It sounded like the ultimate retro break - a state-subsidised stay in a government-owned log cabin, maybe with a little communal tractor-driving thrown in. Such fun prospects from the Soviet era are still available in North Korea, Cuba - and New Labour's Britain, according to a Conservative policy document on potential savings at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Deep in the woods, three relics of socialism offer strength through joy at a £3.7m loss last year, courtesy of the Forestry Commission, say the Tories. The nearest to me in Leeds is Keldy in the North York moors national park, and we were soon on the way there, knapsacks stuffed with Tizer and song sheets from revolutionary socialist student days in the 1960s.
"You'll be held up in Pickering by the traction engine rally," said Sue Cox's cheerful voice from cabin control, when my wife and I rang to check arrangements. And we were; creeping, steaming monsters (how can so much power create so little speed?) paralysed the roads for miles. Here was authentic nostalgia and Soviet-style inefficiency; we had nothing to lose but our place in the queues.
But that was it as far as Michael Howard's nightmare of Komsomol dachas were concerned. Once you get on the road to Helmsley, brown tourist signs to "Keldy Forest Cabins" abound - nothing hidden or surreptitiously socialist here. So do estate cars full of the sort of cheery families you meet at Center Parcs, heading for something basically similar, though simpler. Typical. The bourgeois take over everything.
There are no glorious names from the socialist era either - Aneurin Bevan, Barbara Castle - carved on the cabin walls. Like the other two sites, in Cornwall and Perthshire, Keldy has just been completely torn down and rebuilt, which turns out to explain the Tories' suggestion that Forest Holidays (an arm of the Forestry Commission which is about to become a public-private partnership) is mired in loss. The 141 cabins and 5,000 caravan pitches make an annual profit of about £1m. The year the Tories picked on saw the budget skewed by major investment.
Cabins like ours - whose workaday name, Number 52, was its only Soviet feature - arrived as £70,000 flatpacks which were assembled among the trees this winter. "Cabin" is a fanciful name, too, for something Hansel and Gretel would consider a mansion. Think "lodge" or even "villa". These are Scandinavian-style chalets of the type you see at Langdale in the Lake District and other smartish time-shares. They have mod cons which some Forest Holidays veterans consider extremely pansy. Dishwashers, even. TVs and videos.
"Some regulars were a bit surprised," says Sue Cox, who runs the 62-cabin site with her husband Dave and a handful of green-shirted Forestry bods (another, very slight, uniformy nod in the direction of the Kremlin). "They talk about the days when they were children and they had to climb a vertical ladder to get to their bunks." Now, the children's bedroom is up an elegant wooden flight of bannistered steps, complete with retractable stairgate.
What do you do? This is Center Parcs without the flumes and Jacuzzi. There's ping pong, communal barbecueing and a huge emphasis on nature. See deer from your bedroom window over morning tea. Track a pheasant sauntering past your big, Californian-style deck. Tick off the birds, insects and reptiles from big recognition charts in the Children's Room. This is the sort of holiday break of which a certain type of Guardian reader dreams.
There are also extras. Keldy has a turreted squash court, the only relic of a hideous Edwardian shooting lodge built here by the Reckitt family, chemical magnates of Hull. Ha! Their property now belongs to the people (sort-of). There's also a pretty cast-iron certainty of seeing badgers. On our one evening's stay, we had an excellent spell in the hide. I'm convinced our badger waved.
The walks are also five-star. Not simply the chance to wander for miles in the vast loveliness of the North York Moors, but full of well-marked circuits in the dark, beguiling forests of Cropton and Dalby. Biking is even better and very much Keldy's preferred method of transport. Short-term hire is quite pricey - nothing socialist about £8 a day - but there are good family and week-long deals.
Children buzz about the whole site safely on bikes or foot, and there's quite a likelihood of meeting extended family parties - three-generation holidays are common - and wholesome groups organised by churches or the Inner Wheel. As great escapers from anything resembling a camp, Penny and I were extremely pleased to find the New Inn, Cropton, less than three miles from Keldy, whose pub micro-brewery produced Britain's champion bitter two years ago. The menu groans with such excellent things as steak and ale pie.
No, Soviet it ain't. But Keldy has some of the simplicity of former times and, if you like camping, there's a bit of make-do feel, even to the luxury new cabins. Ours was for six, but that means two people using a sofa bed in the main, kitchen-and-sitting room. Given the current hard times at Conservative central office, I can't think of a better place for a shadow cabinet brainstorming and get-to-know-you weekend.
Way to go
Martin stayed in a six-person cabin at Keldy. Prices start at £285 per cabin for a three-night break between September 4 and October 12. A seven-night break in September starts at £495. forestholidays.co.uk, info@forestholidays.co.uk, 0131 314 6100
