"Look, that man’s got a nudie bum-bum” squealed my son, pointing so hard he nearly prodded the middle-aged monsieur into the recycling bins.
It was early evening on the edge of a towering pine forest in south-west France and the man emptying his rubbish did indeed have a nudie bum-bum. In fact, as he turned round it was hard to avoid getting a good look at his nudie front-front as well.
Puzzled by the excited whoops from our four-year-old, Ben, and pathetic giggling from Mum and Dad, Mr Nudie Bum-Bum calmly finished his domestic duties and strode off into the forest.
He glanced back once to give us a pitying smile and an eyebrow expression like the one I use to ward off loopy street beggars. Clearly we were the ones who had got it wrong. Fully clothed and still grounded with giggling, we were here to see for ourselves what a naturist holiday was all about and judging from our first encounter the Morris family was not fully prepared for the week ahead.
Following a reader’s request for more coverage of naturist holidays in the Telegraph Travel pages, I had been volunteered to shed my clothes and some light on the subject. The trouble was that a solo fortysomething male snooping around a nudist camp with a notebook and camera was more likely to get a punch in the mouth than a true taste of holidaying au naturel .
For my own safety and sanity I had to recruit my family, and it wasn’t easy – my wife’s idea of public nudity is leaving the house without her Chanel wristwatch. In her life experiences catalogue, naturist camps are firmly filed under “N” for “not on your nelly”. After a lot of verbal smoke about the beauty of all-over tans and promises of unlimited spa treatments she eventually relented, but only after laying down some strict rules:
1. No camping or roughing it; only top-quality accommodation.
2. No photographs of her naked in the newspaper.
3. No meals on glass-top tables with other nudists.
4. No compulsory nudism — clothes only to be removed when she decreed it suitable; judging by her strong stance on the issue that was going to be for about as long as Janet Jackson exposed her bosom to the American nation during this year’s Super Bowl.
My first round of brochure research only confirmed my wife’s worst fears. They portrayed a surreal suburban world of permed housewives and bearded husbands on their way to the shopping centre, only they’d forgotten to put on clothes.
There were hilarious photographs of naked archery (ouch), fat-bellied men playing bare-arsed chess and a great one of a Croatian accordionist serenading a bar of nudie Germans. All very amusing, but hardly the sort of thing to get you whistling Summer Holiday and packing your suitcase. There were even brochures featuring “adults-only party resorts” in the Caribbean with photographs of intoxicated couples practically offering up their chalet keys to the camera.
NaturaIly I hid them from my wife and was just beginning to despair when the France 4 Naturisme brochure came to the rescue. Here were happy young families frolicking in the waves, children laughing in the sunshine and some very fit – I mean healthy-looking – women in the spa section. The brochure made naturism look attractive and suddenly the idea of spending a week in the French countryside with a bit of sun on your bum seemed like a jolly good idea, even to my wife.
After a little advice from the French tourist office, I homed in on the Natu-Resort & Spa of Arnaoutchot , or just plain old Arna for linguistically challenged folk like myself. It was classified as a three-star resort situated on the Côte d’Argent stretch of the Aquitaine coast between Bordeaux and Bayonne.
The camp was surrounded by a nature reserve of mature pines and boasted two outdoor swimming pools, an open-air theatre, a solarium, a restaurant serving local specialities and a generally whizzo spa centre. As we drove towards it I was quietly confident that I had got it right and moved on to wondering whether the Atlantic would be warm enough for swimming – prompted by a small advertisement I’d seen for walnuts.
We arrived at the camp at 8pm and it took only the briefest of glimpses at our “six-bedroomed cottage’’ to realise I had got it wrong. It wasn’t that the place was dirty or old – it was just that I’d anticipated more of a hip spa-style hotel rather than a souped-up portable building designed for dwarves. Having grasped the awful truth that we were staying in nothing more than a naked caravan park I tried to be positive.
I pointed out that the built-in CD player, microwave and personal shower made our mobile home luxurious by campsite standards, but I was fooling no one. “I feel like I’m trapped in the shed section of B&Q ,” growled my wife as she tucked the disposable paper sheets into the worryingly thin mattress. I was duly punished with a terrible night’s sleep and lay awake hoping that the holiday could be filed into her life experiences catalogue under ''B’’ for “bizarre but bonding”.
The next day Ben and I went native. Everything about the campsite began to make sense as we walked through the pine forest to a gigantic stretch of sand complete with curved glassy breakers and a clear blue sky. It seemed only natural to strip off, chase crab bubbles and enjoy the all embracing power of the Atlantic. Mature naturists waddled by without attracting comment from my son or even raising a chuckle from yours truly. It was a liberating early-morning introduction to the pleasures of going starkers.
The only tricky moment came on the path heading back when Ben insisted on practising his bonjours on an attractive young mother. Suddenly I found myself acting like a deranged sniper edging sideways down an alleyway. Flushed with shyness, I grabbed Ben by the hand and hurried us both out of “danger”. I could handle nudity at a distance but up close and personal (worse still, beautiful) was going to take a little more getting used to.
Back at base the weather was perfect except for a small black cloud that had formed directly above my wife’s head. “They are like zombies. No matter which way I look they keep coming at me,” she complained. Right on cue a man wearing nothing but sandals and carrying a baguette at a jaunty angle strolled past our breakfast table. We were on the direct path to the campsite shops and the catwalk of male flesh wasn’t helping her settle in.
“Its more like a Benny Hill sketch than Night of the Living Dead ,” I joked, as a naked senior citizen roared up on his motorbike and parked outside our portable building. Before he could cock his leg over the saddle my wife had snatched her mobile phone and retreated into the recesses of our dwarves’ cottage.
The rest of the week continued in this fashion. Ben and I getting more and more into the naturist way of life while my wife read a lot of detective novels and found a beach three miles away that offered the double draw of a good restaurant and men with bathing trunks. At one stage we boys even braved a spot of naked shopping, which was fine if you kept away from the frozen foods and didn’t mind the check-out girl being at eye-level with your groceries.
In one final attempt at integration I persuaded my wife to come and see Ben enjoying himself in the campsite’s large swimming pool. She reluctantly agreed and followed us in wearing her black bathing suit. Big mistake. Surrounded by naked sunbathers, she looked more like a woman in purdah than a woman in Prada. Worse still, I soon realised that in the topsy-turvy world of naturist etiquette, people were actually offended by her outfit. So after the third person politely pointed out that there was a compulsory nudity rule at the swimming pool I’m afraid it was back to the three-mile drive and detective novels.
To be fair, my wife did have a relaxing time in the camp’s spa centre, a place where she felt it was a bit more normal to be naked. She went in for a whole menu of rubs, scrubs and hydro do-das before rounding off the week with a defiant bikini wax. If nothing else the holiday had taught her that she was a confirmed “textile” (the naturist term for clothed folk), and proud of it. Back in the safety of Biarritz, she conceded that it had been “thought provoking”, but was definitely a life experience to be filed away under ''A’’ for “absolutely never ever again”.
As for myself, I was full of admiration for the innocent folk doing nothing more than enjoying getting an all-over tan. It was refreshing to see people completely comfortable with their body shapes, although I confess that some of the effects of gravity I witnessed left me less relaxed about the future.
I appreciated the importance of nature in the naturist’s world and felt a lot healthier for my week of skinny dipping. Best of all I loved the convenience of wandering down to the beach or the swimming pool without the faff of changing in and out of wet swimming costumes or sandy shorts. But of course the person who enjoyed it the most was the one with the fewest preconceptions, four-year-old Ben. He loved playing all day in the safety and simplicity of the natural camp. He made friends, tried out a little French and swam his first outdoor length. He even brought back a great souvenir from the trip – his very own sun-kissed nudie bum-bum.
The Morris family were guests of the Arna Natu-Resort and Spa (0033 558 491111, www.arna.com), 40560 Vieille Saint-Girons. Mobile homes for a family of four can be rented from about £150 a week. Arna is one of 10 resorts recommended by naturist holiday specialists France 4 Naturisme (www.france4naturisme.com). Car Rental from Biarritz was arranged through Hertz (08708 484848, www.hertz.co.uk), which offers all-inclusive weekly rates from £128. Ryanair (0871 246 0000, www.ryanair.com) offers return flights from Stansted to Biarritz from £30, including taxes and internet discount. For further information on naturist and other holidays in France, contact the French tourist office (Maison de la France) on 09068 244123 (calls cost 60p a minute) or visit www.franceguide.com.