piece in The Observer

Good day to ya,

I’ve got an article in the Observer today! So if you walk past a newspaper shop, it would be so nice if you buy it and spend a quiet moment of Sunday reading it. Who knows, maybe read the whole paper! I have been trying to spend Sundays reading the paper. It’s always the most relaxing bit of my days off.

Here’s the online article if you can’t make it to a shop:

https://observer.co.uk/style/travel/article/the-freedom-of-wild-camping-on-dartmoor

Giles Whittell, an editor at Tortoise - now The Observer - once instructed me on the key principle of “show don’t tell” when writing a good article. As in, tell a story as it was, and let people infer what it means, and why it’s significant. And I think about that all the time. I tried to follow that rule in this article.

The article tells the story of Lola and I going on a last minute trip to Dartmoor, to celebrate the supreme court ruling to legalise wild camping in the national park.

Quick backstory for those who don’t know… from the 16th century onward parliament enacted Enclosure Acts, which effectively fenced off most of Englands land. They created farmland and estates and that kind of thing.

Dartmoor was famously the last place in England or Wales you could wild camp, and freely roam, after all the commons became private.

That was, until a couple years ago, when some rich fella called Alexander Darwall - sick of campers on his land irritating his pheasants - took the case to court, and challenged the Dartmoor Commons Act’s definition of ‘recreational activities’, arguing that camping was not a outdoor recreational activity.

He also donated stacks of money to a local politician... And reform and the tories and all manner of other stinky folk. And, waddyaknow, won the case! no more camping hippies disturbing Darwalls precious pheasants! Victory is sweet!

until 4000 singing, dancing flower clad hippies rocked up to his land and protested for multiple days. And then took an appeal to the supreme court and won, and now he is expected to pay all of their court fees (millions of pounds). And blammo baby, camping is back! And all the publicity from the court case has meant that WAY more people are going to camp in Dartmoor now, and it might even lead to a wider movement for opening up outdoor spaces around England and Wales.

So if your reading this and you own an estate and pheasants in Dartmoor and you notice flocks of brightly dressed folk setting up tents on your land, and wish to eradicate them… best not take legal action! probably best just ignore them and watch some telly, and hope they go away.

So anyway, driving there, 5 hours from London, having never been to Dartmoor - we wondered what it would be like to wild camp in this national park. And what could drive 4000 people to protest outside his house?

We got there, met lots of people, camped in an insanely beautiful spot, got eaten alive at night by tics and soaked by the rain and felt absolutely miserable, and then woke up to sunlight and climbed up as high as we could and screamed and shouted into the blowing wind; across the vast moorlands - that are free of fences - and full of wild horses, roaming friendly campers, meandering rivers and dense magical forests.

And to break Giles’ rule - the subtle point of the piece - and i hope you read it, its my favourite piece I have done for a paper - is that modern life is sometimes a bit monotonous and sometimes the monotony causes mould, especially when constantly pissed upon by the fluorescent yellow urine that is social media…

… and maybe the antidote for the stagnant, stinky meaninglessness of existence is getting out, and into nature and being rained on, and eaten alive… but then getting the ticks picked off by your loved one and triumphantly climbing to the top of a mountain and losing your mind with pure overwhelming, ecstatic joy.

or something like that.

love you guys. id be so very happy to hear from you if you like this piece. Thats kind of the whole point of this.

love,

Sebastian

photo by Fern Leigh Albert