Out in the open: Naturists going for a stroll. Photograph: Leon Neal

So I had a naked lunch, five of us tucking into coleslaw and tuna salad, sitting around a cosy table while I tried to come to terms with the fact that none of us had a stitch on. And if I looked this way I found myself staring at nipples; yet if I politely looked the other way . . . well, let’s not go into that just now.

All the way down here I’d been agonising over what might happen to me, indeed to the whole world, if I took my clothes off in front of people. It was that big a deal for me, you see. I mean, maybe nudity is just about bearable on the beach, but embarrassment is a matter of location as much as revelation, and Pevors Farm is distinctly landlocked.

Set in northernmost rural Essex, it is a tranquil 400-acre spread of beans and barley with a barn and chicks and ducks — but also four self-catering cottages grouped around two courtyards screened off exclusively for naturists. All ages come, some raw beginners, others in their eighties, bonded by their fondness for naturism.

I’m not a born nudey. I’m the sort of bloke you see on beaches trying to get his pants down under a towel without allowing a glimpse of pallid botty. But a new book, Bare Britain, reveals that naturism offers many clubs and a growing number of beaches and B&Bs aimed at the naked market, so I was trying my luck, giving skin the lead over textiles.

I drove into the farmyard and was ushered behind a tall fence to a pleasant cottage. Through my window I saw a naked woman sitting calm as you please at a wooden table and it was shocking, but not quite as unnerving as I’d imagined. Margaret, the farmer’s wife, advised: “Look people in the eye and sit on a towel.” I thought about that a good deal, actually.

Then she left me and I took all my clothes off and slunk to the sun room, subduing every instinct that’s been bred in me since the age when I was told to pull my nappies back up this instant. Vulnerable: that’s the word for the way I felt. It was bad enough lying in the heat with a discreet book protecting what was left of my ebbing dignity (don’t even think about it and please, please don’t try to imagine it).

But at lunch with nudey Richard and nudey Jean, and nudey Derek and nudey Christine, I realised with an aching sense of fatalism that if I dropped a dollop of coleslaw in my lap I’d have no idea what to do about it. Wipe it off? Let it lie?

I didn’t know why people wanted to take their clothes off, and to say I was frightened is over the top but to say I was tense is right on the money. Munch munch. Pass the salt. NAKED!

Page 2: A game of pool

John and Margaret began this venture in November 2002 because diversification is part of rural Britain’s rocky economy nowadays and naturism is their hobby when not farming. They picked up the taste while holidaying abroad and thought: why not put those old cowsheds to use? It’s not exactly The Archers but it made sense, and the couple shrewdly added a touch of four-star luxury that’s unusual, given that most naturist centres in the UK have traditionally been as bare as the buttocks that inhabit them.

They launched, they thrived. And eating my tuna and sprinkling my salt I was preternaturally aware of every movement of every pallid body — this breast, that willy, this tuft of hair, that careless, fallen crumb. Derek said that going nude was “getting back to nature”. Richard insisted: “It’s like taking your shoes off after a hard day’s work.” I said: “It’s a lot more than my shoes I’ve got off,” and everyone went hahahaha. It was stranger than the edgiest late-night cheese-supper nightmare you’ve ever had. But not desperately unpleasant, that’s the truly surprising thing.

There were four or five middle-aged couples staying that weekend and a bit later one of the male guests showed me a photo of himself in the Alps wearing just a hat and looking a bit silly. He said: “That’s what it’s all about. Nature!”

So I headed for the judiciously screened field walks that cut many parts of Pevors Farm and had my first nude walk. Rabbits hopped. Breezes blew. Trees tittered at my bare bum, sunshine disappearing coldly behind hedges. And I felt again the sensation that had by now become all-too-familiar at Pevors. Vulnerable.

There was a heated indoor swimming pool and I ended up skinny-dipping — the first time I’ve ever tried nude swimming. It was silky and embracing and completely charming.

There was that sun-room, too. I baked in there for whole lovely hours slobbing about reading books and chatting with all kinds of people about being naked and stuff. But I tried not to look at the better-shaped women, and sometimes failed. And I feared for my body’s physical responses (though I need not have).

Once, in a totally fair bit of reciprocal sizing-up, I distinctly noted one of the women peeking coyly at my willy. Oh it was a mind-boggling stay altogether, quaintly underpinned by a curious reversal of lifestyle that had me taking off every stitch in order to go outside — and covering up the moment I got back to my cottage. Weird, or what?

I even played naked pool with a down-to-earth Scot called Bernie, and what I noticed most of all was that whenever it was my turn to shoot, he contrived never to stand behind me. You can see why, of course. I reciprocated pretty eagerly and it occurred to me then that consideration for others is the nub of the whole naturist deal: it is the courtesy that comes with openness.

We got on, all of us, because you cannot stand on your dignity if you’ve got floppy bits on show. You must make an effort to be nice, so we did. Vulnerability is a bond that strikes deep, in ways you cannot imagine. One night, for instance, I left my front door open with my wallet lying on the table just inside. But I didn’t for one moment think about theft. Not here. Not with fellow nudeys.

Margaret said that she never loses a plate or a glass in these cottages, which guests always leave utterly spotless. She said that naturists are lovely, friendly people, and I believe her — because you have to be when your bum’s hanging out. But there again, if you’re on holiday, the reasons don’t necessarily matter, do they?

Need to know

Pevors Farm Cottages (01787 460830, www.pevorsfarm.co.uk) sleep two to four, from £225 per cottage per week. One has disabled access.

Further information: www.british-naturism.org.uk. Bare Britain by Nick Mayhew-Smith and Mike Charles (Lifestyle Press, £12.95). More details: www.barebritain.com.