I've been an enthusiastic nudist for years but often wondered how it all started. I've convinced myself that it was experiences in childhood.
In the early 1950s my parents bought a Victorian terraced house with few mod cons, an outside toilet and no bathroom. Mum was very strict on hygiene and from before I can remember to the age of 12 I was washed every night at 7 in front of the fireplace. It was a very thorough wash and I was naked apart from a few times in winter when I was allowed to keep my vest on, although it was lifted by mum to wash my front and back. She paid particular attention 'down there' as she described it and my penis, scrotum and anus were thoroughly cleaned. She said she disliked 'smelly boys'.
At times we had visitors, family or friends, but the routine carried on regardless with the visitors chatting to mum and watching. I remember a particular occasion when my parents' best friends arrived with Linda, their daughter, who was nine at the time, two-and-a-half years younger than me. Linda watched with interest and told me some years later that it was the first time she had seen a penis.
Sometimes mum and dad went to the cinema and wash-time was performed by the babysitter, usually my grandmother and sometimes my aunt, who was particularly vigorous while washing me.
I would occasionally become hard but I did not know why and it was never commented on or explained.
At the age of 12 I was trusted to wash myself. This entailed a strip wash at the kitchen sink. At the end I put on my pyjamas and was allowed to watch TV. But mum did not trust me to do a thorough job and occasionally told be to lower by pj bottoms and unbutton the jacket so she could inspect. This usually coincided with a visit from my aunt and mum would say 'you'll do', with aunty nodding in agreement.
This went on until I was nearly 16. Mum stopped the inspections but I was still expected to have a thorough wash in the nude at the kitchen sink. Mum would sometimes appear to get something but I suspect she was checking on me.
I remember one Friday evening I was washing when my ****, then 13, came in the kitchen with his mate - obviously done on purpose.
My grandparents also had a Victorian house which lacked indoor toilet, bathroom and even electricity. But when I was 16 they acquired a small bungalow with a bathroom and gran said I could have a bath there once a week, usually a Friday after school. But she insisted that I take my clothes off in the living room and, when I finished the bath, I returned to the living room to dry off, with gran drying my back. Occasionally her **** or a friend was there and saw me in the altogether.
So from the age of two to 18 I was on view to various people. Most of the time I did not object because I knew no different. Fifty years on I would not judge my mother badly because they were vastly different times. And I was still very much a boy at the age of 16, not like today's 16-year-olds who are mostly six footers and would be taken for at least 20 in my day.
I think my nakedness became a habit which I have pursued to this day.