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

jamin

Forager
Nov 27, 2006
173
0
36
lincoln
www.piczo.com
slightly alot of outdoors. as my dad is a tree surgen and my grandad is a game keeper. so had the outdoor lark since i was small also been in the scouts since i was 6 now at 23 im a leader and do lots of camping with my explorers. they most of them realy enjoy bushcrafts and wild camping having backwoods camps 2-3 times a year.
 
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hedgerow pete

Need to contact Admin...
Jan 10, 2010
88
0
smethwick , west midlands
my parent were transplanted from birmingham to the country side, i learnt because all my mates were farmers lads and when i asked there father/grandfather what are you doing i was shown, skinning rabbits at 8, "walking the fields" by the time i was 13 and very good at it as well rabbit or two most nights never did game apart from the birds, as for the rest sorry but i was curroupted by the meeting when i was around 10 by a guy called lofty wiseman, to fore runner to ray and bear
 

dasy2k1

Nomad
May 26, 2009
299
0
Manchester
my dad was allways taking me outdoors but not bushcrafty things, he often took me fishing and the likes, once he took me camping, but after that it was allways me taking him!
the thing that introduced me to bushcraft the most was joining the scouts!
 

jackcbr

Native
Sep 25, 2008
1,561
0
50
Gatwick, UK
www.pickleimages.co.uk
My dad and I use to hiking. Borrowed the kit from the Fire Brigade sports and social club.

Best holidays of my life, Southdowns Way, Coast to Coast, Ben Nevis, Snowdon, New Forest. All on a shoestring, old worn out kit weighing a ton.

But we were both learning as we went along. Now I get to pass on what we've learnt to my nephews.
 
no my parents dont really go outside, we go caravaning every 2-3 weeks but thats about it, my dad and me go on walks some times but thats as far as he goes. i got into bushcraft because of a kid my age i didnt like, one day me and him got talking and we found out we both had an interest in the outdoors. me and him are good mates now, haha
 

Firelite

Forager
Feb 25, 2010
188
1
bedfordshire
Dad was a part time gamekeeper (a hobby more than anything else) so we got a lot of outdoors time. Believe it or not we never went on holidays, so my camping experiences were with the army cadets. I do a lot of stuff now with my kids (I try to keep them happy cos they'll be choosing which home I go into), but sometimes worry about overdoing things and putting'em off. Anybody got any thoughts about what the right balance is, or do you just keep going all the time they're happy/ still humouring you?
 
i was lucky i grew up feral on the south downs and going everywhere by bike or thumb and learning a lot of stuff by trial and eror that said i was heavily influenced by the military careers of various members of my family and learnt stuff as a matter of self reliance rather than as bushcraft.....
 

Jakata

Full Member
Dec 16, 2009
87
0
45
Northampton
No, though my Dad was in the army for 22 years so I suppose he did plenty. Though not a lot with me as my parents divorced when I was 3.

My Granddad did loads, though he never labelled it bushcraft, it was just his lifestyle. When he wasn't at work he was in his workshop making stuff or out and about in the countryside.
 

Acorn62

Tenderfoot
Jan 13, 2009
88
1
Oxfordshire
I was part brought up by my uncle (10 years SAS and his father was LRDG before him). He used to drag me out to Dartmoor and Exmoor for days on end learning all the basics and how to enjoy life in the wilds. He even taught me the pleasures of enjoying rare beef sandwiches and 1/2 pint of scrumpy for last day lunch.
When I had kids of my own (after leaving the forces) we were lucky enough to be able to home educate them and live where that would include days in the woods and trips everywhere which always included foraging, building stuff, making stuff, wild camping and conventional camping on a basic kit list. Like me, my children remember those trips into the beyond above all other memories from their childhood. Now grown up (uni) they still enjoy wandering the boonies with their old man. For me I was sad to see my uncle disappear from view many years ago but still enjoy the memories he gave me and which I can relive any time I want because, for the most part, the places and seasons remain unspoiled.

Remember them and smile!
 

tinkerer

Forager
Mar 11, 2010
133
0
bournemouth
i didnt grow up with my parents but the school i went to was run by an ex marine who actively encouraged being outdoors .i used to go to the "school woods" at least once a week making shelters ,lighting fires(to cook on) making swings etc used to camp there all the time , never used a tent.we used to go rock climbing, orienteering, canoeing hikes dartmoor ,exmoor. in fact looking back i was quite privelidged and learnt alot about the outdoors.
 
All of the camping I did with my parents was on wild sites until the age of about 17 when I started going with friends. My father served 32 years in the forces so we were brought up"prepared" shall we say, and my best times with him were when we were camping,fishing, tracking,walking and foraging. I too like many others on here was always playing in the woods as a child. Building "dens" was a huge pastime of mine,came in really handy when it came to shelter building. I still have the Swiss Army Knife my father got me for my 7th birthday( twenty years ago this year)! Hope to pass that on one day to my kids. Through my parents interests in nature I went on to qualify as a Ranger and worked at a few sites in South Wales. Great post, taken me back and has brought back a lot of old memories. Both my parents have passed away now so getting back out there in the trees is kind of therapy for me. Tim
 

mclark

Forager
Dec 29, 2009
182
0
38
sitting under a tree
when i was 2 or 3 my parents used to take me and my sisters to exmoor for long weekends learning about the wild then when i was 8 we all moved to turkey and my dad used to take me into the mountains and teach me whats what in the wild , we also used to do alot of hunting and fishing aswell , thats possably where my love for the outdoors come from lol
 

delta1

Member
Jun 26, 2009
30
0
On A Mountain
My dad would take me & my brother fishing & camping, i used to bunk off school to go fishing with him and have some very lovely memories of long summer days spent with my dad on the river banks of the avon & seven just running playing fishing, discovering etc. My parents didnt have much money & worked long hours to keep us so we often amused ourselfves out in the fields/woods. This thread has brought back some lovely memories for me, my dad passed away 4years ago & i miss him terribly. I hope i can pass on some of the knowledge and joys of my childhood to my two boys.
 

pango

Nomad
Feb 10, 2009
380
6
69
Fife
I saw this thread a while ago now and meant to add my wee bit to it. (Or what started life as a "wee bit")

My Auld Man worked in the Fife pits so had, as every other British Miner had, only 2 weeks holiday in the summer and spent a large part of the year working towards the annual family camping trip. Their major luxury was the car, no mean thing as I can remember when there were only two other families in "our street" had cars. I'm showing my age here, but I remember a Hillman Minx, a two-tone red and black number with chrome trim.

So when the morning of the big day came my dad, sister and myself would invariably sit in the car for what seemed like an eternity waiting for mum to appear. And then would start the Auld Man's one liners... "Are we away with everything we've forgot?", or when the screen-wash water ran out and the muck was spread more evenly over the windscreen... "That's better!" Or when seagull sh#t splattered the windscreen... "Thank Chr#st cows can't fly!". My dad worked on the Hydro Schemes as a young man, and every time we drove north out of Fort William past the line of 5 huge pipes coming down the mountainside he used to look out of the window, up at the mass of Ben Nevis, and say, "I built that!"

So, with the car packed with tents and camping gear, an array of primus stoves and bairns, as sometimes one of my pals came along, we'd set off either heading for Perth if going north, or the Yetts o' Muckart and The Sma' Glen if west. It's a long way to the Highlands from Fife at 30-45 mph and with the roads bearing little resemblance to today's, we'd arrive at our first stop for lunch after 5 hours driving, somewhere like Loch Earn or Luibnaig or around Dalwhinnie, and start thinking about a camping place 4 or 5 hours later. They knew roadside camping places all over Scotland.

As a result, the camping stories in our family are myriad... like when they left the tent to go into Inverness for groceries and found that cars were sounding their horns and flashing their lights at them in warning. My dad stopped the car to see what was wrong, to find they were towing the tent still attached by my mother's washing line. On another occasion, a storm blew up and my dad went out to tighten guy-lines after telling my sister to hold onto the tent pole. He straightened things out and went back to bed. He wakened in the morning with my sister asking if she could let go of the pole now!

I still have a photo of me, butt-naked, being chased around a tent by my mother who seems to be holding a nappy (diaper). There's another of my Auld Man with tea-towels wrapped around his head as a defence against midges, lighting a fire in the pouring rain. It was taken from the safety of the car.

My earliest memories are of camping, cooking on a campfire, sitting at the fire into the darkness and waking in the tent in the morning, playing in a field with a Highland calf, being lifted to look into a nest full of chicks, waving to passing cars and looking to see if we knew the people in them, sometimes local families, turning over a stone to find a nest of young snakes, catching "slow" worms, guddling (tickling) trout in streams, skinning rabbits, my older brother turning up near Ullapool with his mates on bicycles, a haunch of venison from a keeper at Aberfeldy, lying in the heather watching stags during rutting or salmon and sea trout in a Highland river, being taken back to the tent and my father disappearing then reappearing with a miraculous salmon which had jumped out of the river and attacked him.

There's little doubt in my mind that these yearly camping adventures marked me for the rest of my life and led me to wander the hills of Scotland and to mountains in foreign lands my parents couldn't ever have dreamt of. Much of the self confidence in the outdoors and many of the skills I've acquired over the years were absorbed during those family camping trips, as has been confirmed for me after having taken my daughter out ever since she could carry her wee rucksac with her teddy and jammies in. (Yes, I carried the bananas, oranges, apples, juice, spaghetti hoops and meatballs!)
She cast it back at me recently that she remembered me telling her to mash the midges into her mince and tatties as, "It's all protein, Hannah. Protein!"
She's now studying Environmental Sciences, goes camping with her pals at every opportunity... between Music Festivals, she's just back from Rockness, which of course involve camping!

I went camping with her about a month ago in Rothiemurchus. We got the tents up and then gathered wood for the fire, which I intended leaving for an hour or so before lighting and set about getting a brew going. My daughter had different ideas though and appeared with a handful of old-man's-beard which she proceeded to wrap in a birch-bark tube and light, placing it on top of 5 sticks and feeding with kindling. When I asked her where she learned that, a vacant look said she didn't know.
"I'm just lighting a fire, dad!", says it all, don't you think?

Soul Food! You reap what you sow!

ps; Last year, driving north from Aviemore with a mate, I stopped when I recognised a camping spot my mum and dad used to use. We got out of the car and went into the woods to have a look around. There used to be a heavy old iron grill my parents, and others, used and replaced in a hollow tree stump after use. The tree stump was gone, of course, but when I walked over to the gully where they used to set the campfire, there was the rusty old iron grill lying on the pebbles.
It took me a while to compose myself and I had to walk off to have a moment alone. So much for rough tough mountain men!
 
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We spent a lot of time hunting, fishing, gathering, and camping. Luckily, this part of Iowa has a lot to offer for survival as well as for recreation. Much of our outdoor enjoyment was of necessity, being part of the population depending on the outdoors to eat regularly. We old Indians do know how to survive because of old skills passed along to our younger generations.

I must say, modern progress has certainly improved comfort while enjoying the outdoors, especially camping. My wife and I have a pull behind camper with the modern comforts. Roughing it isn't what it used to be, huh?
 

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