Club Blog

It’s become a bit of a tradition. Winter tent camping for me and my two sons, Tom, aged 13, and ten-year-old Elliot.

We try to go just before Christmas but we just didn’t find the time in the run up to the 2012 festive season. That said, we didn’t want to let our little tradition fizzle out this winter either.

I typically camp all year round in one way or another, but for my sons, our winter camping trip is a bit of an adventure. We have to outwit the cold temperature and have a half decent night’s sleep.

Our Marketing team have put together a great list of 25 ways to keep the family entertained en-route to your campsite.

It’s a brutal message that doesn’t sit comfortably with our relaxed holiday pastime, but the reality is a lit charcoal barbecue gives off enough carbon monoxide (CO) to kill – even if it’s not hot enough to cook on.

Over the last year the Club has been at the forefront of a camping safety campaign and I’ve had the privilege of being involved. It’s been tough at times, especially when I spent an afternoon with Danielle –14-year-old Hannah Thomas-Jones’s mum. Hannah died in May 2012 after the family put their barbecue into the porch area of the tent overnight. Danielle is an amazing lady and the power of her testimony underlined the need for an awareness campaign. The family knew nothing about the dangers of carbon monoxide from a barbecue before Hannah’s death.

Wouldn’t it be great if 2013 marked the first year that no-one said: “I didn’t know that”? And as a result no-one felt groggy – or worse – after breathing in the colourless, odourless gas that is carbon monoxide from a charcoal barbecue?