Bill Garner – historian, playwright and television writer – is just an ordinary camper with perhaps an unusually dogged curiosity. A casual conversation at Wilson’s Promontory several years ago started him down the track of researching the history of camping in Australia. Ten years later, he has finished a PhD on the subject and written a book about it.

Born in a Tent takes the story from the campfire to the gas bottle, from a tarp slung on saplings to polymer tents and aluminium poles. It reveals how deeply our camping holidays connect us to the land, to the past, and to one another –and offers an inclusive, alternative foundation story.

· Related: read the edited transcript