I've never thought of myself as a natural camper. The last time I went camping I woke up somewhere near deep mid-off on the cricket field I'd accidentally pitched on. But then I got the book. Cool Camping, published last year, is a collection of 40 campsites around England, hand-picked and deemed "cool" by author Jonathan Knight. Suddenly urban pansies the country over, myself included, began believing that you didn't have to be Swampy to pitch up at the weekends.
In its wake came an alleged renaissance of the campsite. Ted Baker released a swanky camping range. Alongside the mud and music at this weekend's Glastonbury, Camp Kerala (campkerala.com) will offer "tents identical to those with which the maharajas set off on hunting expeditions with their star-spangled embroidered interiors and luxury king-sized beds". Yours for £6,000.
But have things really changed on the front line - the good ol' British campsite? Where better to find out than Blackberry Wood in Sussex - singled out by Cool Camping as the coolest of the lot.
We pull off the A23 and whiz though a succession of tiny villages before finding Streat Lane after two three-point turns. It's getting dark. Half a mile, a small wooden sign and we're in. We park up and wander across a grassy clearing with a street lamp and red phonebox in the middle of it. On its fringes are a number of caravans. Yvonne, who's on duty today, pokes her head out of one of them. We are given a laminated sheet of paper with a hand-drawn map of the wood. It shows three paths with what look like speech bubbles sticking out. Each bubble indicates a separate clearing in the wood.
We scamper into the trees and head down the middle path of the three, ducking under protruding branches. We find our patch and illuminate it with our mobiles - the silly urbanites forgot a torch - then discover a number of leftover candles on wooden benches set around the remains of last night's fire. The clearing is maybe 15ft squared. We can hear other campers in neighbouring clearings (just) but we can't see them. It feels exciting. A bit naughty, even - like we've run away and found our own secret hidey-hole. Our mums are gonna kill us!
I struggle starting the fire (the logs were damp, honest) but nobody can see, so it's OK. We'd bought bangers and burgers from the on-site tuck shop, which now feels miles away, and eventually dig in before retreating to our tent feeling very pleased with ourselves.
Breakfast is Hobnobs. I wander down to the house near the road where the owners, Tim and Eva, live with their two children. I find Tim and Charlie, three, dangling out of the stable door entrance. It took Tim most of a winter to clear the tiny paths and 17 clearings in the wood, each of which has been named by previous guests. Mecca (faces east) is the wildest; to the rear of the site where a stream wiggles through the trees and a tyre hangs from a tree. Minty has wild mint growing in it. Visitors to Bunny have to share with a bunny. Wobble is on uneven ground. We find Charlie, frequently "adopted" by guests, playing in Avalon (no reason really, somebody took a fancy to the word); a clearing big enough for two tents, ideal for a family.
I return to my clearing, Hawthorn, as the sun peaks and fills the space, end to end, with intense light. We lie down and our planned five-hour ramble quickly becomes a planned two-hour saunter, with a planned pint in the middle. Eventually we yank ourselves from the ground and head off, wandering through huge, empty cornfields and muddy bridleways lined with wild garlic, ferns and nettles. At the apex of Streat Hill on the South Downs Way, completely alone, we can see the sea.
The pub in Plumpton village is closed, but this makes our dinner decision easier. Later in the evening we jump in the car and head towards East Chillington for a slap-up in the Jolly Sportsman, fingered by the Cool Camping guide as an "exceptional local pub". Twenty minutes and lots of three-point turns later, we find it. It's expensive, with mains loitering around the £14 mark, but worth the splurge. I choose a dry-aged Angus Ribeye with garlic sauce and hand- cut chips. This is the kind of thing hardcore campers might scoff at - the newbies whimpering off to the local gastro - but this is cool camping, so it's OK.
To be honest, the tag is more of an alliterative buzz word than anything else. The book describes Blackberry Wood as "part family campsite, part upmarket hippie playground". The first bit is certainly true; the second bit is, frankly, rubbish. It suggests that Sienna Miller might pop out of a nearby tent and invite you in for some ylang ylang-flavoured crisps. In reality, it's just good old-fashioned camping.
When Cool Camping came out, journalists and TV crews (including BBC Breakfast) scurried down to Blackberry Wood to cover this hip revolution in the countryside. "We were asked what it all meant," laughs Tim. "The truth is, people want a bit of the Ray Mears thing, but also want to go to the Jolly Sportsman for a nice meal, and that's about it." He's spot on. It really was that simple. All that has happened is a bit of re-branding, which has successfully coaxed more people to get involved. Blackberry Wood is a brilliant site, as it was two years ago. Now it's just busier.
· blackberrywood.com, 01273 890035, £5 per tent plus £5/£3 per adult/child. Cool Camping England, Cool Camping Wales and Cool Camping Scotland are published by Punk Publishing, £14.95 (punkpublishing.com). coolcamping.co.uk
Got the campfire going? Then start cooking ...
Jerk chicken
4 tbsp of soy sauce
4 tbsp of Worcester sauce
4 tbsp of brown sauce
2 onions peeled and grated
1 green chilli (more if you like it hotter)
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tbsp brown sugar, demerara is perfect
Handful of thyme, chopped finely
Pepper to taste
4 chicken breasts or thighs, de-skinned
Peel, chop and crush the ingredients as above, then mix them all together in a bowl. Make slashes across the chicken breast to allow the flavours to soak in, then cover the meat in the marinade and place in a coolbox. Leave for as long as possible. Whack the chicken on a barbecue or campfire grill and cook evenly for around 20 minutes, turning regularly. Stand back and breathe in the heavenly aromas; watch other campers look on jealously. Serve with salad or rice and a cooling beer.
Orange-baked muffins
Did you know that by hollowing out a humble orange you get a sensational campfire cooking vessel?
6 oranges
100g plain flour
80g butter
1 egg, beaten
80g brown sugar
80ml milk
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp cocoa powder
Cut the top off an orange and put the 'lid' to one side. With a knife, thoroughly hollow out the fruit, eating the flesh as you go. Check there are no holes in the orange peel; if so, plug them with pith. To make the muffin mix, sift the flour into a bowl, add the butter, egg and brown sugar and stir well. Add the milk and baking powder, then sift the cocoa in and stir again until it has blended in nicely. Stuff the mixture into the orange shells so they're about half full. Put the lid back on, wrap well in tinfoil and chuck them on to your hot coals for about 20 minutes, turning now and then. Remove from the fire and allow them to cool a little before scoffing the orange-scented sponginess.
· Taken from The Cool Camping Cookbook by Jonathan Knight, published next month
