Leith Hill in May 2002. This was the fist walk that I orgainised. Eight members turned up for this walk which proved to be most eventful, although it was cold and wet at times. The first stretch was very wet, but the rain did stop in time for lunch, and by the time the tower was reached there was bright sunshine. This popular spot was deserted and so lots of photographs of naked people in front of the tower were taken.
At one point, while the walkers were examining the map, two mountain bikers rapidly passed us apparently not noticing the nude bodies. Later we were "caught out" by a woman on horseback who "just appeared". As she rode past she said, "My husband is not going to believe this when I get home". She was clearly not at all bothered about passing several naked people on a narrow path.
The indifferent weather had the advantage that we had the countryside virtually to ourselves, and were able to walk nude for almost the whole way.

The walks are organised by Richard. I maintain the SOC walks webpage which contains details of our recent walks and more photos.

There are other nude walking groups in SE England. Have a look at:

Kieran's Yahoo 'Free Hiking - UK' webpage.

On the SOC nude walks it is often necessary to 'cover up quickly'. The normal method is to slip on a pair of shorts. However, this is not necessarily as easy as it sounds especially when on a muddy footpath and trying to do it in a hurry. "There must be an easier way" I thought. This is an example of my thoughts, (with a ltlle help from velcro), with more details given here.

Helping to Make TV Programmes on Nudism

I was on one of SOC’s walks recently when Bill (the walk leader) mentioned that Helen Ludbrook (ex editor of H&E) was looking for people to help make a TV programme about nudism / naturism. The programme was to feature various aspects of ‘the social things that people do in the nude’. Part of programme was to feature nude walks, and she was looking for some ‘nude walkers’ to help her out.

What a tempting idea, I thought. There was some interest shown from the rest of the group, so I tentatively agreed to take part. The programme would be shown on Channel 4 (UK TV). Although Channel 4 does not get much of a following, there would be the possibility that some one might recognise me, so my mind went through the usual dilemma, of whether I should participate or not. Even although I produce this webpage, which gets about 300 hits a day, I still dithered about participating! I think that the difference is that the webpage readership is spread out all over the world and is aimed at nudists / naturists. The TV programme would be intended for the UK audience, and anybody, not just nudists might watch it. There would therefore be a much greater chance of, for example, a work colleague seeing the programme. If a work colleague discovered my webpage, my argument in defence would be that he / she must have been looking for nudist / naturist information, so they should not be surprised at what they find. It would not be possible use the same argument if they innocently watched a naturist programme on Channel 4. Anyway, I decided to participate with the programme, and worry about what people might think about it, if and when it happens!

The day of the filming was a lovely sunny day, and repeated part of walk that we had done earlier in the summer. We had a good turn out from fellow naturists / nudists, with about a dozen or so people turning up. The film crew consisted of Helen Ludbrook, a camera man and a person in-charge of ‘sound’. Once we were ‘away from civilisation’, off came the shorts and tee shirts. Helen obviously joined in with the nudity, as did the camera man. We could not convince the young lady in-charge of ‘sound’ to join in, but that was up to her.

We did not actually walk very far, but the day consisted of walking back and fourth along the same sections of path to get a better ‘take’. During our lunch time stop, anybody who was interested was interviewed, to allow them to give their views on nudity, nude walks, etc. One of the facinating quirks that became apparent when making this type of nudist TV programme, was that regardless of how progressive the programme makers tried to be, they were still not allowed to show anything more than the slightest glimpse of male or female genitals. So even when they took a shot of the group sitting on the grass having lunch, it was necessary to do some re-arrangement of legs, etc, to hide the offending bits!

The whole day was very different from normal, initially it involved a bit of heart searching, but ultimately it was enjoyable.

In June 2002 the BBC Countryfile programme was looking to make a short programme on nude walking. The programme deals with all country matters. So the usual candidates, plus a few more turned up to oblige. The weather was awful, - cold wet and windy, but that did not put off the BBC! As the day progressed, the rain stopped and the sun appeared and the goose-bumps disappeared. They asked all the usual questions, and took lots of film, but were very careful to exclude the genitals. The film was shown in July 2002, but I missed it. The first I heard of it was from a colleague in the office, who had seen the programme. He was very relaxed about it and was more concerned about the need to avoid brambles than anything else! One of the SOC members did however manage to video recorded programme. I managed to take some photos of the playback, from the TV screen, hence the poor quality.