did your parents...

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did your parents do bushcrafty type stuff

  • not not at all

    Votes: 220 49.0%
  • yes a little bit bushcrafty but lots outdoors

    Votes: 193 43.0%
  • lots of bushcraft

    Votes: 36 8.0%

  • Total voters
    449

whitebuffalo

Banned
Oct 28, 2004
63
0
Cornwall
I grew up on or around farms so I have never known anything different. My childhood was very good although even as a wee man I had to work on the land.
 

Buckshot

Mod
Mod
Jan 19, 2004
6,466
349
Oxford
My parents weren't really country folk.
My dad introduced me to fishing and cubs but that was about it. His knowledge of knots is impressive even now though!
I was often out in the local woods building dens and stuff, not paying any attention to nature particuarly.
I remember when I left school I worked as a trainee Gamekeeper and my parents came and picked me up because my moped (a FS1E) had broken down again. I took them to see the rearing field, on the way I checked a trap. Low and behold it had caught a stoat (must have been within the last couple of hours because I'd checked it at lunchtime already).
While I was taking the animal out and resetting the trap my mum was 10 -15 feet away and my dad was the other side of the hedge :rolmao:
They always respected my feelings and gave me room to follow my beliefs even though they didn't always understand them - for this I thank them. :super:
My wife gets annoyed with me when I talk to the old locals in the country, but I find it's the best way to learn and they're usually more than happy to chat !
My father in law was a real countryman and lived for his shooting and fishing - learnt alot from him as well :super: top bloke. He died before my son was born so we named him after him. Michael.

Cheers

Mark
 

brucemacdonald

Forager
Jul 5, 2004
149
0
right here
Gary said:
Unfortunately my parents, like myself, came from lower working class back grounds and had to work hard for a living and as such had very little free time. I rarely saw my father as he worked long hours trying to make the ends meet.

This said I was a latch key kid and as such had much freedom, school holidays especially I was always in the woods building camps and lighting fires (sorry essex fire brigade) - I had a great childhood!

Funnily enough, I had a similar upbringing; there were some local woods I used to play in and we had fun fording the River Crane and generally messing about. What fun days.

I wish it could be the same for my kids but everyday life seems more dangerous now than it was when I was a kid. :roll:


Best wishes

Bruce
 

ColdCanuck

Member
Feb 16, 2005
13
0
Alberta, Canada
In my adult life, I've come to realize how lucky I was as a child. Growing up, my parents didn't have tons of money to take the kids on holidays. So every holiday was spent camping/canoeing/backpacking. As a kid here it was totally free, all you had to do was get there .... I've still never been to disneyland. :lol: As an adult it is in my blood and I can't imagine life without it.
 

Kim

Nomad
Sep 6, 2004
473
0
50
Birmingham
Mmm, my parents. How on earth do I keep this short? In another life they would have been great outdoors people, free people, they both love the country and love to be out in the garden, but somehow they got swamped by their lives, by the restictions they placed upon each other, and ended up forever caught in suburbia. So even though dad always took us camping, there was nothing bushcrafty about it. Then mum refused to sleep in anything that wasn't classed as a building and that was that. Although I had a great childhood, I made my mind up quickly that I never wanted the lives that they had, and sadly, not the kind of marriage either.
Their regrets concerning who they are and the decisions they have made in their lives have fuelled my own desire to pursue my love of the outdoors, and they are with me one hundred percent. Mum worries sometimes, but then mum's do, but dad I think is chuffed to bits I'm getting muddy. I love them both to bits because they've showed me how easy it is to get trapped in another's expectations and they really want for me what they never had. My parents rock :super:
 

wingstoo

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
May 12, 2005
2,274
40
South Marches
Hadn't seen this thread before...


Bushcraft only became a popular name in the last ten years...so the answer would have to be no...But...My Mother was a country girl and had to walk miles to fetch fresh water and the old chap practically lived in the countryside as a youngster, fishing with nut sticks and string, out with his hazel, home made catapault....which he still has over sixty years later, then he did national service in Singapore (stand up virgin soldiers, he was on the same camp that was in the film) out in the jungle protecting the border from communist bandits...after that he was in the TA for many years...so I guess that if it had been called "Bush craft" then he did do it...But it was somewhat different in his day...

LS
 

lardbloke

Nomad
Jul 1, 2005
322
2
52
Torphichen, Scotland
My father was an old army man through and through. Even though I remember as a small child, lots of books about healthy eating, self sufficiency, trapping, nature etc and he would go off with his brother-in-law and be outdoors. He would teach me the odd thing or two about bushcraft law, but I dont think I was that interested as a lad as I am now. I think he would have become a woodsman or a hermit if he hadnt met my mother (who is allergic to the great outdoors) and when he comes up to visit my family, we go off and share a log and a nip from the flask around the campfire and talk twadle about the old days....
 

pierre girard

Need to contact Admin...
Dec 28, 2005
1,018
16
70
Hunter Lake, MN USA
My father had me on a two week Canadian canoe/fishing trip when I was three. My mother's family were backwoods folk and were so shy of anyone they didn't know - they'd step aside into the forest when strangers came down the trail.
 

singteck

Settler
Oct 15, 2005
565
6
52
Malaysia
www.flickr.com
Ya, this really brings back memories.

My parents work in the most remote part of the country, where there's no electricity, running water or even road. He will go and set up the whole lot and then only start work on the construction project. So they have to make do and survive.

Best memory was when they were working on a small island off Singapore. They had the whole island to themselves. Every holidays I will go and stay with them without fail.
 

Rebel

Native
Jun 12, 2005
1,052
6
Hertfordshire (UK)
Interesting thread and it's touching to read about everybody's upbringing.

I'm another one who came from a family without a lot of money. My parents weren't into any kind of outdoor activities at all. Although my mother was a country girl she seems to have had no interest in the countryside.

I've seen pictures of her on the farm and in the village where they had no paved roads. As a kid I went out to visit the farms of her family that are all paved over now and was fascinated by them.

My grandfather on the other hand was a real outdoors man and he is the one who probably planted the seeds of outdoor living in my heart. I went with him on hunting trips etc and I that's were I probably got my love of the outdoors from.

Now I gravitate between the economic necessity of suburban living and the country life that I prefer. I've lived in big cities and out in the boondogs for years but now I'm back in the city again. It's not all bad though, I don't feel trapped, our family made this decision for a number of reasons and we still enjoy a lot of outdoor activities.
 

Grimnir

Forager
Jun 24, 2006
117
2
53
Northants
My parents were not the least interested in outdoor activities, the closest I came to it was escaping for the day when on camping trips. Even those were done with full kit on proper campsites with shower blocks etc.
 

Tadpole

Full Member
Nov 12, 2005
2,842
21
59
Bristol
I started camping with a school Friend aged 13, we rough camped many time in the school summer holidays. Like a lot here, my family didn’t have much spare money (I was ten years old before we went on holiday, and then it was a week in Seaton, Devon) No one in my family does any camping or bushy type stuff. My family all think camping is crazy, the only one who doesn’t in my daughter who’s seven and a half. We are planning on going back to Seaton this summer and camp, swim, snorkel and just play at being “The Ray” as my little girl calls Ray Mears.
 

BOD

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
singteck said:
Ya, this really brings back memories.

My parents work in the most remote part of the country, where there's no electricity, running water or even road. He will go and set up the whole lot and then only start work on the construction project. So they have to make do and survive.

Best memory was when they were working on a small island off Singapore. They had the whole island to themselves. Every holidays I will go and stay with them without fail.

Which part of Malaysia do they work in now?
 

Long Stride

Tenderfoot
Jun 11, 2006
96
1
Dundee
My parents were never into camping or bushcraft as such but we always spent time in the countryside. Every summer holiday was spent somewhere in Scotland, usually rural Bed and Breakfast farms or cottages.
My mother is a country girl brought up on a small country estate in Perthshire. My Grandfather was a shepherd / estate worker and my Gran worked in the "Big House". Both died when I was small so I never got to know them.
When my sister and me were young my mother would point out birds, different trees and plants and how to identify them from fruits and seed pods. We would then collect leaves and seeds and fruits, look them up in a book and try to catch my mother out.
It is from my mother that I got my interest in wildlife and the countryside.
 

Matt Weir

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Jun 22, 2006
2,880
2
52
Tyldesley, Lancashire.
My Dad was and still is a real outdoorsman. Hunting, fishing, shooting etc Quite often there is rabbit or pheasant hanging on the washing line (much to the chagrin of my Mum ;) ).

He has a really good general knowlege of trees, plants and animals and is quite knowledgeable in the old herbal recipies - he brought a bag of Comfrey home the other day and made a concoction to soak his damaged toenail in.

A few years ago he regularly went on walks with my kids when they were younger and they have planted Horse Chestnut trees all over the woods near where we live.

Matt.
 

fred gordon

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Mar 8, 2006
2,099
19
78
Aberdeenshire
I suppose with hindsight my parents taught me lots of bushcrafty things. Firelighting, respect for the countryside, love of trees and, best of all, a love of being outside. We used to come home from school and find our parents gone. There would be a note on the table about where they had gone and we would set off to the woods to find them. There my father would have a fire lit and the tea would be cooking away on a flat stone and the kettle singing in the background. Bliss. These memories have never left me and I tried to do the same sort of things with my kids. Never managed to loose them! :rolleyes:
 

Bootstrap Bob

Full Member
Jun 21, 2006
407
9
51
Oxfordshire
Very interesting thread reading about your experiences, thought I might add to it with my own.

My dad grew up on or around farms so it was inevitable that he did some outdoorsy things. Some of these he passed on to me, my first recollection was lighting fires with a magnifying glass at the age of 6. We also made bows and arrows and I remember a cross bow at some point but that was confiscated by my grandma :(

We also collected mushrooms and fished on the local dam, he has told me about tickling trout in the local streams which I played in as a youngster but he never actually showed me how. I believe it is illegal now anyway so not much chance of that again.

He's probably getting a little old for it now but he keeps on at me about getting my cedar strip canoe built so he can go out for a paddle. Wish I could but other things keep getting in the way.

Rob.
 

Roving Rich

Full Member
Oct 13, 2003
1,460
4
Nr Reading
Neither of my parents were particularly outdoorsy, but my dad did once make the effort to take me on a hike with tent and frying pan up in Wales. He too used to tickle trout allegedly, but never let on how to do it ! My Mum is very keyed up on nature, and seems to know every Tree, bird and most flowers. I guess our annual blackberry picking trips started me off on wild foods.
They did teach me how to make a fire and chop kindling, one of my chores from an early age, aswell as some basic cooking.
Living in the country as another latch key kid I was always down the woods, as this was the best playground locally IMO. We tried snarring rabbits (a complete failure) and building rafts. I was also encouraged to be a cub, scout and venture scout, and years of canoe club every week.
They left me very much to my own devices, - but looking back, they sewed the seeds for all the things I still enjoy today.
Cheers
Rich
 

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