Camping horror stories

I’m an inveterate camper. When my mates were studying Geography (I wasn’t!) I tagged along while they took soil samples in the Lake District and measured the acidity of the soil. Yeah, granted: it was about as much fun as it sounded.

To make it better, we only took a 2 man tent. A canvas 2 man tent. A canvas 2 man tent with holes in it, more to the point. We also only had 2 sleeping bags between the 3 of us, meaning that we had to zip them together  and sleep butt to butt, sweating from body heat (and who knows – maybe repressed emotions).

On the first evening, we bought a cheapo fishing rod between us, a pint of maggots and absconded to the pub to quaff beer and eat crisps. Lovely lovely. However, when the evening drew to a close and the dreaded “last orders” shout went up, it transpired that we had a scant 3 quid remaining between us.

Now for you youngsters reading this, bear in mind that this was 1992 and cash machines were not on every corner as they are today. In fact, the nearest one was 17 miles and a 4 hour round trip by bus away. We decided to stretch the money out instead.

We bought a loaf of Kingsmill, a glass jar of cheese spread and a big bag of Kettle Chips and hunkered down with our rations to weather the next 3 days. The following day, we set off up the mountain to Angle Tarn to do a little fishing. Whilst gingerly skirting around some rocks on the edge however, disaster struck! The glass jar of cheese spread slipped out of my rucksack and fell into the water, smashing over a rock.

For a little while, we watched the cheese ooze over the rock. Eventually, we looked at each other, then at our aching, empty bellies and I reached in and began to scoop up the viscous cheesy mixture. Keeping it in an empty margarine tub we found by the lakeside, we ate cheese spread sandwiches that night, with a smattering of glass. Lovely.