist was the same: naturists and nudists like being naked on their own or in groups, doing whatever they would be doing that day without clothing where possible.  
That is not to say that everything has to be done naked; I for one, would not fancy cooking a barbecue without the protection of an apron and I can imagine certain sports requiring a modicum of protection, but the act of walking, swimming, sunbathing, playing games, etc without clothes is certainly naturist.
Naturism, and social nudity throughout the ages is nothing new:
In Greece, athletes and festival-goers regularly attended their gatherings with nothing on until the Christians – offended by the parallels to homosexuality and paganism – outlawed it. Many tribes from Scotland, North America, the Pacific and the Amazon lived or went into battle naked and bathing – on the beaches and in public bathhouses was done au-naturel (until the Victorians invented the swimming costume.)
Although the British television deliberately didn't report on it, the Duchess of Cambridge aka Kate Middleton, had an interesting visit to the Solomon Islands where she was greeted by bare-breasted dancers, and received a garland from a topless tribeswoman, days after half-naked photographs of her were printed in a French magazine.
There is a well-known English story of Lady Godiva; she was the wife of a noble who imposed repressive taxes on his subjects and when challenged on this by his wife told her that he would not relent unless she rode naked through the streets of Coventry. She did this, and a boy called Tom watched her and was struck blind (hence the phrase 'Peeping Tom').
By the time the post-war enlightment had come along, the concept of social nudity and clothing-optional events were getting more popular. The Nambassa music festival in New Zealand in the late-1970s tolerated nudity as did Woodstock; could you imagine Glastonbury now without clothes?!
As society became more liberal, nudism and naturism started becoming more popular and more accepted. Today naturists have their own social network – Skinbook – as well as monthly magazines, political parties, London nightclubs, holiday resorts, towns and shops.
Despite all this popularity though, it is probably fair to say that naturists have never really got a great press in the UK; the ruling and publishing elite are too judgemental on things they don't understand and we are too prudish as a nation to fully embrace it. We view the naked, shared saunas of the Scandinavians or the beaches in mainland Europe with a degree of scepticism while retaining some comfort with the “stiff upper lip” mentality of the traditional British gent.
The idea of people wanting to be naked, and there being no sexual element to it, was something that not everyone could grasp. Indeed, the well-known and notorious series made by Bullseye Television for an erotic channel, The Wonderful World of Sex, had articles on naked sunbathing in Munich, naturist camping, naturist holiday camps and Spencer Tunnick. If an “educational” programme, albeit one to titillate, cannot distinguish between nudity and sex then is there much hope for those they are seeking to educate?
It was somewhat ironic that the naturist holiday camp they featured in the South of France was La Jenny, which is where my family and I ended up. I am not just picking on The Wonderful World of Sex as when any time a late night TV programme wants to be “salacious” they rock up at a naturist beach with a derisive smirk and a voiceover in a silly accent. However, it's somewhat disconcerting when I would want to convince my wife to join me on a naturist holiday that I would have to fight not only her beliefs, but those prejudices of the populist media.
Even the Internet newsgroups have a group entitled alt.sex.nudism and Yahoo lists the naturist groups under their “adult” section. Microsoft censor the word “naturist” in their search, and their policies for their cloud storage prohibit naturist photos being stored on their service under the same clause that prevents pornography being stashed on their servers. It is not just television that cannot distinguish between nudity and eroticism; it is huge swathes of our society.
It has been well documented that throughout the world, people and clubs have lost business arrangements, access to local facilities, access to payment processing (and therefore funds), access to their children, or even liberty for their naturist ideals and these stories act as a frightener to those wishing to adopt or try the lifestyle. 
In the UK there are two well-known naturists. The first being, Billy Connolly, the famous and profanity-laden comedian. His naturism has seen him on television doing naked bungee jumps or running into the sea and attracting millions watching with understanding smiles on their faces. It fits in with his cheeky and outlandish persona.
The other is Stephen Gough, the ex-Royal marine known as the Naked Rambler. In 2004 and 2006 he completed a walk from Lands End to John O' Groats wearing just boots, socks, a rucksack and a hat, being arrested on the trips but always released shortly afterwards. He was arrested after a flight in 2006 when he didn't get dressed and was given a seven-month jail term, which was increased to ten when he appeared in court au-naturel. Stephen Gough spent most of the next six years in and out of prison, for wanting to walk around the countryside with nothing on. He was released in July 2012, only to be re-arrested three days later, just weeks before the start of the London 2012. 
In the original Greek Olympic Games, the forerunner to our modern sporting spectacle, the athletes competed with nothing on. Did anyone else notice the hypocritical parallelism? Indeed, swimsuits slow down the athlete; I wonder how fast Becky Adlington would be without her clothes on?
So, the point of these little ramblings is to highlight to you, as I did to my wife, that going without clothes was not a “new” phenomenon and it was something that had been practised by scores of people throughout history. It is just modern-day “morals” that has equated nudity with sex but this was short-sighted and wrong. Naturism was pure and innocent.
I had a very hard sell to E! 
Chapter IV: Booking the holiday
I had had a particularly bad autumn 2011; I turned thirty in November and went exceedingly introvert over the period of a few weeks before this. E thought I was depressed and maybe she was right, but I just couldn't see happiness in anything I did, and even had a few very dark thoughts. I felt I had missed out on so much when I was younger and failed to see what I had achieved in life. I couldn't see my behavioural change at the time, but got irritated when several of my colleagues kept asking if “everything was OK.” It wasn't, but I didn't know what to say: if I didn't know what was wrong, then how could I explain it? I just couldn't see a happy ending to what I was doing with my life, and I had no idea why. 
These were feelings I had not really experienced for any length of time before but my wife was good with me and was supportive; she was aware of everything I wanted to do with my life and she knew what I had not managed to do. But in reality, I think I was ready for a proper break and we had not had one for years. I needed a change.
This would be surprising to many people, but I generally don't like holidays. There is plenty of upheaval and messing around for a few days of being somewhere else. Often the “tourist” spots are overpriced and the locals are rude, which combined with bored and/or tired children, does not make a recipe for relaxation. 
That is not to say that I don't enjoy parts of a holiday but I never get to properly relax and something is always ready to stress me; I am highly strung! This is bad enough when in the UK but being in a foreign country where nobody speaks your language and not understanding what is going on, can only increase the stress. I am not a good traveller.
A full time childcare place in a UK nursery is easily in excess of £700 per month and with my daughter, and before her my son in childcare, the ability for us to travel abroad was rarely present financially, and the last time I travelled to another country was in 2007 when my wife and I went on our honeymoon.
This was to Iceland and we had a good time all week until we had to fly home. On arriving in Keflavik, we disembarked from the plane, cleared passport control, retrieved our bags and visited the shop inside thirty minutes. On arrival in Manchester a week later, we took two and a half hours to clear passport control, was shouted at by a Border Agency official (for daring to cross a white line) and it was nearly four hours to get back to our car. My letter to Manchester Airport asking them to go to Iceland to see “how an airport should be run” went unresponded to, but I didn't fancy travelling again. It was hassle I did not want, and for four years I maintained that opinion.
The opportunity for a family holiday presented itself in the form of an unexpected pay rise in October 2011. My company was purchased/rescued/acquired (depending on the newspaper article) by a much bigger company in 2008 and after making around two-thirds of the staff redundant merged the terms and conditions of us left into those of their staff. 
This meant that I jumped pay bands (which are set at Southern wages) and got an instant £150 per month pay increase after tax – not to be sneezed at! I made a conscious effort to put that money (plus anything more I could afford) to one side and in January 2012 began to consider holidays. I knew I would have the best part £2,000 to play with and that would buy us a decent family holiday abroad, for the first time.
Out of that would have to come passports for two adults and two children and I began to see what I could get with my money. I stumbled across Peng Travel that offered naturist holidays and found a handful of suitable destinations on the Croatian coast.
I casually mentioned that I wanted a family holiday abroad when my wife and I were playing a board game and then detailed how I intended to pay for it. She listened and nodded appreciatively and then I suggested what I had been thinking of; a trip around Europe where we would stay in such a clothing-optional camp for a few days at the beginning or end of the holiday without spending all of our time there.
I was conscious about my wife's feelings and it was not something we had actively discussed as a possibility; I guessed that she would dismiss it, but she didn't and I showed her some of the places I had been considering along with the principles of the naturist lifestyle.
To begin with, she was a little wary of the idea but as it was clothing-optional, it would give me the freedom to practice what I wanted and E would have the ability to remain covered. She agreed to spend a few days at the beginning of a ten-day holiday and I showed her the Croatian resorts I was considering. We had had a joint party in December to celebrate our combined thirtieth birthdays. This was something that I really didn't want, and she got her own way on the catering, fancy dress, theme and venue. She reasoned I was owed a bit of getting my own way and she told me we could stay all week in the clothing-optional resort – as long as she could stay clothed if she didn't feel comfortable!
I asked for a price for a week it came in at over £2,500. This was more than I wanted to pay although the gentleman at the naturist travel company suggested we consider Euronat or La Jenny in France as they were more suited to families.
They were naturist resorts and as we looked through the website at them I put the idea to one side, only to have E say that these were fine if we were not going to stay the week. In essence, I could have a few days of my holiday if afterwards we travelled to Paris to spend a couple of days in the French capital taking our children to Disneyland Paris. 
I couldn't protest too much, despite my general objection to theme parks (too expensive, too much queuing and too frustrating) but as the travel company offered only seven day stays at La Jenny, I booked direct with the holiday park for four nights.
We didn't tell our kids about the trip to the theme park, informing them that we had a surprise for them when on holiday, but that we would be staying somewhere where they could be naked all day. My son, who is seven, gave a furrowed brow and then laughed. He kept asking questions about the trip over the coming months including my favourite, “do you put suncream on your willy?” I couldn't answer for definite, but I guessed so; would you want sunburnt genitalia?
My wife later told me that she thought it was the most selfless thing she had ever done, and I definitely agreed with her. She openly admitted – after I booked the four nights at La Jenny, flights to Bordeaux from Luton, car hire, hotel in Paris and flights from Paris back to the UK – that the thought of going naked in public terrified her, as well as the act of flying.
I felt guilty but she was too late; the holiday was booked. We were going to La Jenny.
Chapter V: Preparing for the holiday
Great ideas and plans made in January don't always appear quite so good come August! Take for example, the idea that we would only need to take small suitcases – we were spending two thirds of our holiday with little on – so a small car would be ideal. As I printed off every voucher we would need twice and put the copies in two folders (in case one got lost) I realised that the three bags I had booked in with airline in January would not necessarily fit into our “VW Polo or Similar” car I had hired from Auto-Europe in April.
(As an aside, I also bought tickets for Disneyland Paris in advance and printed them off as e-Tickets but bought them through the French site for 46 Euros each – around £37. When I looked to buy them on the UK version of Disneyland Paris they were £70 each for the day I wanted to go!)
Our eight towels filled one suitcase and the clothes that I knew we would need for the four of us filled the other two. This would be fun and games for the Monday we would arrive if they gave us a very small car as the kids would need to have the cases balanced on their laps.
E and I took different approaches to whom and what we told about our holiday. I was quite open with a couple of people at my place of employment – an IT department at a financial institution – and before long the news of exactly where I was going had spread. I had never seen myself as particularly prudish or conservative but a few other people had and the thought that I would strutting around a French beach with nothing on caused a degree of amusement.
My Helpdesk Manager was particularly enchanted, if that is the word, and made reference to my holiday on a number of occasions. It was all playful banter but I was told more than once that they both wanted and didn't want to see the holiday photographs; could they please make up their minds?!
I had a couple of my friends claim that they couldn't do “it” because they felt they were insufficiently endowed, which I found a somewhat strange notion; perhaps there was the belief that to be a naturist there was a minimum size of genitalia? If this was the case should being a naturist be seen as a badge of honour? It was a crazy idea but one that I am sure my friends were not alone in thinking. 
The weekend before we arrived and after several panics of thinking I had left something behind, we were driving down to London (I would obtain my first speeding ticket since I passed my test ten years previous in Staffordshire on this route but that's another story; I was clearly keen to go on holiday!)
We stayed at my parent's house for a couple of days prior to going on the trip. To prepare, I had obtained a copy of Channel 4's documentary Diary of a Teenage Nudist and my mother had helpfully given me an article that had come from her weekend newspaper supplement of Liz Jones attending a nudist garden party.
The documentary, from 2004, was surprisingly balanced and well produced although I didn't quite agree with everyone featured in it. It was made when the documentary maker was eighteen and had grown up in Fiveacres – a naturist club a stone's throw from where I grew up. She became very reticent about the lifestyle in her teenage years and met a number of naturists who were generally positive about naturism but she was surprisingly body-conscious. I was particularly annoyed by the last guy she interviewed, who claimed that there was always a sexual element to naturism; needless to say I thought he was wrong. 
This film worried me slightly. Here was a girl – Bianca Badham – who had grown up in a family-run and family-orientated naturist resort and had decided to partially turn her back on the lifestyle. Although she did not dismiss it, she did not have the same enthusiasm and excitement I had, and I began to wonder if I had seen the world through rose-tinted goggles. If I liked it and we went back, what would the kids make of it? How would it affect them as we grew up? In short, it gave me something to think about.
I felt the supplement article, however, was nothing short of pure self-indulgent naivety. The author, whose article spanned four pages, had denigrated and patronised the lifestyle but kept her clothes on for almost all of the day. Quite why she found it acceptable to poke at people who were enjoying themselves doing what they wanted to do when she was unwilling to try it, was beyond me. The author, Liz Jones, explained why she felt uncomfortable taking off all of her clothes, but if that was the case I would assert that it made her an unsuitable person to write the investigative article if she was so unprepared to participate. It was like a travel correspondent flying somewhere, staying in the airport, speaking to some travellers returning home and then flying back to the UK, only to write that the destination was not worth visiting; it was my belief that it was lazy journalism and it irritated me!
One thing she did mention, and that we already knew, was that everyone always sits on towels, and I had therefore splashed out £40 on new towels – we had a brightly coloured beach towel each and I had also been a got four of the Tesco Value “bath sheets” that were not much thicker than ham, but ideal for chucking over items of furniture to sit on; we would throw them in the bin while in France as they cost no more than £12 for the four of them, as they had no use to us other than to be little more than seat protectors. 
As we settled down the night before our flight, my wife was more apprehensive than ever, but as we turned the lights off at 10pm, I knew that within twelve hours I would be in France and speeding towards my dream; even I felt butterflies in my stomach.
Chapter VI: Monday
Alarms are not really a pleasant sound, particularly not at 3am in the morning but my peace-shattering buzzer was not unwelcoming. I had not slept too well and had no more than four hours sleep but we wanted to be at “London” Luton at 4:15am.
My dad had very kindly been volunteered, by my mother, to take us to the airport at the ungodly hour and we loaded the bags into the car to do the twenty or so miles to Britain's most unloved airport. 
I had checked-in online and proceeded to drop the bags off – only to be asked if they had rechargeable batteries in them after she had sent the bags down the conveyor belt. She then had to order them back, who sent them to the outsized baggage area, which took around an hour – only for me to check them back in again with the batteries in my hand luggage. It was unnecessary and frustrating, particular as the London Luton security staff had no idea rechargeable batteries were not allowed in the hold on Easyjet flights; this was not a good start and only served to reinforce my pre-held notion that holidays are nothing but trouble and aggravation. 
As my weight fluctuates, my trousers are often a bit, or a lot, bigger than my waist (much to my wife's annoyance), hence the need for a belt and as we completed the security checks, the alarms sounded and I was taken to one side and told to remove the leather strap preserving my dignity. “Yeah, I sort of need that to keep my trousers up,” I moaned but they were unmoved. I had to remove it and the trainers as they frisked me with my rapidly tumbling trousers. I was danger of getting half way to naturism before we had even left the country.
I did wonder whether we could solve all our security problems by everyone flying naked and there would be no need for any body scanners; my near bottomless state caused embarrassment because I was the only one who wasn't completely attired and I wondered how I would feel if all my fellow travellers were dressed in the same way.
Exploding batteries and descending trousers aside, the flight was fairly OK. The airport is functional and no-frills but then I expected this and paid no premium for the flights. It was cheap, if not particularly cheerful. Easyjet staff were polite although between our bag being checked-in in Luton (for the second time) and arriving in Bordeaux, a wheel had been snapped off the case that once held the rechargeable batteries. Punishment maybe from the bag handling staff, for causing them all that trouble.
The little ones enjoyed flying, much more so than my wife who is terrified of doing so. She panicked through most of it, although as the children looked at the trees and plants that surrounded the airport runway they told me that France looked very much like England when we landed. It was foggy when we left Luton and clear blue skies when we landed in Bordeaux; meteorologists they will not be!
It took about an hour to get to La Jenny in our rented Renault Clio (that did fit three suitcases in the boot) and which I drove far slower than I would normally drive given that they drive on the wrong side of the road. We only got lost once when the directions from Google Maps were not as great as I had hoped but this wasn't a big problem as I had loaded all the maps I would need onto my Android smartphone.
Indeed, the original directions that I had printed from Google Maps from Bordeaux-Menignac Airport to La Jenny had us going up a farm track as the mapping provider for Google has labelled unpassable roads as driveable. Fortunately I realised before we left England when I saw the “Streetview” photographs of our journey and made new maps going via a small village called Le Porge, which made the journey still around 45km (28 miles) from the big city. The road from the local hamlet to La Jenny – their drive entitled Route de La Jenny – is a few kilometres long and it seemed to go on forever through wooded areas and up and down small hills but eventually we arrived at our destination. 
The first thing we saw as we approached our holiday venue was a naked pair of buttocks on the golf course, which was alongside their driveway and it caused the kids to giggle. “I guess we are in the right place,” I said to E but she was a little quiet. The staff at La Jenny spoke perfect English, and I gave them my voucher and they took my credit card details for the deposit, before giving me our sheets that we were renting for the week. If we had driven we would have brought our own but as we flew and had no space in any of our luggage, so we paid the thirteen Euros to hire them. 
We were lucky in that we had immediate access to our villa as La Jenny do not normally grant access until 5pm. Presumably, as we were not a Saturday arrival there was no-one staying in our villa the night before and we were given the keys and directions; it was a little unexpected from what I was told to expect and certainly welcome.
The village is full of pine trees and the roads through them are not narrow but speed is limited to a few kilometres per hour. We had a space to park in front of our home from home, that itself wasn't that far away from the reception and village centre. My wife's first impressions were “this is nice” as we walked onto the decking and she saw a garden table and chairs that looked out over the trees. The patio doors led into a kitchen-cum-diner-cum-lounge and located off the “corridor” was a small toilet, a small bathroom and two small bedrooms – one containing a double bed and another containing bunk beds for the children.
I would describe our Fauvette villa as compact but that is often used by estate agents negatively and I don't mean that. It was homely, and tidy; space was at a premium and was used well. We liked it, and it was a perfect size for a family of four for the few days we would be there. 
We unloaded the car and pulled open the suitcase of towels, packing a bag to take down the pool and then I implored my family to join me. I was naked within five minutes of entering the villa and while E was still searching for items and trying to unpack, I was a naturist for the first time in my life. I could feel the adrenaline pumping in my chest and I had butterflies. I was actually, really going to be a naturist.
The sun was strong and my wife stopped the kids and myself at the door with a bottle of sunscreen and covered us all in the cool, white liquid. I was itching to get to the pool with the towels in our backpack but she was right; I have a fair complexion and burn at the first sight of the Sun. We had brought six bottles of sun protection with us, and while I was desperate to get to the water, I was ordered to rub suncream into her back and then help the kids with their sun protection.
It was strangely enthralling taking the first steps in the fresh air with nothing on, and felt a rush of adrenaline as I walked down the small hill. The small breeze whistled around us and I nodded towards a family of fellow naked people walking in the opposite direction. Our children were excited and like me, naked except for shoes and a hat. E was not quite so brave and put a see-through sarong below her bosom that covered her as far as the tops of her legs.
This would – in every other sense be topless – but, as I found out before I left, the expression is topfree and not topless. The principle being that the -less suffix infers something is missing whereas naturists obviously believe nothing is missing when you are without clothes. In addition, the word “topless” has been hijacked for more sexually evocative purposes; if you go to a “topless bar”, you aren't thinking of naturism! 
“If they fall over,” I told my topfree wife as our children sprinted away from us. “They will get grazed in areas that are normally protected.” E laughed and smiled back at me, holding out her hand for me to take. 
Our villa was close to the four pools that were in the centre of the village and we had a short walk to the village centre. We were very central and were overtaken a couple of times by clothed people on bicycles who were clearly staying further away from the amenities; it felt weird to be naked with them clothed but the cool air circling around me felt so nice and liberating.
We had to walk past the tennis courts and saw both clothed and naked players (the clothed players were a lot more competitive!) and saw a giant sign. The drawing of a naked family looking towards the sea was accompanied by text written in four languages - “we are naturist; we live naked.” I liked the simplicity of the message and the family on the board was my family for the next four days – wife, me and two children.
I was nervous and apprehensive as well as excited about baring all in public but had no reason to be and arrived at the pools within a few minutes. We left our flip-flops in the shoe holder and walked through the gate separating the café to the pool.
The first thing I noticed was that there was every shape of body around the pool; it was not surprising but families, couples and friends were strewn over the sun terraces and in the water. Some people were sunbathing, or reading, or playing cards, or swimming or talking – all without clothes and all just enjoying their break.
I have never felt body conscious; every guy wants to have a six foot two frame with a six pack, bulging muscles, tanned body and an elephant-sized appendage between their legs but I am more of the typical English man – around six foot in height, a slight paunch and pasty white skin. I know this, I accept this, I am not a muscular Adonis just a normal Briton, and a normal father on holiday with his family.
Most of the people at the pool – and indeed as we noticed throughout our stay – were clearly not British but used to the Mediterranean climate and were tanned or bronzed. The two female lifeguards could have come from Baywatch with slim figures and enviable tans; suddenly I realised we were totally distinct, my body was the brightest thing in the pool. We must have stood out, had anyone chosen to look!
Nobody noticed, or cared. As did nobody care about the fat or thin, those with scars, well-endowed or not so well-endowed. Everyone just got on with their break enjoying the warm weather doing whatever they wanted to do. Some people even were trying to add to their tans and I felt a pang of jealousy; they were already between bronze and varnish on the colour chart!
In fact I reckon a couple of green Martians could have landed in the car park, walked through to the pool, sat down on the sun terrace, and as long as they didn't have the temerity to be wearing swimming costumes it would have been fine!
The nudity was soon “tuned” out; you barely noticed it as a defining characteristic after a while. It took me around five to ten minutes to get used to being nude around hundreds of other naked people and then it just felt natural.
The unfazed and carefree attitude of the other visitors wafted around the pool. It was unthreatening, welcoming and a great leveller. I could have been swimming with royalty, millionaires or homeless people; the nakedness made us all equal. Social status, bank balance and age all meant absolutely nothing as without clothes, there was no disparity.
The kids loved the pool, it was a warm day and the water was cool but they dived in and it was lovely swimming naked. I almost forgot I was without any clothing as I swam in the water or played with the children; after our long journey it was just fun to be enjoying ourselves in the water. My wife put our bag, containing our towels down on the terrace adjacent to the water and joined me skinny dipping with around 200 other swimmers. 
Water everywhere is strangely enthralling. I had never realised how much my swimming costume dulled sensations or provided a mental safety net, but without any clothes it felt much better and I felt freer. The water did not feel cold at all, and when we left the pool, the breeze was refreshing instead of “freezing.”
This is all logical, as when you think about it, what does a swimming costume actually do? It doesn't keep you dry from the water, and if the point of swimming is to get wet, it hardly assists with this. It doesn't make you a better swimmer, or offer any form of safety or protection. Indeed, from motor-racing suits to football boots – the kit of every other sport offers some advantage to the wearer when engaging in the activity, but what exactly does the swimming costume offer? Ah yes, it makes you feel colder by clinging to your skin when you get out of the water! Hardly an essential item to have, surely?
By the time we came to leave the pool, I was not noticing the naked bodies; everything just blended in. It is certainly the act of strategically covering bits of the body with coloured fabric that makes people “sexy” or “alluring” and the power is definitely in the imagination of what you cannot see as much as what you can. 
Even as I saw beautiful girls walk past me with nothing on, there was no sexual element to it; it was normal and they got no more attention than anyone else. Everyone was minding their own business, exchanging a few words and smiling. There was no ogling and no eroticism to it.
This sounds weird, I know, but bear with me on this one. There was no ogling, at least not what I saw. Yes, there were incredibly attractive girls (and guys) with tanned, flawless bodies and absolutely no attention was paid to them. Heads were not following them as they walked around the pool or as they emerged Halle Berry style from the water, they were ignored as much as me or anyone else.
For the sexualised Western culture this seems almost impossible to believe and I know that if the people I am referring to were to put on bathing costumes and go for a swim in a local leisure centre they would be openly admired, possibly leered at and eyes would follow them around the water, but the culture is very much different at La Jenny; they were no different to anyone else.
We wrapped some towels around us as we left and wandered into the café to get some lunch. The only clothed people on the warm Monday were the café owners and it was surprisingly reasonable in cost. The prices were about the same as any café in Britain (and as we would later discover, France) and a world away from the high prices that CenterParcs charge their captive market. 
My wife ordered (her GCSE French was better than mine) and the food was very decent, for the price. It was not haute cuisine, but then we didn't expect it to be! 
We wanted to do some shopping at the local convenience store but they closed for lunch at 12:30 – just as we were arriving so we returned to the pool. I adored the skinny dipping and the kids just loved running about and splashing! 
Even as I looked around the pool, everyone looked as I expected them to, and just why I was so keen to come; everyone was smiling or laughing! There wasn't a scowl in sight (and indeed, I never saw one all week.) Again, a million miles away from our big family CenterParcs trip four weeks previous.
We lost track of time completely as we played in the pools; the kids were happy and just went from one pool to another, and played nicely. They weren't fighting or arguing, and it just felt like the weight of everyday life had been lifted from my shoulders when we disrobed. 
When we returned to the villa, I had E take a photograph of me naked on our patio but with one of the wooden struts coming up in front of my waist; it was clear I was naked but “modesty” was preserved – just, and I uploaded it to Facebook before sending a text message to my work colleague. If they needed proof, what more did they need? It was “tasteful” of sorts but knew it would draw some level of raised eyebrows as I was clearly without clothing.
(I have included this photograph at the back of the book so you can judge for yourself what I sent them!)
I never understood the degree of amusement I got at work for my choice of holiday; it was a natural state for the human body and all throughout Europe, the beaches were naturist-friendly but in the environment of my IT office, it caused titillation. I know a few people thought that it was a big joke but obviously it wasn't and now they would have the proof they wanted.
I returned to the kitchen to see my wife looking up at me as she frantically searched for some cutlery – where were the spoons, and indeed the knives and forks? The villa was well provided for, with regards to the plates, cups, glasses, colanders but we couldn't find any knives and forks. They had to be somewhere but we just could not find them so we went to see the reception to ask.
The villas at La Jenny are, primarily, not actually owned by the resort. My understanding is that they sell the villas to naturists who then rent out the villas when they are not using them, fully furnished and equipped, to visitors like myself through La Jenny. Therefore, there was not a common set of furniture throughout the camp and we were advised by our friendly receptionist to check again – they had to be somewhere! 
We did some shopping at the local supermarket, which again was similarly priced to our local convenience stores. We wouldn't have wanted to always shop there if we were staying at La Jenny for weeks and weeks as it would be too expensive compared to the “big” hypermarkets or supermarkets in the nearby towns, but for four days it would be fine and we would be eating out on two of the four days anyway. 
I put a towel around my waist as we shopped; I was happy to be naked but around food I thought it was “right” to be covered. I was clearly not alone in this view, although some of my fellow visitors clearly did not agree as we wandered the small store confronted by those who had a towel around their waist and those who were completely naked.
We returned to the villa and still could not find the forks, but the kids were hungry and so we unpacked and got dressed before going to the restaurant. E was quite insistent that we follow the protocol of being covered up in the evenings. The restaurant and the café were adjacent and although there were a lot of naked families in the café, the restaurant was more formal.
We were half-an-hour early for the restaurant opening, so my family and I took a walk towards the beach. We were planning to go to the following day and I wanted to see where it was. 
The beach at the La Jenny is outside the camp and the path to the sea follows the coastal path. Patrons are therefore advised to wear the “bare minimum” as they make their way to the beach, but we were already dressed. However, the few people that were coming the other way did not – on the whole – appear to be following that advice. The beach was naturist, the camp was naturist, crossing a non-naturist path miles from any civilisation was clearly not a big problem!
The beach was a good ten minute walk – across a wooden boardwalk and over the dunes – but it was worth it. Miles of sandy beach stretched in both directions and the sea was a deeper blue than anything I have seen on the British mainland.
My son wanted to run down and play but both E and I were tired so we walked back to the restaurant. For the first time – and only time in our entire stay – we had trouble with the French language. The menus were not in English, understandably, and we had real trouble translating them. Even E, whose grasp of the language was pretty good, could not make too much sense of their descriptions and so we ordered a meal without knowing what we would be getting.
The food was OK and was priced at that of an upmarket pub in UK. I would not have ordered what I ordered had I understood the menu, and the Creme Brulee's top was not crispy enough, but it was far better than cooking. We had been up for sixteen hours at this point and were shattered.
The kids offered no resistance to going to bed, naked of course, and E and I sat down on the patio with a glass of wine. “OK?” I asked and she just beamed at me.
“When we come back,” she told me with a smile. “We are not flying. We can come across on the boat.”
It was quite unexpected and she gave me a grin as she drank the rose wine from her glass (three litre box for nine Euros from the supermarket!). “Sure,” I replied and looked out over our little corner of the pine forest. “You like it then?”
“It's not too bad,” she told me. “Not what I expected.” It was everything I expected and more. We talked for half-an-hour as the sky went darker; E genuinely didn't mind the resort and was able to walk around outside the pool with her sarong on, which made her comfortable and the happiness shown by my two children and me was clear.
“Don't be too late,” she told me as she went inside and I still had half a glass of wine to drink; we were both tired from being up since 3am but I wanted a few more moments to think about things.
My thoughts were interrupted and I heard my wife cry out. I leapt up and came into the villa. She pointed at the table, in which there was a drawer. “Found the cutlery!”
They could not have hidden it any better and still leaving it in plain sight; the near-perfect analogy for when I got home and get asked what it was like swimming around so many naked ladies with their “bits” out. Everything is in plain sight but like Arsene Wenger, I saw nothing!
Chapter VII: Tuesday
Our first full day on the park had to start with a traditional French breakfast of croissants and fruit juice so my wife was duly dispatched to the village centre to secure sustenance from the little convenience store that stocked all manner of items, including fresh bread and pastries. My memory of the day before was that the aisles were not overly wide and when I went down with a rucksack on my back had to be careful I didn't send all sorts of things flying, but E duly arrived with the items twenty minutes after she left.
After a quick breakfast we went to the pools – and apart from the laned pool which had a couple of swimmers doing their morning exercise, we were the only people around. The reason was quite obvious the moment we got near the water; I am sure the pools are not heated, but if they are, it is only a very gradual heat and at 10am the Sun had not worked it's magic on the water. It may have been warm enough to wander around with nothing on, but the pool was most definitely cold.
My daughter shrieked and squealed as we walked down the steps to the water and I had to take the plunge and jump straight in. It was a sobering shock to the system as the cold liquid hit our shoulders and with naturism every part of your body feels the full effect of the coldness, with all that that entails. 
That said it was refreshing and I got to play in the water with my wife and the children; there is a benefit to being British in that our definition of cold is certainly a few degrees cooler than our European neighbours, as we were the only family around. 
Our bodies soon adjusted to the colder-than-usual temperatures and any residues I had of sleepiness evaporated in an instant. After we had spent 45 minutes braving the cold water we had a couple of games on the table tennis tables next to the pool (E is better at it than me) before getting some postcards and then returning to get some lunch in the villa. At this point, with the exception of the shorts and T-Shirt I wore for the meal the night before, I had been nude – apart from my sunhat and footwear – for the previous 24 hours and it just felt natural.
We had planned to spend Tuesday afternoon after lunch on the beach and it was one part of the stay I thought I would not enjoy; I have not enjoyed being on a beach since my parents took me to Jersey when I was around 13. My recollections of most British beaches are that they are cold, dirty and crowded and I thought it would be the same in France.
The beach at La Jenny is outside the park – around half a kilometre away from the centre of the village and the path to it travels along a public right of way. We were therefore “advised” to wear a minimum of clothing, but very few other residents bothered so as we meandered down, I didn't either. 
The beach is popular with surfers but a small section of it was being patrolled by two well-tanned male lifeguards from La Jenny who sat in a 4x4 and we were advised to swim between the two blue flags around 150 metres apart.
La Jenny offers supervised swimming for the afternoons and when we arrived a “yellow flag” was flying (swimming dangerous but watched.) Due to this – and the fact that the lifeguards were on a small part of the beach – it had the effect of narrowing the swimmers to a small section. We saw people up and down the beach lay on their towels and reading or playing games, but the hundred or so people who were in the water, swam around the blue flags.
I enticed my children to the water but they said it was too cold and returned to my sunbathing wife, where they made “sand angels” and “cars.” The sea was most definitely not cold and my body adjusted to its warmth in no time.
Just like in the pool, swimming without anything on is so liberating; I felt the effects of the waves so much more and swam out until my feet could not touch the seabed; I had not done this for over 18 years! I was not alone, and was buffeted by the water and the currents, but it was addictive.
I stayed within forty or so metres of the shore and came more inland as the afternoon wore on to join the rest of the naturists in the water. We would stand in the water and just have the waves crashing over us, but they were not uniform in strength and every so often, a larger and stronger wave would send us tumbling if we were not prepared. I saw many of them coming, and although I was pushed back to the beach, I normally stayed upright, but a few of them knocked me over.
The first one, I was trying to convince my son that the sea wasn't too strong, only for him and I to be sent flying; he stayed away from the surf for the rest of the day at that point.
The rest of the times, I just scrambled back to my feet, including once when I only narrowly avoided landing on a pretty and naked young lady who had been knocked over; I am not sure my wife would have seen the funny side of it and the young lady gave me a smile as I got to my feet. I wouldn't have been the first person that day to have been swept into someone else but there wasn't any awkwardness to it; there was a finite amount of beach space and we were all getting thrown into each other by the waves. It was an inevitability that some naked people would collide with other naked people. 
I returned to my family and got the camera, placing three shells very strategically and photographing my sunbathing wife. She had already photographed me in the water, and my children then wanted to bury Daddy in the sand.
This proved to be the most interesting bit of naturism – sand gets everywhere! I washed myself in the sea, and then later at the showers at the top of the beach but my body hair captured quite a bit of sand that, even with soap and endless showers it did not want to let go of! 
For the first time my wife walked naked back through the camp. I never understood why women were so reticent about being bottomless (or should that be bottomfree?) Every part of a woman's anatomy is hidden – especially when they are walking – but my wife just pointed it out to me as we walked back that she was completely nude for the first time.
I had teased her a bit about her see-through sarong, although I was keen not to push her. We were at La Jenny for me, but it was still the family holiday and there was little about the break that she would have chosen: she doesn't like flying, she doesn't like being exposed in public and she is certainly not fond of France. However, while she might not have chosen the holiday, she was certainly enjoying it.
We had a tea of burger and chips, and then, after a quick drink at the bar terrace, we made our way to the amphitheatre-style outdoor area and sat down on the sandy steps near the front: there was a cabaret on at 9:30pm for all the family and I wondered what to expect.
Of course, we expected everything to be in French and were not surprised when there were several announcements that we only caught the odd word of; my GCSE French had left me woefully unprepared for coming to the country, and I got a “B” grade!
There were easily over 500 people at the show, and around forty children sat on mats at the front; we were expecting a family show and waited expectantly for it to start. 
The Cabaret commenced a few minutes after half-past and five very toned young ladies dressed in black Moulin Rouge style outfits – complete with the basques, suspenders and fishnet stockings – danced onto the stage. If it had been in the UK I could easily see someone doing an undercover expose of what the children were being “subjected to,” but as I looked around the audience there was just wry smiles; it really was just harmless fun. The saucy Moulin Rouge routine was followed up with more scantily-clad women in red outfits and then a Swedish-inspired routine with the man asking what girl should he have?
The Cabaret was well over a dozen acts – some of them comedic, some salacious and some just entertaining with songs taken from Grease, ABBA and Dirty Dancing. It was good, and the risqué dancing returned nearer the end; it was not “dirty” or overly sexually provocative but as they pulled a gentleman from the audience to be sat in the chair and surrounded by half-naked ladies it was not what the British would do as a family show.
These bits made only a small part of the Cabaret, and my children found it funny as much as anything. My four-year-old daughter's attention was captured throughout and she danced along to the big number at the end; it was light-hearted fun that didn't take itself too seriously.
My memory of Cabaret nights at holiday villages come from the 1990s in Britain with the likes of Warners (and once Butlins) in the UK. They could learn a lot from the little naturist resort in France as for the first time in my life I can say I truly enjoyed a variety-type show. It was fun instead of cheesy and corny.
As I reflected on the day, I realised that the problem with British holidays for me was that we are almost told to enjoy ourselves; they seem regimented and orchestrated where life just appears to happen in this corner of sunny France. The pace of life is different and we can just float around the place doing our thing, enjoying what we want to do.
My wife didn't disagree with my assessment and we sat down with a cup of coffee in the evening, just enjoying the peace and quiet. “Why can't the British do Cabaret like that?” I asked and she gave me a dry smile.
“I know why you like it,” she teased, but what man wouldn't? Suddenly, for the first – and indeed only time – in the resort, there was salaciousness. And they had to put some clothes on to do it! 
Chapter VIII: Wednesday
There is a disadvantage to naturism at La Jenny and it had irritated me all week. Not the being white when everyone else is supremely tanned, the having to always have a towel with you or even not having anywhere to keep your wallet, but pine needles.
We all had open-toed crocs or sandals to walk around in and the forest is full of pine trees. No matter how careful you are at walking, after twenty or so metres the needles get into the shoe and pierce the skin. It is the only thing to stand on that I have found to rival children's Lego in the pain stakes!
My children suffered less from it, but I am a size twelve feet so that must have something to do with it! My French was definitely improving and managed to complete an entire transaction at the little shop in the language, until I mistakenly said “Bye” instead of “Au Revoir” and they replied in English. Grrr! 
Our breakfast of croissants, jam and fresh coffee was well received by my children and wife who were just waking up. E asked if we could see the local area and after breakfast I reluctantly got dressed to drive to a neighbouring town of Ares. 
I had wanted to “work on my tan,” which for someone who abhors vanity is a statement I thought I would never utter. As I turned my arms over and looked at my body, it was clear I was still a lot whiter than the other residents of the resort; I wanted to be browner.
This onset of vanity caused a degree of amusement with the wife, telling me that parts of me were starting to tan, but with only two days left I needed to put in some serious work if I was not going to return pasty white. 
Ares is certainly not too much of a tourist town, and we did get some supplies from the local supermarket before walking down towards the sea front from the town centre.
As we reached the beach of Ares and my wife turned to face me and the kids with her camera and smiled. “Just you three,” she called and held it up. My first reaction was one of reticence and I stopped myself from shouting out. I do not like my photograph being taken, hence the reason I am normally behind the camera and suddenly all the relaxed attitude I had had at the nudist resort disappeared. 
I gritted my teeth and let her take it but I did wonder why I was so happy at being photographed naked at the resort when I was usually so unhappy at being photographed? Was I really just an exhibitionist?
The answer was much simpler; I can get stressed easily and my children messing around have the ability to make my very het up. While they had not done anything wrong, escorting them through an unfamiliar town in an unfamiliar country naturally had me subconsciously tensed and I did not want my photo taken. In La Jenny, it was so much more peaceful, there was a tranquil air to the place.
I was glad when I got back to the resort and was naked again within seconds of parking the car. Having spent most of the previous 48 hours bare, it felt almost uncomfortable to be so restricted again. I enjoyed the feeling of freedom and was already dreading Friday.
E complained that most of the pictures taken on the holiday had not included her – and the ones that did were not the sort she wanted to show her family. I conceded on this point and we did take some before she got undressed, but there was very little I could do about pictures in the pool or the beach when we had to be naked.
After lunch, I strutted out naked onto our little patio and covered in suncream by my wife, before we went back to the village centre; the Chess tournament I had been considering had been in the morning, but the kids just adored the water and begged us to go to the pool.
The pools were freezing; it was around 24 degrees Celsius and even as our bodies became attuned to the water temperature, it did not make it any more bearable. It was surprisingly warm outside the pool and my wife and I could have a chat on the deckchairs as my children played in the water, but they were clearly braver than we were.
My little daughter must have found the only other British family at the resort as she played in the water and I went over to speak to the lady; they were experienced naturists and we had a nice little chat until she left to take her daughter – who was cold – out of the water.
My children were clearly made of sterner stuff and my daughter gleefully took delight in playing with her inflatable crocodile with a couple of French children for another hour – and even then we had to offer ice creams to tempt my children complainingly out of the water. 
My son had the experience of trying to converse to a local lad when neither of them spoke a common language and then moaned about it (although my daughter managed it with her newly-acquired friends), but as we settled down in the café they then began to complain that they were “cold!” 
We had a simple dinner of cheesy pasta and the kids were happy to go to bed at a reasonable time, having been up until gone eleven the night before with the cabaret. 
My wife teased me later as we sat down with a glass of French wine. “I turned around and there you were, talking to another a naked woman,” she said with a smirk on her face and raised eyebrows.
If it had been any other holiday, I don't think it would have been a smirk! 

Chapter IX: Thursday
Thursday was our last full day on the park and unfortunately the weather was somewhat overcast. I had hoped for bright blue sunshine so we could go to the beach or the pool, but it was scheduled to be cooler, with a chance of showers. 
I had spoken to a friend of mine earlier in the week from University who was staying in his parent's villa an hour's drive from Bordeaux, and we had arranged to meet on the Thursday when the weather was predicted to be the most inclement. We could not complain too much about it though; we had had three days of 25 degrees or greater and the afternoons had been relatively cloudless and completely rain-free. 
In the morning, we pottered about. I played football with the kids on the decking and we went for a short walk but after lunch I had to get dressed. I had been dressed every day for a couple of hours – Monday for the meal, Tuesday for the cabaret and Wednesday for the trip to Ares – but it still felt a little weird to be wearing underpants, jeans and T-Shirt. I felt ever so slightly stifled.
My University friend, N, was originally going to meet us in Le Porge, but he was running late so I drove in his direction to a quaint town called Castelnau, parking my car in the little town plaza. Once again, we had coincided with the lunchtime and nothing was open, except for a couple of little cafes which is where we had a chat and a drink. N, and his girlfriend, are typical British conservatives and he screwed up his face when I mentioned the pictures on Facebook. 
“It's fun,” I told him but he didn't believe me.
“It's not that bad at all,” my wife added and then proceeded to explain about the villa, the naked lifeguards, the resort and the beach. My children chipped in with some comments, much to my friends' amusement.
“It's just the English,” I told him. “We have this mind-set about always being covered up but being nude's good. Well worth a try.”
“Well not all the French try it either,” he reasoned. “Even loads of French people don't do it.” This may have been true, but it seemed a slightly fatuous argument. In fact, a study had around 10% of the French having tried nudism at some point in their lives which is an incredible number. However, there was no way he – like a number of my friends – would ever entertain the idea of trying the holiday I was on, even if it was given to them for free; they were too English – for want of a better word.
By the time we were heading back to La Jenny, the weather was perking up. It had showered slightly while we were in Castlelnau and I had picked up some petrol for the car, but the Sun had burnt through the cloud cover and was shining brightly – and warmly – on our corner of France.
I almost raced down the familiar drive to get back to the little resort and dragged my children off to the pool where the water was surprisingly warm.
E sat with a sarong over her and read her book while I played in the water with the children; it would be my last time in the naturist pool on the holiday and I just needed to take advantage of it while I could.
One thing that I was teased about before I left Britain was getting erections while at La Jenny and as any man will testify they can occur when they are least wanted, needed or stimulated. It really can have a mind of it's own. However, apart from in the privacy of our villa bedroom I never had this problem – and there were plenty of girls on the beach or in the resort that would have given me problems had the situation been different. In truth, at La Jenny, there are no sexual overtones or undercurrents; it appeared to me, to be purely about smiles on faces which was exactly what I expected and hoped for. 
We had our second meal in the restaurant and was served by a girl who had just starting working there. Her English was fabulous, she was friendly and I was minded to leave a tip when I paid the bill. It was a world away from our first night at the restaurant when we felt like naughty children for not remembering our GCSE French well enough. 
We were going to watch the Karaoke but by the time it was due to start there were very few people around and so we slouched off back to the villa. I had been dressed for almost four hours at this point and it felt unnatural; I wanted to sit naked on the patio with a glass of wine. 
Within twelve hours we would be leaving the site and it all felt too soon. The naturist resort was a completely different universe from the stresses of everyday life and I had not worried about e-mails on my Blackberry from work all holiday.
I felt, more than ever, that it was a lifestyle I wanted to adopt. I often had trouble switching off from everyday life and relaxing, but the only worry I had now was how easy I would find it to switch back on again. 
Chapter X: Departure
Unfortunately we had to be out for 11am as we had a long drive and we ate breakfast au naturel on the patio. My wife cleaned the chalet as I loaded the car (still naked) and even took the rubbish down to the recycling point with nothing on. 
My children and wife were quiet and understanding; they knew how much the week had meant to me and how much I had liked it. I took the white, cheap towels to throw away before getting dressed. We had certainly got our use out of them; they were always on chairs or benches, or around waists when in the shop. For the sake of £3 each, they were brilliant.
I waited until we had done literally everything before getting clothed as I knew it would be several months before I would get the opportunity to experience being naked in such an environment again and wanted to savour the freedom for the last few moments. In addition, my skin was woefully untanned; there is no justice in the world! 
We left the sheets on the bed, and checked out, passing the key and key card for the gate to the receptionist. He asked if we had enjoyed our holiday which we obviously did and I got back in our car; it really had been near perfect.
As I started my marathon drive to Paris on a multitude of roads, I had a tear in my eye. I loved the feeling of being nude and the holiday had opened my eyes to a way of life I guessed I would enjoy but never expected to be able to experience. There was something so magical about being completely free and I had a feeling of missed opportunity and annoyance; I could have done this years ago, why didn't I?
I asked my family if we should go back next year and the kids faces lit up. “Yeah,” my son cried. “But only if the waves don't knock me over again.” Even E was talking about coming back – and although she wouldn't have come if I wasn't around, it didn't spoil or dampen her enjoyment from the holiday by being nude all day; she didn't feel uncomfortable.
That said, she did say that next year she would definitely buy a couple of shirts for her shoulders and another sarong. She was happy swimming with nothing on, but she did like to have something around her waist when she was walking.
When we arrived in Paris after our arduous 9 ½ hour car journey I sauntered into the hotel lobby and glanced over at the pool tables. My eyes lingered on a young lady taking her shot, as any guy would do, taking a moment to admire her tight, white trousers as she bent over the green baize. If I was at La Jenny, then I probably would not have looked twice. So quickly had I reverted to “normal” behaviour!
After a meal at the restaurant, my wife went to bed to read and I was left alone with the hotel Internet and my laptop, and I began looking. I was naked in the apartment – of course – and stumbled across British Naturism before getting permission from E to join us both as a couple.
For the first time in my life, I was a bona fide naturist. And I had the beginnings of the all over tan, smile on my face and a membership card en route to prove it! 
Chapter XI: Final thoughts
I am now a member of British Naturism and we will be returning in the future to a naturist resort. I am sure we will probably go again to La Jenny, as a first time introduction for naturism it was low-pressure, relaxed and wonderful. A lot of the activities start on the Mondays so we would go for a week from a Saturday onwards to take advantage of this.
That said, our holiday next year will possibly be to a similar resort, such as Euronat as my wife said she would like to try a few other places but both of us would like to return to La Jenny at some point in the future and very much enjoyed the four days we spent there; the staff were wonderful and the facilities were great. We never used the golf course, archery, sauna, tennis courts, volleyball courts, chess boards, pinball machines, pony club, petanque green, yoga area or kids clubs; there is so much more for us to explore there.  
There has been a little muttering and averting of eyes when I recalled my experiences back home where I went on holiday but I find this is totally irrational. People have told me that they would be comfortable going topless/topfree and not bottomless or wouldn't want strangers or friends to see them and I can half-understand the discomfort about it, but not totally.
Didn't you all play strip poker when you were a teenager? Haven't you all wandered around at home or when you were a student with nothing on? Were there no drunken and naked escapades in your youth? Didn't you go swimming or to the gym with your friends and then get changed in the showers at the same time? Did no-one streak through their University halls in Freshers Week? The idea that we – as a nation or species – are never naked around our friends and family is a fallacy, we do it all the time, but we see it as a rarity not the norm. 
Personally speaking, I cannot think of many of my friends I would not want to accompany me on a naturist holiday should they want to (although they might think differently!) and, as I said earlier, you really do not notice to the nudity after a few minutes; it fades into the background.
But even if this was not true and the nakedness was noticed, does anyone really think that they have something under their clothes that would make people startle or gasp when compared with 500 other human specimens? Perhaps they have two cocks, or a vagina with teeth? Maybe they can shoot missiles from their buttchecks or have a pair of luminous green testicles? No, thought not! It may be a silly point fatuously made, but the point remains: you are highly unlikely to receive anything more than a fleeting glance as naturists will have seen hundreds if not thousands of bodies. Indeed, while we were on holiday there was a lady who had had one breast removed, and was still happy to walk around the pool au-naturel and no-one that I saw gave her a second glance.
If it really is the length of the manhood that is frightening men then this is equally as silly. A recent study said the average size that a man “grows” during an erection is that of around 200% of the flaccid state – and those in the subset with smaller members saw a bigger growth amount – but in total it varied from around 120% to 400%, so even if women were “checking out” potential partners as they went about their business, it wouldn't be completely representative of what they could expect that evening. It's a complete fallacy and a nod towards unfounded male insecurity.
I am comfortable with me and even if I wasn't before I went, then I am sure I would be afterwards. There are clubs that do “open days” up and down the country; we didn't need to run off to the South of France for four days to experience getting our kit off in public! I have eyed the Manchester ride-around the city wearing nothing (World Naked Bike Ride) but these operate in cities all around the world and will look to do that in the Summer next year; I loved the feeling of being naked and will definitely want to do it again and again. 
The feeling of embarrassment or being immodestly attired I think comes from being dressed differently to those people around you. I felt a little uncomfortable when we first went to the restaurant on the Monday as we were the only clothed people in the village centre (outside the waiters and waitresses). I felt a little conscious of myself and it didn't feel natural whereas only a couple of hours previous I was strutting around the pool without a second thought. 
Personally, this is one thing I wanted to convey to people I spoke to as believing this makes the idea of trying naturism a lot less scary. If you were surrounded by a 1,000 people and they were all nude and you weren't, you would feel conscious and you would stand out. The remedy is to shed the cotton and join in, and then you would “blend in!”
So with all these positive thoughts, I remembered the documentary – filmed in 2004 – that we saw before we left and had to contact the young lady who had made it. She was eighteen when she made it, but would be in her mid-twenties now. I looked her up on Facebook and sent her a message  detailing briefly who I was, my experience for the week, and whether she still held the so-so opinion of naturism that was aired eight years previous. My son is eight soon, and if we do adopt the lifestyle then he will be hitting his awkward body-conscious stage within three or four years when puberty starts, and wanted to know if Bianca outgrew her reticence. Unfortunately, she never replied, but they are questions I would want answering.
To me, our naturism reinforces the wide variety of body types that is woefully misrepresented in the media and by advertisers. I believe that it is our children seeing the same unhealthy type of body projected as “normal” that causes so many of the anxieties about their body they experience as they go through puberty, and naturism is surely the perfect antidote to the worries caused by the mass media.
It is unfortunate that naturists still receive a degree of hassle; the World Naked Bike Ride in 2008 in Manchester had several policemen stopping riders and being heavy handed with the participants. That was unfortunate because, as I understand it, there is no law prohibiting public nudity in the England. 
In short, it is an offence if the person is naked to cause “distress, alarm or outrage” (i.e. flashing) or if the person violates the 600-year-old law and doesn't “keep the peace.” 
Ironically, some women have been arrested in the UK for being topfree – most recently at the Olympics when Femen protested against Sharia Law. This interpretation of the law is solely from the male perspective. Why can a man be topfree, but a woman not? It is purely because of the reaction a man can have when confronted with a bare female chest, but can a woman or a gay man not experience the same reaction when confronted with a bare male chest? Breasts are, in no way, a sexual organ so the rationale for forcing them to be covered is simply not there.
I genuinely don't know why people have such a hang-up over other people being naked; if they are that offended, don't look! The issues in 2008 appeared to stem from a belief that if children saw naked bodies they might be traumatised; even typing it sounds it ridiculous. If our children are to have any appreciation of their bodies, they must realise that the images projected by our mainstream media and the magazines are unattainable pipedreams for most people and often unhealthy. Learning to be happy with their body and adopt positive vibes about them is a worthwhile aspiration.
Also, did anyone think that censoring normal people engaging in some au-naturel cycling was really the most important thing the police could be doing that day?
As a final comment, I cannot implore people enough to try it. Public attitudes in this country are changing slowly and idea of social nudity is no longer seen with the same furrowed expression as before.  There are many benefits to swimming and being naked: less laundry; being more comfortable – especially in hot weather; all-over tans; swimming feels better (and is healthier); it helps prevent Lyme disease and cures Psoriasis; increases male fertility; naturists are less stressed; have better self-image opinion and possess better physical health. 
In fact, I found a paper that looked at all the reasons to support naturism and came with 205 reasons, drawing on studies that have been done, but also pointed to a dozen passages in the bible for those Christians among us. Being nude is good for your mental health, physical health and well-being! 
I honestly felt less stressed and more at ease with myself. For the first time in years I enjoyed being by the beach and on holiday. I want to go back, and even my wife who was apprehensive at first, found it quite liberating in the end. Naturism promotes body-positive values and is certainly a great leveller in meeting people (a millionaire and a homeless person will look identical!)
As I end this assorted collection of ramblings, I want to say that there are dozens of naturist clubs up and down the country, naturist cycle rides or even naturist beaches – the ability to try it has not been greater and the Internet has brought it all to a click of a mouse. I just wished it is something I had done years ago.
The question posed by my son, was “do naturists put suncream on their willies?” I think, given that you have read pages and pages of my babblings and incoherent ramblings, I should answer this (only from my personal experience) and consider that this obviously only applies to male nudists. The skin in the genital region is very thin and sensitive, so if any part of your body is going to burn when lay out in the sun then it's perfectly probable that your loins would be one of the first to go. 
My wife teased me jokingly for it but, yes, I did put sun cream on my manhood - and it was only part of me that got remotely tanned! That said, it would have been more fun if I could have got my wife to rub it in for me, but alas – even in the privacy of our bedroom as we got ready to go to the beach – she admonished me with “naturism isn't about sex!”
I could only agree!

Chapter XII: This Book
I decided to write this book before I left the UK; I am a member of the Macclesfield Creative Writing Group and I write adult literature under a pseudonym. I thought that a family trying naturism was an interesting subject for a short book and duly finished it in mid-September.
Having already sent it to my volunteer proof-reader, I posted the text onto the British Naturism forums before I intended to publish it to Smashwords and was amazed at the response. Dozens of people read it and lots of people offered advice. The working title for the book was “Do naturists put suncream on their willies?” and was advised to change it. Naturists were candid and offered real-world advice, while helping me remove the errors from my manuscript. I am extremely grateful for the time that they offered. 
In the last few months, this is entirely consistent with the experience my family and I have had of the naturism lifestyle. Everyone seems so helpful and genuinely friendly – from the people I spoke to before we left the country, the people at La Jenny to the members of the British Naturism forums.
If shedding your worries and stress behind doesn't entice you to try naturism then surely the friendliness and welcoming smiles that you will be surrounded with, must be just as worthwhile a reason!
I hope to see some of you at the Manchester Naked Bike Ride in June 2013.

Chapter XIII: Photographs
I have included a few photographs to show what La Jenny is like. Unless specified, the images were taken by myself and all have been released on the same license – or similar CC license – as this work.
La Jenny (taken from GorillaGolfBlog)

Our villa (taken by myself)

The pool at night (taken by myself)

The pool during the day (taken from GorillaGolfBlog)


The beach (taken from kewlfriend)



The beach (taken from kewlfriend)

That Facebook picture

Chapter XIV: Links
In case you wish to look at any of the places mentioned in this book, here are the links:
Background material
Diary of a teenage nudist: http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/diary+of+a+teenage+nudist/1 
Mail on Sunday: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2192033/Would-Adam-Eve-YOU-columnist-Liz-Jones-bares-Abbey-House-Gardens.html 
Nick Scipio's Summer Camp: http://www.nickscipio.com
205 Reasons to be a naturist: http://www.naturistsociety.com/resources/PDF/205ARGUE.pdf 
Travel
British Naturism: http://www.bn.org.uk
EasyJet: http://www.easyjet.com
Euronat: http://www.euronat.fr
La Jenny: http://www.lajenny.fr
Peng Travel: http://www.pengtravel.co.uk/ 
Osmand (free maps for Android phones): http://osmand.net/
World Naked Bike Ride: http://www.worldnakedbikeride.org/
Photographs
GorillaGolfBlog (released article under a CC-license):
http://www.gorillagolfblog.com/travel/la-jenny-naturist-golf-course-revisiting-six-holes-of-bare-stroke-play/ 
Kewfriend: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kewfriend/