The nudists were the first modern sun-worshipers, the first to embrace sunshine out of choice rather than medical necessity. For a long time ‘sun-bather’ was pretty much a euphemism for nudist. One of the first British societies for social nudity was called The Sun Bathing Society, and there was also a British Sunbathing Association, and a National Sun and Air Society in these formative years. Most of the private grounds dedicated to clothes-free living were called ‘Sun Clubs’, clearly indicating the idol around which their activities revolved. Nineteen-thirty-one was an important year for the movement, with a number of these clubs opening in the South East, for stripped-down sun-bathing and physical exercise on the German model. That was the plan. But, as so often happens in the UK , the weather had other ideas. 1931 turned out to be a particularly abysmal summer, and, as a visitor to one of the ‘Sun’ clubs recorded: “ Members of this colony sat in vain through all of June and most of July waiting for the sun to shine. They were rewarded with heavy mists, damp fogs and torrents of rain, which made only the briefest exercise possible…”

But we Brits are a plucky lot, and hope must spring eternal in the nudist breast. And so, their optimism un-dampened, they stuck at it, and soon other Sun Clubs were exposing their members to the elements. The movement is thriving, and many of the clubs and societies dedicated to social nudity today are still called Sun clubs, and use solar symbols in their logos. The story of sunbathing as a social activity relates an heroic struggle fought on our behalf by dress reformers, great-out-doorists, and those who simply wanted to go naked in public. They fought for our freedoms...their story deserves to be told.

Rude health

The founding ethos of nudism was health. ... Sunlight, along with fresh air and exercise, were the Holy Trinity of a veritable religion of physical culture which emerged around the turn of the twentieth century, whose cathedral was the Great Outdoors. ... The metaphor of sun-worship is not inappropriate, giving the high-flown religiosity associated with this ‘gospel’ of the healthy body. This also encouraged the belief that nudists were a bunch of sandal-wearing, vegetarian, tee-total cranks. Certainly a far cry from the image of Coco Chanel on her yacht.

... Early nudism, was not only not sexy, it was insistently un-erotic in its look and tone. The mainstays of public school orthodoxy - muscular Christianity and the Hellenic ideal - were invoked to support the early nudists’ bid for respectability. The early nude studies which became a regular feature of the reborn Health & Efficiency from about 1930 (encouraging a new readership interested in neither health nor efficiency) clearly attempted to live up to this ideal. Models resembled marble statuary, sanitizing any suggestion of sexuality through the formality of their classical poses and the ‘air-brushed’ absence of any genitalia. The titles of these artistic studies underlined their high seriousness and artistic pretensions. Aurora , All Hail the Dawn, Behold Apollo in His Glory, I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.

Nudist propaganda looked to ancient Greece as its inspiration and ideal. The reality, as encountered in the pages of the early Health & Efficiency was very different. The stagy show-case nudes might have resembled living statues, but the amateur enthusiasts as preserved in film or anecdote are more recognizably English. It is difficult not to feel a deep sense of shame when comparing the English with the German images from the time. Not out of prudery, but at the simple unaesthetic amateurishness of it all. The Germans, buff, bronzed and statuesque in choreographed Classical formation in scenes of Alpine sublimity; as against a motley crowd in big pants stumbling though physical jerks in a field near Harrogate. None of The Sun Bathing Society appears to be particularly tanned or enjoying themselves. Scrawny specimens doing awkward things in dreary locations. More Charles Hawtrey than Charles Atlas.

It is easy to snigger at the stodgy earnestness of these early sun-worshipers; but by fighting for their own freedoms they made possible a lot that we take for granted in our relationship with the sun. Their tireless propaganda for clothes-free sun-exposure helped make bathing machines and woollen one-pieces a thing of the past. In fact, before the 1930s, there was no real distinction between ‘sun-bathing’ and ‘nudism’ either within or outside the movement. ... The term nudist didn’t really appear before about 1933, before that ‘naked sun-bathing’ was used to denote the militant exponents for a practice that was by then gathering broader acceptance and popularity.... Modern sunbathers are merely clothed nudists, and owe a lot to these radical heliotropes....

[This material is a mere snippet of a chapter telling the fascinating story of how we went from avoiding to embracing the sun in the early years of the 20th century. The selected paragraphs focuses on the early days of nudism, and falls easy prey to the temptation to get cheap laughs at their rather earnest capers. Of course, modern naturism is no longer like this, and is about freedom of expression more than health fanaticism. The British Naturism website, which still uses the sun in its logo provides a wealth of information on the modern movement.]

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