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Isle of Wight camping: English with an accent
Though populated with glamorously retro American trailers, one small corner of the Isle of Wight offered Paul Davies the chance of a thoroughly English family camping holiday.
It is no coincidence that England, England, Julian Barnes's 1998 satire about the creation of a theme park celebrating all that is glorious about our nation's past, is set on the Isle of Wight. Everyone says it because it's true: with its charming seaside promenades, pebbledash bungalows and gentler pace of life, the Isle is three miles but several decades from the mainland.Even the red squirrel, that brush-tailed relic of bygone Britain, thrives here.
Yet you're more conscious of being in England here than almost anywhere north of the Solent. And it's probably the only place where St George's flag bunting, which is strewn everywhere as we head east from the ferry terminal at East Cowes, doesn't carry overtones of drunken menace. (On our visit, the World Cup is in full swing, and Capello's team have yet to disgrace themselves.)
A few minutes beyond Ryde, we are in the countryside and the hamlet of Ashey, where we miss the turning for Hazelgrove Farm twice, in both directions. Two cars have had a prang outside the farm gates and are parked up, waiting politely, Englishly, for the police to arrive, obscuring the signpost.
At the back of some farm buildings we dis-embark at the bottom of a large field, distinguished by 10 metal lozenges set in a semicircle around the far perimeter, like space-age monuments in standing-stone formation. Actually it's more like the laager of a cowboy wagon train, because things suddenly feel much less English.
We're on a time-capsule holiday on the time-capsule island, but our capsules are vintage American Airstream trailers, sharing the function, facilities and dimensions of what the English call caravans, but little else, and sparkling in the distinctly un-English sunshine.
Frazer Cunningham, a large straw cowboy hat shielding his eyes, strides over to greet us. He and his wife, Helen, set up their Airstream holiday business, Vintage Vacations, in 2004. A photographer and stylist, they had bought their first Airstream – a 1965 Tradewind – while living in south-east London after, Helen says, 'perusing eBay after one too many glasses of red wine'. In good condition (apart from needing an internal refurb), it cost £4,000, although demand has since increased, and a decent model now costs upwards of £10,000.
Frazer gives us a tour of the site – the unmanned honesty shop with its campsite essentials: milk, bread and fry-up ingredients – and the rudimentary shower and lavatory block, complete with pictures of Sid James and Barbara Windsor on the doors, for that Carry On Camping vibe.
We're the first of our party to arrive, and many of the trailers are unoccupied, so Frazer lets us poke around his fleet, which ranges from the angular 23ft 1946 Spartanette to the more curvy 1962 Safari. We let our five- and three-year-old daughters choose their favourite trailer, and they bagsy the 1962 Overlander, the clincher being the bunk beds.
It is impossible not to smile as you step inside each trailer. The interiors have been painstakingly restored to their former wood and Formica glories, with every inch of space utilised (we are still finding gems three days in – 'so that's where they keep the hairdryer'). There are some lovely bespoke touches, such as crocheted patchwork quilts and kitsch car boot sale ornaments. There's a pile of rock'n'roll CDs next to the retro jukebox stereo, and a bottle of Babycham to get the party started.
Wally Byam would approve. A former magazine executive from Oregon, he started designing his own travel trailers in the early 1930s, before hooking up with William Hawley Bowlus, an acclaimed aircraft designer and the boffin behind Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis. Their creations, which borrowed riveted-aluminium construction methods from the aviation industry, resembled the fuselages of pre-war aircraft. In 1934 Byam introduced the name Airstream because, he said, his aerodynamic trailers cruised like a stream of air. Even in the fallout of the Great Depression, Byam couldn't build them fast enough to meet demand. The classic design has endured, with the Airstream now considered as handsome, practical and sturdy as anything the American automotive industry ever produced. (Even Nasa admired them, and used Airstreams to quarantine returning astronauts.) Byam's company still produces vehicles from Jackson Center, a village in Ohio, where it has been based for almost 60 years. More than 60 per cent of all the Airstreams ever built are still in use.
Our friends arrive and we divvy up our four trailers, unfold our deckchairs and let our seven offspring off the collective leash (they return occasionally to raid the well-stocked toy cupboards for footballs and cricket bats). On most self-catering holidays, this is the point where you plan the next few days' activities. And you could certainly use the trailers as the ideal base camp from which to explore the island's many attractions: the beaches, the undulating scenery inland, and the many festivals. But as we sip our Babycham it becomes clear this isn't going to be that kind of holiday. Though Hazelgrove Farm is no stunner – there's no view to speak of from our field, beyond its tree-lined perimeter – those metal hulks exert a powerful magnetic pull, and over the next three days we don't venture far. We drag ourselves to the beach at Ventnor, to the Taverner's, a cracking pub in Godshill (thetavernersgodshill.co.uk), and to the island's quirky garlic farm. We know we have probably missed some of the sights, but nobody minds.
For the rest of the time, and with the sun blazing, we stay put, passing the hours drinking Pimm's and firing up the barbecue, the dads showing off with a Frisbee while the children run around barefoot. No one displays any symptoms of Wii withdrawal. The trailers provide enough of a back-to-nature experience to imbue a genuine feeling of escape, but with none of the hardships of camping. You can't pretend this is high-end luxury, but it's more fun than you could possibly expect to have inside a tin can.
Back on the mainland we make a pit stop at a shabby pub near the docks, just in time to watch England get hammered by Germany. It is what is known as a harsh return to the modern world.
- Weekly stays from £425, weekends from £175 (vintagevacations.co.uk). Paul Davies travelled from Southampton to East Cowes with Red Funnel Ferries (redfunnel.co.uk)
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