urbanghost
Very Talkative
- Messages
- 64
- Points
- 280
- 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 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!!!!