Watching the narrative arc of the Sturgeon family campervan – removed from the drive of Nicola Sturgeon’s mother-in-law as part of an SNP fraud probe – is an opportunity to review the campervan. Or motorhome, if you prefer. The Mrs Murrell model is a stylish Niesmann + Bischoff ‘iSmove’, priced at £110,000 or thereabouts (her son, Peter Murrell, it should be said, has been released without charge pending further investigation). There’s an irony in being accused of embezzling money for an independence campaign and then supposedly spending it on driving away. Nationalism is about standing still, but campervans contain people and people contain multitudes.
There is a cognitive dissonance between the dreams of van life and trying to manoeuvre a four-bed vehicle to the sorts of places you would want to live a van life
The Mercedes V-Class Marco Polo was my first campervan and it is very stylish: the cottagecore aesthetic of the classic VW campervan, in which I once had a terrible trip to Glastonbury because they don’t work, has been swept away. Again, the campervan contains two contradictory possibilities: familiarity and surprise. My Merc was all sombre greys and smooth leathers. It had two double beds – one at the back, and one in the roof – a small kitchen and expansive seating. (The seats in the front swing around to the table, so you can seat four.)
Initially, I fantasised about parking it in the atrium of some vast mansion and living in it, which would be my preference. Instead, I drove it from Cornwall to a campsite in Dorset in the company of three men and a dog, and it was much admired by the caravanning club, who are decent souls. I didn’t know how to pack for van life: it is an essential skill. I packed duvets and suitcases, and put books in the fridge and the dog, who loathed it, on the concealed stove, and quite soon the van looked like a special effect. We did have a marvellous dinner party in it. I had parked in the shadows of the loos of a campsite near Sennen – we needed the loos as a windbreaker because there was a storm – and invited my family, who were staying nearby, to join us. We cooked hamburgers inside as the van rocked.
The second van was a VW: the Grand California 600. (Catchline: ‘home is where you park it [if you can park it]’.) It is the closest to the sad yet newsworthy Niesmann + Bischoff and the largest I have driven: 600 is its length in centimetres and it is half as tall. Oh, it is gaudy! My child loved it because it is a puzzle. It has a shower room and a toilet: the large back bed (there is a smaller one in the roof) is surrounded by airline-style storage and atmospheric lighting, which can be made pinkish. There is also climate control, a music system, a ladder and mosquito nets if you need them. If you aren’t the kind of person to pack an upright piano, the Grand California is ideal.
This month I drove yet another VW van: the adorable electric ID Buzz, Car of the Year 2023. It is not a campervan yet, but I think it will be. It is pre-campervan, and it will be the best of the lot when it gets its bed, cool box and stove. It has the pretty looks of the old VW vans – a smiling, cartoonish, welcoming face – and it is small.
There is a cognitive dissonance between the dreams of van life and trying to manoeuvre a four-bed vehicle to the sorts of places you would want to live a van life, which does not include the London Gateway Services, at least for me. There is a further cognitive dissonance in building something too suave for an itinerant life: Dick Whittington put his belongings at the end of a stick, not on the end of £80,000 worth of hot metal. (Though in my deepest heart, I would like to see the Rolls-Royce campervan.) That is why I think the sorts of people who buy Winnebagos with gun storage and guest bathrooms for half a million dollars are mad: if you can’t get it down to Lulworth Cove what is the point of it? Whatever the veracity of the Sturgeon van tale, there is a truth that all van lifers must acknowledge: you can drive away from everything but yourself.
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