The Joys of a Small Co-Created Gathering in Herefordshire

Camp Out 2026

Photo by Pete Lawrence

I’ve been wanting to go for years. There are cross-overs in terms of interests and people with Advantages of Age. Ten years ago, Nadia Chambers and Elizabeth Shanley – both members of AofA – went and then wrote a piece on Death and Dying that came from discussions at Camp Out. Pete Lawrence who founded this gathering, also founded the legendary Big Chill Festival. He’s also written several pieces for our Substack magazine.

And usually, it takes place at the same time as my niece’s festival LoveJam so inevitably I go to the latter.

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However this year, both Asanga – he delayed a small surgical op – and I could go on the four days in early August. Pete had booked the original venue – the Bridge Inn pub in Herefordshire – for Camp Out 2026 and we discovered they had yurts that you could rent. The previous year, I had borrowed a bell tent – I put out in my neighbourhood Kensal Green FB that we needed a tent because we had been let down at the last minute and someone that I didn’t know lent me their pristine tent – but it was a bugger to put up. And Asanga did it. And was affected physically – he has chronic pain from an old climbing injury – for the rest of the festival. A yurt sounded like heaven. And it was, after a few initial adjustments.

The wonderful yurt

Camp Out is called a co-created gathering because most of the participants – there were 120 this year – contribute a workshop, a curated walk in nature, morning movement meditation, a talk on immigration (or the ‘hot potato’) are part of the co-creating team. That gives a wonderfully connected atmosphere and warmth to this small community. I offered a poetry workshop Write a Field Poem as well as a performance of a few poems at the Open Mic.

This year – which looks as though it will be the last year in this iteration – Camp Out 2026 was located around the Bridge Inn pub in Michaelchurch Escley in Herefordshire where it started out. As I drove down the long narrow roads around there, I fell in love with the landscape. Despite the parched earth. It is minatureland. Farmland. And I eventually drove down to The Bridge Inn which has a little river beside it and weeping willows which were still green.

The yurt was up among the trees and had a chill out area, a dining table and an outside kitchen which had a fridge. All mod cons. Everyone asks – But what about the toilet? We had a compost toilet at the end of the track which was great. There were a few things to sort out – like the initial sheep smell (it went within hours and was due to the new insulation), the gas cooker/hob which leapt into flames from a leak, the lack of sawdust in the loo. But Mark, the landlord, to his credit, was eager and willing to sort it all out. And we utterly loved the yurt, I slept better than I had done for weeks.

And we did know a few people. There are interweavings – I am very keen on them – between Camp Out and Advantages of Age – Fiona Winter, Yael Hochenberg, Ruth Fox, Rosalind Sanchez, Michelle Pogmore, Debra Sofia Magdalene, Poppy Altmann – they were all there. Oh and James Lockley. There was an opening ceremony where everyone introduced themselves and said where they were from. That was fun because there was such a mixture of locals and far afields. There was a drumming ritual from Spirit of the Inca and a community mandala-making led by Pete’s spirited and generous partner, Lizi Sage.

Every night, there was a live music and a DJ set in the pub’s garden. That was such a wonderful extra. The first night, we danced to the 50s style rockn’roll Ousted band. There was dancing. There was laughter. On the Saturday night, there was an Open Mic for a couple of hours and we had everyone from a teenager playing guitar to a woman doing a very brave dialogue about her bulimia. And then a DJ set inside the inn by Serious Jones, a cab driver from Cardiff with a large personality and a brilliant box of vinyl which coasted between Ian Dury’s Sex, Drugs and Rockn’roll and Stevie Wonder’s Imagination. We went to bed at midnight but quite a few stayed up til 4am.

The highlight on the band front were Biskee Brisht who had come all the way from the Isle of Man to thrill us – I bought their new album – with their indie punkish laments and jigs. Biskee Brisht means Broken Biscuits and a lot of their songs are in Manx!

Biskee Brisht doing a lunchtime set

Camp Out started off as a more political festival – it is part of Campfire Convention which Pete started to trailblaze progressive societal ideas but gradually it’s become more well-being. On Friday morning at 8am, I joined Yael’s movement meditation in the Heart to Heart tent with about 20 others. It was wonderful to move, to unwind in spirals, to breathe.

I have been doing an MA in Poetry Writing for the past two years, I was clear about what I wanted from this gathering. I wanted to stop using my head and stop sitting down, I wanted to go wild on the dance floor. And that really was possible. The highlight – because I haven’t been to one for a long time – was the 5 Rhythms session in the garden. It was playful and the music was funky.

For Asanga and I, this is our favoured kind of community. We thrive as a couple when we are surrounded by open-hearted human beings who want to see the best in each other.

The lovely Lizi Sage and sweet Jodie Miller in my poetry workshop

And we dance together. Asanga has a major chronic injury but with the help of painkillers, it doesn’t stop him.

Poppy Altmann led a Family Constellations mini-session – there were over 30 people and there was not time for a whole constellation –where I was chosen to represent love twice.

What a privilege! I definitely want to do some more work with Poppy in the future.

Fiona Winter led a wonderful specially curated – with music for the space – walk through the land. That way, I saw more of this land than and I had and we got to focus on an oak leaf or a view backwards. The magical moment for me was seeing a deer appear in the field next to us. It was a reminder that if you really look, you will see the extraordinary.

Talking of which, there is the space for all sorts of creations. Simon Earney is a tree surgeon and a sound artist, he made a light installation called Octopus’ Garden in the field barn. And it was wow. There was also a gin loft nearby – the farm makes its own gin – we had a very small one and then lay amid the bubbles of light and birthing music next door. On the last morning, I popped by again, someone had put an oak branch in the middle of one of the light trees, it really did feel like it represented hope in these often bleak times.

Octopus’ Garden

And I would say that’s exactly the same spirit as Camp Out has. Oh and I really enjoyed giving my poetry workshop because the participants really went for it…

You can check out event on campfireconvention.network or on FB.

The Bridge Inn is at MichaelChurch Escley in Herefordshire.