‘So Nell, tell us a bit about how you became a writer …” I look down and see that, despite my legs being crossed, a significant amount of pubic hair is visible to the audience in front of me. I can feel my nipple brush against my wrist as I lean one arm over the back of my chair. The rolls of my stomach are stacked, completely visible to the whole tent, including the man with the microphone.
I am in a nightmare. An anxiety dream. I am living out every writer’s deepest fear and giving a book talk, surrounded by strangers, entirely nude.
Last year an author friend Sophie Pavelle posted a photo of her and her book, in front of a row of bare bums, at an event called Nudefest. I was intrigued. The bums behind her looked less like a perfume advert and more like the kind I’ve seen on beaches and in changing rooms all my life. Puckered, crinkly, textured. What was this event, I wondered. This year, I decided to see for myself.
As a former lifeguard at Kenwood Ladies’ Pond, I was used to working among naked and semi-clothed people; albeit emptying bins and spotting asthma attacks, rather than discussing books. (Although that did happen too – I once shared 10 electrifying minutes chatting to Deborah Levy in a light drizzle as we stared out at the moorhens). Being naked or half-naked in public myself was not new to me either: in my early 20s I worked as a life model in Leeds, and I have swum and breastfed in public plenty of times. But all that seemed quite different from actually sitting naked on a stage to discuss my book, facing a row of other people’s nipples, taking questions from someone wearing nothing more than a watch.
Nudefest is the UK’s largest naturist festival, taking place annually and featuring talks, workshops, music and comedy near Langport in Somerset. As I cycled there from Taunton station, juddering through open fields and over gravel, I did wonder if turning up to a nudist festival splattered in mud and shining with sweat was the best look. But as I got to the site – which was temporarily screened by hessian sacking across the gates for privacy – and was greeted by a woman wearing only a high-vis vest, I realised that my muddy ankles were going to attract no judgment here. I was led through by Andrew Welch – a national spokesperson for British Naturism. Unclothed middle aged men dodged around guy ropes and naked couples lounged on plastic chairs outside mobile homes all around me. The majority of these festivalgoers were white and a little older than me – the sort of people I would expect to see at a provincial garden centre, perhaps, or buying the paper at a BP garage. (However, as the day wore on, I was to meet a broader, younger, more ethnically diverse range of people. And their bodies.) When we got to Andrew’s caravan, I asked: “Is this where I take my kit off?” The reply was very kind: “Whatever you’re comfortable with. There’s no pressure.”
But nothing makes you feel more like a creep than being the only fully dressed person in a crowd of nudes. So, standing beside my bike I pulled down my knickers. As I followed Andrew towards the tent where I was going to give my talk, I started to feel as if I was entering a slightly altered reality.
If you want a warm, receptive audience, take off their clothes. As I sat on that stage, facing rows of hairy shoulders, dented hips, scars, unclothed nooks and visible crannies, everyone felt connected and comfortable. One question Andrew asked was if the character Hanna in my novel Square One swam naked or while wearing a swimming costume. It is incredibly nice to know that the person asking questions really has bothered to read it; and to pinpoint one of the few moments of potential nudity in an otherwise entirely clothed book. (I said she was probably in her swimming costume. The square.)
After about 10 minutes, I forgot that I had no clothes on. Until Andrew asked about body consciousness; a subject that is probably in all my books but which certainly took on a particular resonance as I spoke about it at this event. Suddenly I was very aware of the lilt to my breasts and the way I had crossed my legs. There is a chapter in my new book, Holding the Baby, all about our relationship to size, weight and being viewed in public. If I knew the secret to body confidence, I would have been damn sure to have included it in the text, but I don’t think being naked in public is the whole answer. My reply may have been a little more ambivalent than they had hoped.
Towards the end, I read out the manifesto from the end of Holding the Baby and was greeted with appreciative laughter, encouraging nods and even applause. We were here to talk about my books and the fact that I was doing so with the entirety of my bikini line on show was significantly less distracting than I’d imagined.
• Holding the Baby by Nell Frizzell is published by Transworld (£10.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
