Less is more

It was summer 2021 and Nick Mayhew-Smith pressed into the bosky depths of ancient woodland outside Hastings. When he got to the centre, he undressed and perched on an accommodating mossy log. Slowly, he recalls, nature started to quicken around him. It was like a romantic tableau of a nude in the woods, he says – except the naked human subject was carrying a packet of nuts and a sensible backpack.

The pandemic had left the 53-year-old London-based guidebook writer run ragged with work and home schooling, and a naked stroll in a quiet woodland seemed just the ticket to restore his shattered nerves. “If you sit somewhere remote, fully naked and perfectly still, wildlife starts to get used to you,” Mayhew-Smith, a naturist for three decades, explains. “Birds hop closer, squirrels and badgers emerge: you become, and this is the best way to put it, part of nature. It’s a magical experience, and it really comes into its own in times of stress.”

Mayhew-Smith is one of an estimated 1.3 million Britons who embrace the life-affirming joys of going publicly unclothed. During the first pandemic lockdown in 2020, British Naturism saw the fastest growth in new members