I'm going to show my age here...

[Buck]

I was thinking about what/who started me down the outdoor/bushcraft road.

Well it was "Jack Hargreaves" I think I have seen everything he was in until he stopped in 1985. He had an interesting delivery. His WW2 experience was quite interesting too.

Next stepping stone is Les hiddins and bush tucker man.

Both men encouraged a boy from Luton to get outdoors and explore. Luckily I had an Uncle who was a farmer who we visited very regularly with loads of land to practice on.

They where/are my inspirations (before RM and others) who or what are yours?

Buck

 

[Dave]

Now was Jack Hargreaves, like Major Oliver Kite one of those chaps that were mainly shown on television down south? I suspect so. I see all his shows are on the web now..he seems interesting...damn! another reason not to pack today!

Furthest back I can remember on TV would be Les Hiddens, but I dont know if they ran the entire series on the BBC? In 85 I was 12 years old. I remember only seeing one or teo and being completely enthralled by him. But I think he was on past my bedtime or something, past 10pm was it? And of course Lofty Wiseman on Duncan Dares.

Id walk a lot in my teens on the moors, and into my twenties, and we'd do courses, rock climbing, go snowboarding, etc. Thats when I fell in love with snow peaked mountains and real wilderness, going to canada. Thats the early nineties. Then watching Ray Mears on tracks and going to see him give a talk in 2003 at a literary festival, about his series the real heroes of telemark....Then I joined on here.

But I think the real inspiration cme much earlier reading fantasy novels when I was 8 or 9, like the shannara trilogy, the seven narnia books, the LOTR, and the hobbit, Piers Anthony, All the Craig Thomas novels, etc etc, where all the protagonists, were always setting off by strapping a sword or knife to their side, and going on a great adventure into the woods and wilderness. So I guess I can blame my mum, as she was the one who would bring all those books home for me.

The bushcraft instructors just put it all into a perspective for me, took it off the pages so to speak.

[Hey I really like that jack hargreaves chap, thanks for putting me onto him.]

 

[mrcharly]

Harry Butler and it 'In the Wild' TV series really started my interest in wildlife and the outdoors.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obitu...utback-into-living-rooms-20151213-glmboz.html

 

[oldtimer]

Don't know about the OP showing his age....

My interest started before television sets were common. I was outdoors, not watching TV when I was a child and teenager. My inspirations were real people that I knew personally. My male role models, like my father, uncles and school teachers and scout masters had all served in WW2. The greatest influence was "Pritch" an ex Indian Army Colonel family friend who taught by letting me make mistakes but commented positively when I got things right.

I did watch Jack Hargreaves who had a programme in the early evening that I watched with interest after work. It seems to me that the boom in interest in Bushcraft really took off with Ray Mears's programmes: I still can can't decide whether he should be praised or blamed!

 

[Toddy]

TV didn't feature much in life in my childhood. I was seven before we had a tv, and it was full of stupidity. Things like flowerpot men. Why couldn't they just speak normally ?
I did like listening to Jack Hargreaves, and How! though.

Books I read verociously I liked the world building from nowt ones, ones like Swiss Family Robinson, full of capable people, and I grew up in a family that knew how to make everything, how to grow, build, etc.,
I thought that was normal.

It was only when I surfed in here looking for information on something that I realised that a lot of the stuff I did was called bushcraft.

Ray Mears was a young presenter on Tracks. Very short and not enough information to please me. I know the programmes are only a 'flavour' but I want a meal

M

 

[Old Bones]

I remember Jack Hargreaves well - if you lived in the Southern TV region and grew up in the seventies, then you almost certainly came across him in 'How?' or any of his early evening programmes, which always seemed to be about fly fishing, old caravans or carts, or making stuff out of reeds. It wasn't until years later that I found out that he was a canny behind the scenes operator in regional TV, and his 'countryman' persona was just one part of him.

I do remember getting very interested in the outdoors when I was about 10 after buying (via the schools book club) Brian Hildrith's 'How to Survive', published by Puffin in 1976 https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/How-Survive-Puffin-Books-Brian-Hildreth/0140308563 > I found a copy not so long ago, and its still a very useful book, although I have to admit never getting around making my own survival kit out of a tobacco tin - it was more a rough collection of bits.

Bushcraft/survival/living off the land/foraging seems to wax and wane - a book or TV programme can spark something, which most quickly forget, but there has always been an interest. One problem now is that there is simply less wild to explore - when I was ten, there was the remains of old sand pits, a relatively large amount of heathland, a farm, woods, the brownfield site left from the demolition of factories and the river valley of the Bourne all within a 15min bike ride, and the relative freedom to explore it. Going back at Christmas to see my family, most of the heathland, the brownfield site, the farm and the sandpits have all been built on for housing or supermarkets. The woods are still there, as is the river valley, but the traffic is murderous - I probably wouldn't let my ten year old roam in the same way I could.

 

[Riven]

Tv wise for me it would be the old black'n'white Robinson Crusoe in the early 70s and then Stay Alive with Eddie McGee. Still got the book along with Survival for young people by Anthony Greenbank and The Explorers Handbook by Peter Eldin. All of these together gave me and my friends plenty to practise when we went to the woods. Which incidentally we could still do back then without too much nanny state over-parenting.(Might put a copyright on that last bit).
Riven.

 

[wicca]

It's great to read a thread where many of the comments make me smile. I'm knocking on a bit...but not really that old, and I do remember our early television..It worked wonderfully well until a passing Brontosaurus whacked it with his tail, after that it was back to watching Dad raving about the round thing he'd invented and claiming it would wheely catch on.

Jack Hargreaves I used to watch...with my kids. Friday evening Southern TV "Out of Town" we never missed it. I was in a Children's Home aged from 10 to 15 and we didn't get to see televison at all, even when they got one in 1957, but memories of playing in the woods are still clear. Like setting fire to the end of a dried Cow Parsley stalk and sucking on it as a 'cigarette' and getting a mouthful of Earwigs when they charged out of the cool end.

 

[Toddy]

Those earwigs were a right royal nuisance. I couldn't leave a book out but they were crawling up inside the spine
and, "Outside and play", was the command from every mother in the land
We wandered for miles, we climbed, cycled, built fires, made bows and arrows, and used them (I still have a scar where my bother shot me!) built dens, lit fireworks, dug out trenches (and spuds) cut firewood, chopped firewood (two different skills there) kept the fire going, played on Tarzan swings over the burns, paddled in the burns, (rope's fail, learn to look and work out if it's you that's for a dookin' ) clambered around old harbours and slipways, learned to avoid the, "Sheets", both kinds that is, learned to row and balance in a boat, how to light tilley lamps, and cleanly and tidily replace the mantles. How to repair stuff, to care for stuff, to make from scratch, to source stuff, to relish the changing seasons, the games that changed through them, the fruits and nuts and other munchables and the dinners that Mum and Granny made too.

I'm very comfortable in my modern centrally heated home, I don't miss shivering myself to sleep every night for weeks on end, or rather dull indoor lighting, winds whistling down the hallway, and bathrooms so icily cold that a basin of hot water and two flannels was a blooming sight more comfortable than a bath every day, but I do miss some of the simplicity of my childhood.

M

 

[Robson Valley]

Wonderful reminders, Toddy and all. Enjoying the memories.

Hindsight tells me that as kids (10-12yrs old?), we were expected to be able to lay and use a cooking fire.
How and where to find dry wood when we needed it. Not just hotdogs and marshmallows on a stick.
Baking a fish in clay was the top but the taste left much to be desired. "Here (plate of raw meat and potatoes), go cook your supper."

 

[MikeLA]

Eddie McGee and Lofty Wiseman both books and TV shows

 

[passer]

Unlike many, my inspiration must have been my Dad.

Nothing earth shattering, just enjoying being outdoors. As a small child I remember spending summer evenings walking to local areas ie: lodges, woods and moors. All within 30 mins walk.
We would eat berries etc along the way, watch fish rising and rabbits scurrying into burrows, marvel at butterflies flashing brilliant colours.

All this to a certain extent was taken for granted, we didn't have TV at that point, thankfully.

During school breaks, I remember leaving home after breakfast and just wandering, alone or with friends. Fishing, birdwatching, making dens in the woods, damning streams on the moors. The only rule was....... be home before dark. Not always adhered to.
All just normal life back then, precious now.
Thanks Dad

 

[Bootstrap Bob]

My dad showed me how to light fires without matches and make bows at around 6 years of age and my mum showed me how to do simple cooking on paraffin stoves at a similar age but it was Eddie McGee who really sparked my interest in his 'Stay Alive' program in the late 1970s.

 

[Tiley]

My initial interest in the bushcraft and survival thing came from the BBC's 'Nationwide' programme. During one sequence of programmes, a reporter, James Hogg, was abandoned on an uninhabited Scottish island for a period of time, having been trained by the RAF in basic survival techniques. "The Adventures of Robinson Hogg" fascinated me but it was only later, when I was lent one of R.M.'s books by a pupil, that the interest morphed into a passion.

 

[Blundstoned Love]

I remember Lofty Wiseman doing something with Peter Duncan from Blue Peter and being really impressed by the whole thing.

As for Jack Hargreaves - my old man hated him with a passion, reckoned he was a complete phoney. I met him once - Jack Hargreaves, not my dad - I was dressed as a clown. I did a blog post about it a while back

 

[shindig]

My original inspiration was Fireball Magazine. It was a boys magazine produced in the early 70s and I remember getting a survival handbook which showed you how to make a survival kit. I carried that survival kit with me throughout primary school. I'm sure i still have the survival booklet somewhere.

Next, like many in here was Jack Hargreaves in out of town. When we were kids we were always out exploring and building huts in the woods.

I was in the army cadets and and TA for a few years enjoying the outdoor element of those.

Eventually work overtook my outdoor interests and I've only recently come back to bushcraft, having discovered Ray Mears about 4 years ago. He really inspired me to get back into the outdoor life.

EDIT: The magazine was actually called Bullet. Fireball was the main character.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[bigbear]

Ah, How to survive by Brian Hildritch, yes that triggers a memory or two, I did make the tobacco tin survival set ! And we did see Out of town sometimes on Yorkshire TV.
Summer holidays in particular we would go out and light a fire, cook backwoods style on it, make dens, just run wild, but as has been observed above, there was a lot more empty land and a hell of a lot less traffic about. And everyone was less paranoid about letting kids run free. That has sadly been lost, the kids I teach have had none of that and they are IMO the poorer for it.
From there, Scouts, walking and climbing at school, bivvying out, and you are set on a love of the outdoors.

 

[Riven]

I had that Fireball leaflet Shindig, it came in a red plastic wallet and was pretty good for a young lad starting out. Often wonder what happened to it.
Thanks for the memory.
Riven

 

[Janne]

Father was who gave me the love for nature. He worked very long hours, seldom saw me during the weeks, and his way to spend time with me and to relax was to go hiking and fishing. He did the same with his dad when he was young in the 30's.

 

[Joonsy]

there was a program in the 1970s called ''Living in the Past'', see video below, didn't have telly in early years (nor my later years now) but the first survival programms i saw was about nature and wildlife and called Survival by Colin Willock. Inspiration mostly come from the contrast i saw between the beautiful worcestershire countryside and slag heaps, open tips, and rat infested river in the Black Country of old during my childhood.

[video=youtube;qt5ir-viCzk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt5ir-viCzk[/video]