Depends how young was "quite young" and how long ago it was - I was born in the '50s and family cine film shows me playing naked in the back garden. I think the innocence of childhood and family was taken for granted in those days, as opposed to today's assumption that anyone over the age of puberty is a mass murderer/paedophile/child abductor/rapist and that children should be covered up and kept indoors (present company excepted, of course).

I wouldn't call those family films my earliest memories, because the memories are largely confined to the screen. My earliest naturist memories are from my early teens (late '60s) when I first experimented with avoiding pyjamas, and exploring the garden in the dark when no one else was home.

peter

Well I was probably 9 or 10 then I would think Peter. Soon after I also explored sleeping naked and walking naked in the local woods, so I guess it was formative nudist feelings I would say.

We were frequently naked as children (brother and I ) in and around the house, and at the height of summer  we used to go camping as a family and dad took us skinny dipping in a river. This was all at primary school age. Today even people who are OK with nudity would worry about pollution in rivers  -  but I bet they were worse in the time of my dad's youth (born 1932) or my own youth>

I can remember as a child of 10 or 11 going into the woods near my grandmothers together with my cousins where we would strip off and have an enjoyable time running around naked.  The thought of strange men (or ladies) in the woods never even occurred to us.

I can remember as a child of 10 or 11 going into the woods near my grandmothers together with my cousins where we would strip off and have an enjoyable time running around naked.  The thought of strange men (or ladies) in the woods never even occurred to us.

Because they weren't there - they are a very rare occurrence but you wouldn't think so from the tabloid press.

I went to an all boys Grammar school , and from the age of 11 everyone swam naked in the school swimming pool.

Dick

No nude swimming at my school - lessons were at the local public pool - but after PE lessons and sports everyone stripped off and got under the communal showers. Doesn't seem to be like that any more

peter

I can remember as a child of 10 or 11 going into the woods near my grandmothers together with my cousins where we would strip off and have an enjoyable time running around naked.  The thought of strange men (or ladies) in the woods never even occurred to us.

Because they weren't there - they are a very rare occurrence but you wouldn't think so from the tabloid press.

Well said John.

In the 80 we all swam in corporation dock in Grimsby after school we never thurt nutting about it aged about 11/12 ish

At 11 we all used communal showers after gym. As kids from about 13 we'd occasionally swim naked in the local river, but I think that was more of a dare than a genuine desire to be naked.

But how times have changed. I read a book which included the early days of the Scout movement. One of the stories was about some kids, who between the two world wars, went to a locals house to pass a swimming test as he had a pool. The owner told them to strip off as they were all men together. One, hesitated then stripped off and again hesitated to get in whereupon he was pushed in and told to get on with it. The boy apparently then ran off never to be seen again. Some good safeguarding issues there!!!

Fortunately I'm not old enough to remember those days!

I think we've gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Davie  8)

I was fortunate to be brought up in a nudist environment.
My folks were usually nude as were my grandparents, and most of my cousins.

I do not come from a naturist family, mum and dad did not have anything against nudity but being nude in a social setting was something they never did (as far as I know). So to come across a group of naturists on a beach while on holiday caused the 8 year old me to ask lots of questions.
We were on holiday at a caravan site in Mablethorpe, my oldest brother had taken me bird watching along the beach. He was not expecting us to meet any one let alone some naturists as the weather was terrible. He answered my questions and that was the first time I can remember hearing the  word naturist and what it meant. After that holiday something must of registered with the young me, back at School I must of told a mate what I had seen because I can still remember having plans, with him, to one day have our own naturist camp.

When I moved up to secondary school, my interest in naturism had not diminished. I had started sleeping nude and walking around the house nude when alone. I use to get very Jealous of my class mates holidays abroad when at the beginning of term you had write what I did during my summer holiday. My holidays could never compete with stories about France & Yugoslavia. My mates tails of beaches in what is now Croatia, Yes including Naturist ones, made me even more Jealous.

Time past and I left school and went off to Poly in London. It was at the end of the first year  that a group of us took a trip to the Netherlands. We found a seaside town in the South of Holland. I was there that I finally became a naturist. We had been having a swim in the sea (in bathing costumes) and had got out to get dry struggling like idiots to change our wet clothes for dry without being seen. When we noticed that the women that had been swimming near us, who we thought was topless, was in fact nude. You guest it  the beach was Clothes Optional, unknown to us, which when we had arrived had been totally empty. So it was a case of when in Rome do what the Romans do. Shortly after that trip I had become a member of BN and been to my first Swim. That is over 20 years ago and I have never look back.

What a great story Brian. Did you end up starting your nudist club, that would be a dream of mine.

I was about 6 when I started sleeping naked. I saw my mum and step dad sleeping naked and thought it just seemed so right. I spent as much time as I could naked from then. My first time at a nude beach was when I was about 15. I had been for a bike ride, noticed this out of the way beach and wanted to explore it. When I got there it was like all my Christmases had come at once, everyone naked, perfect. I was naked in seconds. This became my regular beach, every opportunity I was there. I even studied for my final exams of school there when I was on a two week study break. Best tan ever and no tan lines-of course. One of my teachers commented on my tan, little did he know. Have loved being a nudist ever since.