My father was very open minded towards nudity and encouraged my brother and I not to be ashamed of our own bodies. He often expressed the wish that 'if we could afford to take time for a holiday I would love to take us all to a Nudist Colony'. This in the days before official beaches in Britain existed or free beaches were publicised.
He frequently advocated that if there was a greater acceptance of nudist ideals and more open nudity in everyday life there would be less perverts and sexual misconduct. He maintained that curiosity about the human body was the starting point for many more serious offences by people who had had a very restrictive upbringing.
My mother, however, thought that nudity was taboo. She was, I feel, the real reason why my dad never actually followed up his ideas. I had sisters and a brother who did not share this enthusiasm for nudity - my sisters were horrified by the thought that anyone would want to be seen in public with 'no clothes on', my brother tended to treat the whole subject as a smutty joke.
I was, though, already very interested in the idea. It just confirmed for me that there was nothing wrong with my spending time nude as I worked. All this came to an end though as I moved into a job in industry and marriage.
For a number of years my wife was adamant that we would have nothing to do with taking our clothes off outside the bedroom. We lived on an estate of homes on the edge of a town. Over four or five years I let the hedges grow tall enough to stop anyone overlooking us and made an area private enough to enable me to sunbathe nude without being seen. My wife never joined me but rather begrudgingly 'let me get it out of my system'.
At this time, I had a friend who was secretary of a local naturist club which organised local swim sessions and had grounds adjoining the coast. He was prepared to help with suggestions of ways to encourage my wife to join me in my interest. I tried numerous times to arrange trial visits to the club grounds with my wife, but she could not be persuaded.
On trips to other beaches on the west coast, which were long enough to have parts which were unpopular with textiles because of the distance to walk I was able to have some freedom even though my wife kept her swimsuit firmly in place. This situation continued until, through other causes, our marriage fell apart.
Soon after meeting a new partner in life I decided - perhaps a little selfishly - that I would start as I meant to go on. With this in mind I talked to Cathy about her opinions on what people wore to the beach, trying to get some response. I did not appear to be getting negative reponse so I took the plunge and on next warm sunny day we were together I took her to the beach.
As we drove towards the coast I told her we were going to the beach. This brought the response that she did not have anything with her for the beach. I told her not to worry about that as I didn't either and we would see if we needed them when we got there.
We arrived at the beach and, taking the car rug and a bag containing towels that I had kept in the boot so that I could take advantage of any sunny days, we set off walking south along the beach to an area where by then I knew there would be a number of couples and families enjoying the beach without swim suits.
When we reached the area I spread the rug and a towel on the sand by the edge of the dunes. I took off my things and lay on the rug naked. Cathy asked my to cover myself in case someone saw me. I explained that anyone who did see me would doubtless also be naked so there was little to worry about. She then stripped off to her bra and pants and joined me.
Soon she took off her bra without any prompting, but told me there was no way she could take off her pants in public. I accepted that - after all, she had been rather dropped on.
As the tide came up I suggested a walk along the edge of the sea. She agreed, provided I covered myself up. I declined but offered to take a towel just in case and got up to walk down to the sea; she hesitantly joined me, remaining topless. We splashed about at the edge of the sea for quite a while until another couple started to move out of the dunes towards the sea.
Cathy started to tell me that someone was coming and I had better cover my lower half with the towel. Then she realised that the other couple and a family of four following them were all naked. I then heard a 'Oh, what the hell' as she stepped out of her pants, threw them up the beach by the towel and joined me naked.
That was the first time I had enjoyed the pleasure of sharing my love of Naturism with someone else in the same state. We stayed on the beach for three or four hours that day and Cathy stayed nude for the rest of our visit. Unfortunately we did not get another opportunity to visit a beach again for some time.
The next time, we went on a trial visit to the local club grounds and went from there out on to the beach. Cathy was again a little hesitant to join me nude but did so much quicker than the previous visit as everyone was so friendly and, of course, naked. Our visit was a success with Cathy and we joined the club.
Our next visit to a naturist venue was a weekend on the official beach at Fairlight just east of Hastings. We arrived mid-afternoon on a really warm Saturday and parked some distance away and had quite a walk to get there. When we finally reached the beach Cathy was stripped nude almost before I had put the rucksack down. She then helped to spread out towels to lay on before heading to the sea to take a cooling swim. I think that day completed her initiation as a naturist as she likes to be called.
