A few years ago I went on a camping holiday in Norfolk. We often go on our family holidays to Norfolk but this is the first time we have actually camped. We camped on a site on top of cliffs that directly overlooked the sea. It was a super location and you simply had to scramble down a steep sandy path to reach miles of sandy beach. We erected the tent which was one of the large frame models, sorted out our gear and went down to the beach. As we were walking along a young lad ran up to us and said that our tent had blown away. I told him to go away but he persisted and promised me that my tent really had been blown away. It was only fifteen minutes or so since I had erected it, so I didn’t really believe him but I thought that I had better investigate it anyway.

It is true that there was a reasonably strong wind blowing from the land and the lad was being very convincing, so I was just a little anxious as I climbed the patch back to the campsite. What I saw when I got there, or rather what I did not see, was the tent. Where it ought to have been there was just a space. Approaching the space I saw that the tent was in fact stuffed under the car. It had blown away and some other campers had rescued it and stuffed it under the car to keep it from the wind, which by now was quite strong. They had sent the young lad to find me.

The wind was too strong to re-erect the tent myself, but several other people helped. There was some damage but nothing too serious. It was pointed out to me that when pitching a tent on soft ground, and the ground there was mainly sand, then special long tent pegs were required and these should be further weighed down with rocks or heavy weights. One of the campers drove me to a local camp shop where I purchased the special pegs and a couple of poles to replace the ones that had been damaged. I was very grateful for all the help, but that is what campers are like.