Where do we come from - What are our backgrounds?

[Beagle Scout]

Long time lurker here who only got around to actually creating an account recently.

Looking back, I guess it was inevitable that I would end up with an interest in "Bushcraft".

Think it all started way back when I was a toddler, with my mum who was a Guide captain at the time, I learned a lot about tracking, knots, firefighting etc from being taken on Guide camp or various outdoor events etc. Once I was old enough, I joined, cubs, scouts etc and loved being in the outdoors. I hated living in the city and my pals and I would escape to the hills etc at any opportunity.

I'm still involved in Scouts 40 odd years later as a leader, and now living up on the Moray coast with an amazing partner who loves the outdoors as much as me.

TLDR Scouts and Guides got me into the outdoors and "Bushcraft".

 

[slingback]

I grew up on Salisbury plain, through a good dose of waywardness I spent alot of time put playing, joined up and found my way to learning alot about survival and the psychology of it but my out doors time became more about smashing point to point to get to the end rather than enjoying my time, undertook a fundamental course in 2007 which slowed me down and gave me a focus on more traditional skills and crafts, then started working in the outdoors in 2010 while juggling other jobs until a full time role came up so I became an bushcraft company's quartermaster/ full time instructor for a few years until moving to Scotland a couple of years ago to work as estate maintenance and horseman for the deer stalking, though I still teach part time. Books that have pushed at different times are kephart, thoroue(I can not spell) Nan Shepard( absolutely wonderful) R Mears, Bernard Mason all and any, white spider. And more but they are the main readers I think, and really not sure why I've put a list of books that I suspect are commonly known about here but hey ho, it wouldn't be me if I didn't ramble a bit, oh and hi I've been away but finding I have a slower pace of life now so more southey posts incoming

 

[demented dale]

I was pondering all the different types of people that do bushcraft, I came into it through a childhood freedom to roam about, a sense of adventure, making dens and shelters, camping out etc as a kid. I remember once camping out, I didn't own a sleeping bag etc, it was so cold, the whole night wad just shifting about shivering, a great learning experience. I also enjoyed military surplus stuff, kit in general and edged tools ( my first career was carpentry and cabinet making).
Then I went on a Woodlore fundamental course, me and my friend figured the we'd go, it would be fun in the woods and we'd not actually learn that much as we knew loads already, our eyes were open and I was a little hooked on Bushcraft from then on, that experience was the birth of Bushcraft UK.

So, I had a little background, some freedom, some hands on experiences, sometimes awful experiences, a course and then I arrived at 'Bushcraft'

How about you?

I am a punk rock anarchist type. Did all that outdoors bit as a kid. Disagree with government and its dis-empowering of the population and making us reliant on them. I now live off grid and think that I could, if the need arose, be self supporting. I love learning, discussing and teaching others what I have learned. All in the spirit of anarchism, that is , FOR FREE. thanks for asking the question x

 

[jeggs]

I was born in London, with the Thames literally at the bottom of my road, over the river was a green wooded walk to Barnes/Putney Common, I was always to be found mudlarking, fishing, cycling along the river and to the commons.
My family were semi hippieish, and we went on camping trips, then yha, around the UK. my mother woukd also be forever helping injured wildlife.
I've always felt more attuned to nature than to the urban environment, however due to a variety of physical/personal reasons I wasn't very outdoor active from late 20s through to about 40.
I've kayaked, PADI dived, hiked, camped and boated (RIBs predominantly) all of these activities have been where I've found my inner personal enjoyment and engagement with life, bringing me joy and happiness.
Having discovered Ray Mears, I started to get into bushcraft and started to incorporate bits into my aforementioned activities, finally I discovered hammock camping and this piqued my bushcraft experience, no tent , a hammock and tarp, I've even used climbing chokes to hammock on Dartmoor tors...some basic hippie taught foraging developed more as I grew older (I've recently pickled a nice crop of wild garlic flower buds, in 5 kilner jars) .
I also have been learning traditional crafts from the Devon Rural Skills Trust - hedge laying, wattle fence making, cleft gate making, coppicing and dry stone walling.

 

[demented dale]

I was born in London, with the Thames literally at the bottom of my road, over the river was a green wooded walk to Barnes/Putney Common, I was always to be found mudlarking, fishing, cycling along the river and to the commons.
My family were semi hippieish, and we went on camping trips, then yha, around the UK. my mother woukd also be forever helping injured wildlife.
I've always felt more attuned to nature than to the urban environment, however due to a variety of physical/personal reasons I wasn't very outdoor active from late 20s through to about 40.
I've kayaked, PADI dived, hiked, camped and boated (RIBs predominantly) all of these activities have been where I've found my inner personal enjoyment and engagement with life, bringing me joy and happiness.
Having discovered Ray Mears, I started to get into bushcraft and started to incorporate bits into my aforementioned activities, finally I discovered hammock camping and this piqued my bushcraft experience, no tent , a hammock and tarp, I've even used climbing chokes to hammock on Dartmoor tors...some basic hippie taught foraging developed more as I grew older (I've recently pickled a nice crop of wild garlic flower buds, in 5 kilner jars) .
I also have been learning traditional crafts from the Devon Rural Skills Trust - hedge laying, wattle fence making, cleft gate making, coppicing and dry stone walling.

that all sounds bril. well done x

 

[Siberian Mongoose]

As a baby i would crawl into the wildness near the house, it being rural and there being no fence in the way: as a result i was tied to the washingline to stop my escaping.

 

[Toddy]

As a baby i would crawl into the wildness near the house, it being rural and there being no fence in the way: as a result i was tied to the washingline to stop my escaping.

My Dad tied me to the clothes pole with the washing line too....to keep me off his tools while he built a boat in the back garden.

He said that bairns ought to be born with a big ring in their back.....so you could hang them up where they could watch but not run amok.
Years later I saw RM talk about tribal people who wrapped their infants up and hung them up where they could watch but not be in the way......

 

[Broch]

LOL, I was tied to a chair in school in Tunisia to stop me running away

 

[Siberian Mongoose]

Because of spending some of my crawlinghood crawling to and fro tied to and beneath the washingline, i would flee from civilisation whenever i could. Going to school was more like in Little House on the Prairie, and i would take ”shortcuts” on the way home, which was about one and a half miles making it maybe nearer two miles—there was a schoolbus, but it was more fun to walk: i think that is why my legmuscles are well-developed but my arms are skinny…i never thought of doing it half walking on my hands.

 

[Woody girl]

At the tender age of two, I escaped the garden and was found several hours later, eating dandelions in the long grass in a field about half a mile away.
I remember being found and sitting there eating the flowers, but no idea how I got there.
I do remember being totaly unfazed as I knew how to get home, and a feeling of total peace and conectiveness with the environment, and being cross, upset scared and confused with the aftermath.
I still eat dandelion flowers.!

 

[Siberian Mongoose]

At the tender age of two, I escaped the garden and was found several hours later, eating dandelions in the long grass in a field about half a mile away.
I remember being found and sitting there eating the flowers, but no idea how I got there.
I do remember being totaly unfazed as I knew how to get home, and a feeling of total peace and conectiveness with the environment, and being cross, upset scared and confused with the aftermath.
I still eat dandelion flowers.!

I’m hyperthymestic, and remember back to just after i was born, this being a blessing and a curse. Thus, i also remember feeling one with the all the creator the great spirit, and i still feel this way as it seems that i’ve never grown up.

Being right hemisphere dominant (see Iain McGilchrist: The Master and His Emissary 2010, and The Matter with Things, Vol I & II 2021).

 

[Toddy]

I have memories of infancy too. I remember being small enough to toddle out of the house and watch the blackbird building her nest in our garden hedge....it was just at my eye level....I walked before I was a year old, and I remember the next year that I could see into the nest, and I brought her worms.

Had I been an adult I think she'd have flyted at me and flown, but as a small child ? somehow she didn't seem to mind.

I still watch the blackbirds nests

 

[Woody girl]

I can remember Christmas as a one year old, but its pretty much blank before that.
Tho I do have vivid memories of sitting on a blanket on the lawn just about crawling, and eating daisy's. I seem to have had a fixation with eating flowers as a smaller person.
I can remember all the flowers and weeds in the garden, and still get a thrill when I see blue speedwell, shepherds purse , a little red flower whose name ive forgotten, bistort or lilac. We left the place when I was four, but still remember the wallpaper, cutains, furniture, layout of the house and garden, and all the streets around.
The garden was generally pretty wild, and I had marvellous adventures there as a tot. I hated being inside! When I think back, I had an amazing knowledge of the huge garden and what grew where, and the names of things. I don't know many little ones who could tell you which species of butterfly or flower they were looking at nowadays. Such a shame.

 

[Toddy]

Before I could walk, on Sundays my Dad used to put me up on his shoulders and carry me across to the village across the river where my Grandparents lived. We used to stop off at the castle (less than quarter of a mile from where I live now) and he put me down on the grass....in those days the castle policies weren't 'open', but still owned by the family, but my Dad had gone to school with the Gamekeepers and was allowed passage, so he'd stopped to blether.
Like you, I remember all the little flowers, the different leaves, the bees, so many kinds of bees, beetles and so on. I still draw them.

I stood up by myself one Sunday, and I took my first steps on the grass next to the castle

The castle became a favourite walk and playground for my sons in their turn Down along the river, up past the castle, and through the woods is still a good walk, still such a good thing.

 

[Paul_B]

I remember toddling out and eating gooseberries off the Bush. I vaguely remember being pushed into it by my older sister. Got to be 18 months to 2 years. That was my first foraging trip and my first lesson in first aid.

Needless to say the first aid didn't stick but eating gooseberries straight off the bush did. So much so that I kept getting into trouble for it right up until my last visit to my parents old house before they moved and I no longer knew anyone with gooseberries.

If nicking apples is scrimping, what is nicking gooseberries?

 

[saxonaxe]

My earliest memory that I can accurately place by age is when I was nearly 4 years old and we were travelling in East Anglia somewhere. Sleeping in the wagon at night and being woken by a great droning noise that seemed to shake the Bow Top and made my dog Trix, who used to sleep under the wagon, bark. The sound seemed to last for ages and it was only many years later that I found out it was flights of aircraft carrying food and supplies on the Berlin Airlift for the German people because the Russians had blocked the City.
For many nights (it always seemed to be at night) the aircraft flew over the farm where we were in a Paddock. Dad was working there for a few weeks. The aircraft came from somewhere over by Liverpool I believe.

I got used to the regular flights after a time. When I got to 4 Mum allowed me to sleep in the straw under the wagon with Trix and we used to lay awake and hear the planes going over on the warm nights and look up and try to spot all the tiny lights in the sky.

 

[Toddy]

Do smells trigger things for you too ?

My moses basket was made of seagrass. I remember lying in it looking up at the clouds, and being rocked gently, I can still hear the gentle slap of the water against the hull of the boat. My parents had lain the basket, with me in it, down on the burden boards while they loaded in the camping stuff.
I smell seagrass now, and I'm back there again, all those years ago, with folks who have been dead for most of my life.

My sons never met my Mum, and my Dad died when they were toddlers. They were still in primary school when my Uncle, Dad's youngest brother, was building a new workshop. He had just put the rafters in when we visited. My youngest son said, "It smells like Grandpa", my Dad was a joiner, and he always smelled of fresh cut timber. I thought, "How does Andrew remember that, he wasn't even two when his Grandpa died", but it was so clear, such a bright happy totally unselfconscious instant recall.

Aren't our memories a precious gift ?

M

 

[saxonaxe]

They are indeed Toddy.
First memorable smell I think, not the natural smells of Nature, but something strange at the time, was the first time I went into a shop. I must have been about 6+ and it was a Woolworths and I was with my older Sister. The floor was of wooden strips and the smell I remember was from a kind of cleaning sand that was spread on the wooden floor and then swept up before the shop opened. It was a not unpleasant disinfectant type smell.

 

[Macaroon]

I think it's generally accepted that smell is the most potent of the senses for evoking memory, closely followed by sound. As I can't remember what I did 10 minutes ago, yesterday, or two years ago I'm afraid that's the full extent of my contribution to this thread.

 

[TeeDee]

LOL, I was tied to a chair in school in Tunisia to stop me running away

You have to pay for that exotic treatment??
Welshmen abroad - get upto all sorts of things.