Towing with a 1.6 manual petrol car.

Can anyone share any experience?

I've recently towed my newly acquired van of under 1100kg loaded with my Nissan Qashqai 1.6 which can manage 1200kg.

I've done about 500 miles with no problems on the open road in fact it goes along very nicely.  That was until I had a burning clutch problem reversing on a campsite followed by the same when taking off on a very steep hill in Macclesfield.

Now I'm fine about the campsite issue - I've seen that many people have had problems and I can work round those.

My question is - has anyone run into clutch problems with a manual car on a steep hill or will they ultimately manage OK?

Should I buy an automatic perhaps?  (I don't want to as I think the Qashqai is a great car).

Thanks for your time.