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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle

How sad to lose our childhood right to roam

Wild camping
Wild camping ‘was an unforgettable experience’. Photograph: maki_shmaki/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Rosie Jewell’s article on Dartmoor and the right to roam poignantly struck a chord (As a child, I roamed Dartmoor – and it shaped me. But across England, that freedom is being trampled on, 19 March). Returning to my childhood village, I was horrified to not only see the millpond where we children used to swim barred to the public, but footpaths now fenced so walkers are corralled into single file.
Theresa Seale
Farnham, Surrey

• As a youth in 1969, I attended a four-week Outward Bound course at Holne Park on the edge of Dartmoor. We spent nights on the moor under bivouac canvas – wild camping at its most basic. It was an unforgettable experience – no doubt shared by many over the 16 years from 1959 when there was an Outward Bound school at Holne Park.
Charlie Leventon
Shrewsbury, Shropshire

• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.

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