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How I got into Bushcraft

urbanghost

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Age
54
When i was 9 I moved up to a new class in school. At the back of the classroom they had a bookcase full of books that we called the library. On my first day I looked through the books and straight away I saw a paperback book called Wilderness Survival. It showed you how to make shelters, forage for food, make snares and traps and it covered all the different seasons. So I borrowed the book and read it cover to cover. I took the book out so much that the teacher said I could have it in the end. I took it everywhere and read it nearly everyday for years.
I grew up in the country and my grandparents lived on the side of a mountain and i used to spend every weekend there. Armed with my book I used to go up the mountain into the woods and practice all the things in it. I used to build shelters everywhere and spend all day looking for plants and making snares. I found a cliff in the woods so out came the book and started making a harness. Didnt make it very well so asked my grandfather to help and he knocked me up a full absailing rig out of rope, he learned to splice rope in the navy and started teaching me how, also taught me how to sharpen a knife.
There was no stopping me then, spent nearly every weekend and holiday of my childhood up the woods throwing myself of the cliff with some rope i found somewhere and sleeping rough with just a sleeping bag, cooking food on a fire and hunting with my grandfathers air rifle dressed up like action man with my army surplus gear on. I cant imagine parents letting their kids do stuff like that these days.
That was in the 70s and I still havent got it out of my system yet. Never heard of bushcraft in those days, we just used to adapt the stuff in survival books to what we wanted to do. Dont know what happened to the book and I have tried to find another copy but have never found one. I wonder if I would still be doing this kind of thing if I had never seen the book? You can learn a lot from books but I think you need to get out there and practice the things you read, its more fun!!!!
 
I think with a few exceptions most of us started as kids Ghost definitely us country boys
 
I think with a few exceptions most of us started as kids Ghost definitely us country boys
I think its a shame that a whole generation of kids are missing out on stuff like this. I involve my 7 year old boy in everything I do, he loves it. He has his own bow and he loves his fire lighting kit we made up for him.
 
I think its a shame that a whole generation of kids are missing out on stuff like this. I involve my 7 year old boy in everything I do, he loves it. He has his own bow and he loves his fire lighting kit we made up for him.
I agree its good to get kids involved at an early age
 
When i was 9 I moved up to a new class in school. At the back of the classroom they had a bookcase full of books that we called the library. On my first day I looked through the books and straight away I saw a paperback book called Wilderness Survival. It showed you how to make shelters, forage for food, make snares and traps and it covered all the different seasons. So I borrowed the book and read it cover to cover. I took the book out so much that the teacher said I could have it in the end. I took it everywhere and read it nearly everyday for years.
I grew up in the country and my grandparents lived on the side of a mountain and i used to spend every weekend there. Armed with my book I used to go up the mountain into the woods and practice all the things in it. I used to build shelters everywhere and spend all day looking for plants and making snares. I found a cliff in the woods so out came the book and started making a harness. Didnt make it very well so asked my grandfather to help and he knocked me up a full absailing rig out of rope, he learned to splice rope in the navy and started teaching me how, also taught me how to sharpen a knife.
There was no stopping me then, spent nearly every weekend and holiday of my childhood up the woods throwing myself of the cliff with some rope i found somewhere and sleeping rough with just a sleeping bag, cooking food on a fire and hunting with my grandfathers air rifle dressed up like action man with my army surplus gear on. I cant imagine parents letting their kids do stuff like that these days.
That was in the 70s and I still havent got it out of my system yet. Never heard of bushcraft in those days, we just used to adapt the stuff in survival books to what we wanted to do. Dont know what happened to the book and I have tried to find another copy but have never found one. I wonder if I would still be doing this kind of thing if I had never seen the book? You can learn a lot from books but I think you need to get out there and practice the things you read, its more fun!!!!




Is your name bear grills lol.

Enjoyed reading that mate:thumbsup: gave me a little nostalgia.....use to go to my grans at the weekends and on holidays they also stayed in the country and my love of Bushcraft started there. :thumbsup: Never throw myself of a cliff tho lol

Shame about the book tho. Hope you find it.
 
Is your name bear grills lol.

Enjoyed reading that mate:thumbsup: gave me a little nostalgia.....use to go to my grans at the weekends and on holidays they also stayed in the country and my love of Bushcraft started there. :thumbsup: Never throw myself of a cliff tho lol

Shame about the book tho. Hope you find it.
Its surprising the things we used to do when we were kids. No fear is a dangerous thing. I remember once deciding I was going to walk over the mountain to the local country park, I was probably about 10 or 11. Packed all my gear and set off early in the morning, no compass or map and started over the mountain. It rained, then the sun came out, then it rained again. It was like that all the way and had to stop to dry off a few times. I tried to find my way with my watch and the sun like it showed in the book, along with a few high landmarks in the area that I knew. Well I got there in the end but it took me about 10 hours altogether and I was so knackered that I had to phone my grandfather to pick me up from the side of the road as I couldn't walk any more. I tracked my path the other day on a map and it was about 18 miles altogether over the mountain. Much further than I expected, but I wouldn't give up. To think now what could have happened and nobody knew where I was. Just used to say I was going up the mountain when I went out.
 
Very true. Sounds like a good adventure you had mate. Didn’t know nothing about the name Bushcraft I just new I loved to be outside and amongst trees and rivers. I only went back when I was hungry or had an accident lol almost drowned when I fell into the small burn (little river) knocked myself out and a lady pulled me out and took me home. Lucky :D
 
I think that when you grew up in the country it was the normal thing to do. making dens, tree houses and eating any fruit you could find, its the same thing really and we did it for fun. A lot of these skills are getting forgotten and hardly any kids these days can light a fire or even know what was safe to eat if they found it. We never went hungry when we were out, nuts, blackberries, sugar beet from the edge of the wood by the field where it grew, fish from the river or the beach. Even spent a day once just eating pine bark because I read somewhere you could. tasted like s**t mind, but I didn't care.
Probably got a bit obsessed with it after a while, I spent years sleeping on the floor in my bedroom in a sleeping bag.
 
A do try and get my kids involved. My oldest and second oldest like the outdoors but not as much as me. But my youngest is just like me as a kid.....blooming wild lol. So a think she will inherit the wilderness traits i have
 
It wasn't this book was it? It's from the mid 60s-mid 70s. I paid a buck for it at a flea market.
 

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