A good water can with a lid

I recently mentioned Ruth Drew, writer and broadcaster. She was a great caravanner and her accounts of her adventures which must have begun in the 1920’s, are amusing and interesting and paint a picture of life camping in the wild. Ruth was born in 1908 and died at the age of only fifty-two in 1960.

A collection of her writings was posthumously put together in a book called ‘The Happy Housewife’, including chronicles of her camping adventures. She had a tiny little van which she trundled about the countryside in, and she writes about her adventures and gives advice to first-timers in the 1930’s or 40’s:

Equipment:
… you’ll need a good water can with a lid – ours is a two gallon aluminium one; an enamel basin; and a can for milk… for crockery, mugs are better than cups and saucers – and enamel plates are best – they don’t break and you can keep them on top of a simmering saucepan.
Then bedclothes. Sleeping bags are much warmer than blankets. And sheets are a refinement it’s best to leave at home. But a hot water bottle isn’t – take it by all means unless you’re setting a very Spartan standard.
First – and this is important – see that every inmate of the caravan has some kind of absolutely watertight footgear – rubber boots are invaluable for camp pottering – but, if they can’t be raised, then see that boots or shoes don’t leak. One summer I had a couple of visitors – a nicer pair I couldn’t have sheltered. But it rained – good sloshing Cumberland rain – and their boots leaked. Well, I can tell you that wet socks hanging up to dry from the roof have a nasty way of falling into the porridge saucepan – which is bad for the porridge and sticky on socks.

She continues on about other clothes, long-sleeved jerseys, and skirts and tops  rather than dresses for women – although she does accept slacks ‘if you like’! She paints such a vivid picture of camping in a very different world from ours, and it seems charming, but how cold and wet and maybe hungry, they must have been for much of the time!