BEFORE the weekend just gone, my experience of camping was minimal.

At Glastonbury many years ago, I slept in a battered old tent that I’d nicked from my uncle. It didn’t have a groundsheet. But, after 15 pints of Brainblast Old Peculiar, "Somerset’s most dangerous drink, including Domestos" (What Scrumpy, October 1998), the presence or otherwise of a groundsheet is a matter of little relevance.

Other than that it’s just been a couple of teenage nights in the woods in my home town of Brighouse with some mates and 30 cans of Challenge lager.

Last weekend, the mates were replaced by my wife, one-year-old son and three-year-old daughter and the lager was left at home to facilitate the transit of bags and bags and bags of things you need to sleep in a field for three nights.

Since the kids came along, my wife Julie has banged on virtually endlessly about what a worthwhile, enjoyable experience camping is. But for me, tentlife is simply a forced confiscation of two of the things I value most in life – a proper bed and sanitary toilet facilities – neither of which, I feel, could reasonably be described as outlandish demands.

The event was Lounge on the Farm, a music festival on the outskirts of Canterbury and I had no choice but to go. It was a 40th birthday celebration for my wife’s closest friend and therefore a three-line whip was in place.

Apart from a couple of piteously fundamental misjudgements – we took no water, we thought the kids would go to bed at their normal time, our airbed had a slow puncture – it actually went very well.

Because it was a birthday celebration, there was quite a group of us and other members of the party (all camping veterans) were quick to help us out.

Our group’s little bit of the camping area had a nice communal feel to it, with six tents pitched round a gazebo, but in truth we contributed very little to the abundant community spirit.

We were perpetually asking to borrow things from the others and, even though they always helped us out with grace and a smile, you could tell they were thinking "In the name of God, are they really so stupid? That’s the last time we see them, ever."

When I’m in the company of people who are well practised in something I am a complete amateur at, my mindset is usually somewhere between disgruntled admiration and suicidal self-loathing. The effect of that is I become even worse at whatever it is I’m attempting.

If I was in a field on my own I reckon I could get a big tent up in 90 minutes. Surrounded by mallet-brandishing canvas lovers, who can make their flysheet creaselessly taut with an effortless swish of the wrist, I physically could not even start and they had to help.

"Thanks", I snarled, through gritted teeth, knowing my bungling incompetence had been seen – and noted – by my friends. And my children.

After we had settled in (it took a while) I realised the outdoor life does at least give you the opportunity to forget about normal life. The sights, sounds and smells of a festival cheer the senses and the children loved every second of it.

The main stage at Lounge on the Farm is at one end of a vast cowshed and my memories of carrying Isla on my shoulder two rows from the front while Edwyn Collins performed a sublime version of Rip It Up will live with me forever.

Will I go camping again? Depends if I can get over myself enough to accept that some people are better than me at some things.

I’ve never been any good at that.