Alan Rogers

Who was Alan Rogers?

Alan Rogers was one of the major personalities whose work created the camping, caravanning and motor caravan industry.

After service in the British RAF in the Second World War, Alan devoted his post-war leisure time to his twin passions of rallying and caravanning.

In the early 1960s he, like many other caravanners, had become disillusioned with the quality of campsite information available to the users. He reasoned that what users wanted wasn't a list of facilities available on the site, but an accurate and impartial guide to the way that the site was run.

In 1968 he published his first guide, the Alan Roger's selected sites for caravanning and camping in Europe. Retailing at four shillings, from small beginnings the guide grew in strength through the years based on its clearly defined statement that the only way sites would be included in the guide was on the basis of quality. In the introduction to the first guide Alan wrote "I would like to stress that the camps which are included in this book have been chosen entirely on merit and no payment of any sort is made by them for the their inclusion."

In the same gude Alan accurately predicted trends for the future. For example he pointed out that a number of overseas sites were providing mains electricity hook-ups and suggested that British caravanners and motor caravanners should take advantage of this by having their units wired to take mains electricity. In 1968 no standard British caravan was supplied with mains electricity wiring.