Who are these folk who dress in green bootleg hoodies and ties?

On the 30th of July 2001, 17 people from St. Albans District Woodcraft Folk went to camp. This is their story.

Pumbaa Venturers and Strawberry Fields Dfs set off to Walesby, Nottinghamshire for the twelve days and late nights of the Woodcraft Folk International Camp.. What really happened in those days can only be recounted from the hazy memories of those who survived.

It remains, however, one of the strangest, chaotic, optimistic, lazy, intrigue-and-memory-filled, sad, happy and life changing memories of our lives (and I speak without hyperbole!). A simpler world, and one filled with people we really wanted to be with all the time, and lots and lots of new friends. It was in a way like some Empire Records stylee teen movie with an absurdly happy ending, only in tents. Because even after we came home, we knew that each other, woodcraft, and in fact the whole world would never be the same again.

Melodrama aside, we were camping in Village 37, sharing this village with the lovely people from Sheffield Porter and Don, and a delegation from the Czech Republic. It was perhaps the furthest village away from the central area (with the exception of perhaps the elusive Village 66, and the slightly-less-elusive Village 40), but we made up for this with the lure of the Tool Tent, an incredible array of costumes, a peanut-butter mountain (apparently), guitars, harmonica, a recorder, and lots and lots of ties. It was also really close to the river, which meant on a couple of the more sunny days we spent a lot of time swimming in the just-over-waist deep freezing cold water (which was a lot more appealing than it sounds here).

As we arrived fairly late, we were unable to join the two main circles, and our tents ended up forming a reasonably cluttered St. Albans ‘ghetto’, which grew as Arthur put up more and more tents every day.

This website was formed from the scraps of paper and other ephemera which collected as the camp went on, and it's partly as an archive of what went on at camp, but mostly so we can refresh our memories of the Summer of Love.. for this is only the beginning!

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