Will anyone take a naked leap of faith?

For the first time this year, I can sit here writing my Naked Strokie blog, well, naked. The weather has taken a turn for the better and it's warm enough to sit in my kitchen crafting these words without wearing any clothes.

The kitchen door  is open, I have a sarong handy in case of unexpected visitors, the sun is shining bright through the kitchen window. It somehow feels right to be naked. So why wouldn't you?

I was in Norfolk last week, not too many miles from where my wife and I spent some of the most idyllic summer holidays of our 30 years together. We stopped every July at a naturist campsite in several acres of woodland just to the west of Norwich. It was owned by a farmer who had been struggling to make ends meet and decided to put some spare fields on the edge of his land to good use.

He and his wife and some friends had enjoyed several summer holidays at naturist sites in the south of France and, taking  something of a leap of faith, he wondered whether there would be demand for naked holidays in this country.

It turned into a goldmine. Charging (and getting) premium prices to those who will pay that bit extra to go naked on holiday, he and his wife (and their friends) spent nearly 20 years creating a naturist idyll in the woods. They built a clubhouse, swimming pool and sauna, as well as several acres which contained caravan pitches as well as static mobile homes for those (including my wife and I) who wanted a bit more luxury on our naked holiday.

The site staged an annual naked music weekend, a naked real-ale festival and was almost always full from mid-May to the end of September. The fact that it was surrounded by a couple of acres of woodland through which it was easy to wander naked without getting lost was a bonus.

In the end, though, the 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week commitment which is needed in the leisure industry took its toll. The naked farmer and his wife decided they wanted to slow down and so they looked to sell the site. Unsurprisingly, there was no shortage of bidders and it was quickly sold to one of the big caravan companies - who, of course, banned nudity on the site and turned it 'textile', as we naturists say.

A group of naturists did attempt to set up a consortium to buy the land, but it was worth millions and only a big limited company ever had a chance of raising the funds. So one of the best naturist facilities in the country was lost; the farmer's son (a keen naturist, by the way) didn't want to make the financial and time commitment to it and any other naturist solution was unrealistic.

That's wrong. I am quite convinced that a naturist facility like that in the heart of the English countryside would be a winner. The audience is there, it just needs someone to take the same leap of faith that the Norfolk farmer did. Then, I could sit naked in a field writing this blog, rather than in my kitchen.

What do you think I would prefer to do?

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