CARAVANNING.*
"THE Caravan Club has usually some fifty vans on its list, for hire at all prices, from twenty shillings a week up to eight or nine pounds." That is the answer, or at all events one answer, to the first and most important question asked by the would-be beginner with a caravan. He can start when he pleases, the only preliminaries being the hiring of a horse and the laying in of a stock of provisions, and when once he is on the road his expenses depend upon his personal tastes. Most people who read Mr. Harris Stone's book will, we think, be reassured when they add up the cost of a caravan trip. It comes to less than the ordinary householder might suppose. " For less than £2 a week apiece three men can have a month in a caravan," is the estimate of one with long experience of the road. Another puts the cost at three guineas a week each for four men with a boy ; another budget is that of four girls, who managed for a month at thirty shillings a week, includ- ing hiring a van at £10 for the month ; and Lady Arthur Grosvenor actually sets down her daily account for each of four persons as follows : Three horses for one night, at 6d. each, ls. 6d.; milk for tea, supper, and breakfast, lid.; meat, 2s. ; eggs, ls. ; bread, 5d.; total, 5s. Oid. But this is perhaps a little too Spartan for travellers with an appetite, and also it does not appear to embrace the cost of a van. We should most of us incline to a more benign extreme than lid. worth of milk per day; and where is the tea P But before these questions of diet comes, of course, the prime question of choosing a van, and here Mr. Harris Stone • Caravanning and Camping Out. By J. Harris Stone. London : Herbert Jenkins. [15s. net.]
makes a surprising statement. There is no such person, it seems, as an architect of caravans. Vans are merely made by wheelwrights and coachbnilders, who have no special knowledge of the needs of the road; so that we gather that the ideal van is yet to be built. Is there not here an opening for the ingenious architect-pupil, anxious to strike out a line of his own? A caravan, you would suppose, could be built with an interior something like a ship's cabin ; the necessities and limitations of the two would be almost the same. On some minor points of comfort the caravanner has already decided for himself. Shelves must be made to slide out, so that they can be easily cleaned. Handles to drawers and cupboards should be countersunk, so as not to get in the way. But a dozen possibilities occur to the lay mind. Mr. Stone recommends a particular kind of oil lamp for light- ing the van, for instance ; why should it not be lighted by electricity ? A caravanner of long experience could surely set his architect on the road to fortune; he learns a hundred things which stay-at-home people never dream of—how to prevent a full jug of milk from slopping, for example, which you do by plaoing a sheet of paper on the top and then pressing a saucer on it. Mr. Stone's book deserves to find plenty of readers. " Folk live very close in a cart," he quotes from David Christie Murray, and he shows them the best way to live in a van.
Previous page
