ADAM AND EVE “AT HOME”

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 169, 12 April 1930, Page 31

ADAM AND EVE “AT HOME”

STRANGE GUESTS WITHOUT ANY CLOTHES

Parties in houses and flats in. the suburbs of London at which complete .nudity is the rule is the latest manifestation of the activities of the new 'group of followers of the cult whose attempt to establish a “back to nature” farm on the borders of Norfolk' and Suffolk was disclosed in the London “Sunday Chronicle” recently. One of these amazing gatherings is described by a guest who received an invitation, after he had replied to an advertisement which asked "broadminded” persons interested in the nature farm project to communicate with the address at which the party was held.

I have just returned from a gathering at which the guests met. talked, ate. and generally behaved in a perfectly normal manner except that they wore no clothes (he writes). At least, all but two wore no clothes. When I first entered the room—full of apologies' for my normal attire, which I explained was necessary be-cause-I-only practised the cult of the nude in, the open, I gained the impression that I was the only clothed person in the room. But when a little man with an incipient paunch rose to shake hands I saw that he wore a pair of'attenuated drawers.

The rest of the five people wore not a shred of clothing except the one woman present, who assumed a pair of slippers when she walked about the room.

The invitation to the gathering had. read, “it must please be understood that acceptance of the invitation involves complete nudity on the part of both sexes; but at the same time those who are not .yet accustomed to this natural and proper mode of existence will be permitted, until they overcome their first feelings, to wear one small garment.”

I had expected to meet a group of obvious cranks or fakers, but the five people who received, me appeared to be perfectly normal except for their strange desire to. shed their garments. There was, in addition to the woman, the host, a pleasant man in the middle thirties, the little man inclined to embonpoint, a lean and dark young man with a hairy chest and skilfully executed tatooings on bis arms, and the fat, prosperous talkative businessman one meets in Turkish bathing establishments.

None of the members of the party seemed to be aware of the acute unconventiality of his being without clothes, except that, the problem of what to do with his handkerchief, pipes, tobacco, matches, and cigarettes worried him.

Handkerchiefs were held In the hand or stuffed underneath the straps of wrist watches: the other necessary articles were deposited on any, convenient table or chair.

The host, seated in a chair, most of the time with chin resting on bls hand, elbow on knee. In the attitude of Rodin’s Thinking Man, bilked easily and contrived to look as though he would have felt far more uncomfortable had he been normally dressed.

Then supper was produced, and tea. coffee, sandwiches, and cakes were handed round by the woman.

After the refreshments conversation flagged a little. The fat man suddenly remembered an appointment, dressed In an adjoining room in a remarkably quick time and was gone. The woman walked about, sneezed violently, looked as though she was afraid that she was going tp have a cold, and Immediately replaced the look with one less traitorous to her spartan principles. Then I excused myself and left.