what got you started?

[Zodiak]

Glad someone mentioned Swallows and Amazons - I'd read all 12 of them by the time I was 11 - used to dream about staying on "Wildcat Island" camping. Might have been something about growing up in London. Never have seen the film though - it always looked too soppy. That was followed a couple of years later by Terry Nation's Survivors on TV and shed loads of other sci-fi..

It was a TV series in the 60s, long before the film which admitdely is a bit "middle class" but still good fun.

I can't remeber how old I was when I finished the books, probably about the same as you, but the local librray only had a few so I had to order them in advance, wait for them and then order the next. Many were brand new so they probably had to buy them specially.

A few years after we got married I saw one in a local book shop, they had all just been re-published in paperback. I bought the lot (around £50) and then had to explain it to SWMBO. She didn't bat an eyelid and said that it was probably a limited run so I was right to get them while I could.

I got them out to re-read last winter and already the paper is deteriorating so I am not sure that they will be there, as planned,for when I retire and want something to do on cold winter afternoons.

In the mean time I have been buying the earlier edition hardbacks on e-bay for a few quid each. they are notmally tatty but they smell and feel right plus the paper is going to last much longer.

 

[OzaawaaMigiziNini]

My dad's father was a hunting guide. My grandpa was an Ojibway, from Hiawatha First Nations near Peterborough Ontario. As is my father. They both told me stories of the old ways, the moose hunts where they packed out giant bull moose on their backs, tracking wounded deer through scrub brush, hunting timber wolves, etc. They only carried a small pack, with some basic gear; a rifle, some rope, matches, tobacco, food and a good knife or two.I guess that was the first inspiration...

Later in school it was books, My Side of the Mountain, Bones on Black Spruce Mountain, and Hatchet were my companions in elementary school.. I got hold of Mors Kochanski's book "Bushcraft" (then it was called "Northern Buschraft"). I studied it like a priest studies the bible .

Met Dr Gino Ferri in the ninth grade, he taught me some of my Ojibway ancestor's skills... that was the straw that broke the camel's back, I was obsessed.. had to learn and practise everything I could...

Now, I make my first successful attempts on a weekly basis.. I help Dr Ferri teach dozens of children the old ways and I'm looked at like I'm an expert (I'm really not, I mess up as much as I succeed).... but I can always trace it back to my dad's stories of him and my grandfather hunting with just a rifle, a small pack and a knife.

 

[Swampy Steve]

Grew up on a farm with no neighbours and no one else for company. Camping out making fires and shelters were all part of creating my own entertainment. If I said I was bored I was given more jobs to do !

 

[SowthEfrikan]

My dad would pile the whole family in the car and we would go bundu-bashing everywhere a car could go. In retrospect we probably went some pretty crazy places considering if things had gone wrong we could have been in deep pooh - like being stranded in the middle of the Namib desert - but everything always went wonderfully well. We never really hiked, it was more like car camping in remote places with day walks to where-ever. With young kids that was probably about the best they could do, too. Then we grew up and they got old.

 

[Zodiak]

My wife bought me Swallows and Amazons on DVD for Christmas, so yesterday I sat and watched it with a glass of malt.

Its no wonder I loved it so much, the Swallows made shelters suspended from ropes tied between trees, they cooked on fires, using what looks very much like a black handle frying pan and cooked the fish that they caught themselves.

They made camp gadgets for storing plates etc and even had a canvas cover for the wood pile, it would not look out of place at a Bush moot

That amazons even used home made bows and arrows

It was fun watching it again, and yes it was middle class, but thats in OK in context, working class families wouldn't have been able to swan off to the lakes for 6 weeks.

 

[stonyman]

For me it was my Dad and my Gran, they both loved the outdoors, my Dad was a scout leader as was my Uncle and God Father, I was also in a wildlife club at school called the Panda Club and we used to go on walks almost every weekend. I have always felt more at ease when out in the woods.

 

[addyb]

My Dad got me started with a life long love affair with the outdoors before I could even walk. Over here on the West Coast of Canada, he's a pretty famous mountaineer and in his heydey he used to do overseas expeditions to places like Afghanistan and Peru. When I was just a wee lad he was still in his prime, so my Dad used to put me into a backpack and use me as extra weight while he went hill running and such.

As I got older, I started going on these long climbing trips and for a while I couldn't quite figure out why other 8 and 10 year old kid's names weren't being mentioned in Alpine Journals or Summit Registeries.

When I was 12 I joined our local Air Cadet squadron and my Dad came on shortly afterword as a civilian instructor (CI) to teach survival, outdoor leadership and biathlon. He still does this today! I even went on a military survival course but I didn't pay much attention thinking "Whatever, this'll never happen to me."

I was dead wrong. Right before I aged out of Cadets (around age 19) I was on a multi day group trip. The weather turned really awful very quickly and one of the group members became badly hypothermic. He almost "bought it" but luckily we all pulled him out of it and got him home safetly.

I guess it was right then and there that I started taking a serious interest in survival and thusly, bushcraft. I can remember thinking to myself on the drive home that "I don't know anything about survival. I'm totally dependant on the gear in my pack that if I lost it, I'd probably die out here."

And so, here I am.

The best thing about this forum is that everyone is very friendly and tolerant of others, regardless of age, maturity or experience. And the next best thing is how much knowledge I've acquired from this forum. I take pleasure in going into the bush with friends and totally blowing them away. 'tis a nice ego boost!

Adam

 

[TheGreenMan]

Am I experiencing ‘deja view’, here?

By the way, Adam, I’m still waiting for a clarification on my pee-pee speculation earlier in the thread

Best regards,
Paul.

 

[hanzo]

My parents never liked the outdoors, so I obviously did. As a child, I would sneak off every chance I got to play outside. I particularly enjoyed hiking areas with streams and pools and waterfalls. As a child, crayfish, fish and tadpoles were always fun and exciting.

Heck, I would even go outside just to play in the bushes and rain puddles.

Funny thing is, decades later, I still do.

 

[addyb]

Damnit...only a poor sap such as myself could post the same post twice in the same thread and on my lord I'm going crosseyed.......

And as for the pee-pee? That's uhh....something I'd rather forget about. Hypothermia is NOT cool!

 

[TheGreenMan]

...And as for the pee-pee? That's uhh....something I'd rather forget about. Hypothermia is NOT cool!

<belly laughs> OK, enough said, I think I get the picture...unless it was No2s!

Best regards,
Paul.

 

[John Dixon]

my older brother (by 15 years) was a survival instructor for the RAF, so had the chance to play lots.

 

[littlebear]

I grew up with some small woods literally on my door step, we would sleep out, make dens, open fires, up at the first light then down into the estate again looking for the milkman to hijack for orange juice and milk

I remember films had a big influence for me too Rambo (first blood), Red Dawn, Grizzly Adams. I had a close circle of friends and we always escaped into the woods whenever possible. Those were great days total freedom, even better when my dad used to come out and hunt us down, he always managed to track us it was great though.

I guess in a way Ray has inspired me to relight something back from when I was a kid, I'm new to Bushcraft again although I guess I was doing it back then and obsessed with it at the moment. I remember as a kid we always used to camp during a full moon it was magical, i'm just gathering some kit at the moment but cant wait to get back out there, And I wont be robbing the milkman anymore.

 

[Bushcraft4life]

My mum funnily enough. she is a major bushcraft nut. I hope she starts posting soon enough. When she learns to use a computer tho .

Ray Mears was also quite a major factor.

Jay

 

[Greg]

My Father was a military Survival instructor, He used to take me out into the woods in Germany and show me all sorts of cool stuff.
When I came back to the UK I was sent to boarding school in the Lake District where for 10 years I did my best to get out into the wilds with my mates, then I joined the army and was taught various bits of survival including arctic survival.
I left the army 4yrs ago and have just started getting back into it so I can pass on my knowledge to my son as he grows up.
And thats about it really!

 

[BushTucker]

Mine was a rough childhood, got away as much as possible and learned as I went, nowadays its a chance to be free from the every day hussle and bussle of life. Quiet, calming and back to basics.

 

[Floyd Soul]

Mines simply a love of nature and wanting to have a symbiotic relationship with it.

 

[saffy]

Taking a break from Famous 5 books, I discovered a book in our bookcase when I was about 10 years old (1983), the content of which fascinated me. I was a poor reader and the word "survival" did not mean anything to me, but the line drawings of kids with strange tents, lighting fires, fishing, trapping, climbing out of burning buildings blew me away.
Best of all was the survival kit description and that was something I could actually make myself as a kid. I have taken an active interest in survival techniques, camping, gear and camp-craft ever since I found that book.

I believe it is sadly no longer in print...

"Survival for Young People" - How to cope with every emergency - Essential life saving advice, by Anthony Greenbank - Piccolo

 

[Bhod]

For my love of the outdoors life and all it entailed, hiking, making camp, making campfires, camp cookery, nature watching and respecting, sleeping beneath the stars etc i have my father, and spending every weekend and school holiday in one or other of t'Dales or on t'Moors to be truly thankful to.

For the inspiration to get up and do these things in many a foreign country, i have my former high school geography teacher to thank for introducing me to Laurie Lee's - As i walked out one midsummer morning.

Someone mentioned Jack Hargreaves, i'm sure some of the skills i have now and have practiced over the years where once gleaned from a programme of his i watched as a child, he was to the countryside and it's practices and ways what Fred Dibnah was to industrial heritage and steam machinery.

 

[Andy J]

Couldn't resist this one! Does anyone remember the series of books they use to sell in Woolworths, from memory, they were, "survival", "map reading" etc. These were only small books, but I read them to death! They had an "eye" symbol on the cover, the survival one went on about plastic industrial tubing, to make a shelter, I still have it here somewhere...Anyone remember? Early 70's...And of course family camping... Great.