A slightly smug Tim Gausden e-mailed us with this tale of tents and Bad Samaritans. The scene: the party is over, the taxis to take guests home are late in turning up, and to amuse themselves, people fall to telling stories. 'Andy' and 'Bob's' names have been changed to protect the innocent.

"Andy said that the worst night he could remember was at St David's in Pembrokeshire, a tremendous storm blew up in the night. Andy's tent was straining and flapping like a full-rigged ship rounding the horn, and he kept waking to see if things were still moored. In one of these waking moments the lightning silhouetted a neighbouring tent and showed the figure of a man standing up holding the frame together where it had obviously parted company in a gust. The next flash, an hour or two later, showed a similar scene, and so on all night until the dawn, the lone figure holding up his tent against the force of the hurricane.

We at the party all made sympathetic noises, and, I suspect, were wondering why Andy had not got up and offered some help. Suddenly Bob announced 'I was that man'! He described how his tent had started to collapse. He had held it together all through the night whilst his beloved wife and three children slept on. The next morning they discovered him almost dead from hypothermia and strangely rigid.

We have given up camping for the exotic pleasures of the cheap package to the Greek Islands, but nothing similar ever happened to us in our long camping career. Mind you, we never camped next to Andy as far as we know."