MADE IN BRITAIN

[Broch]

All my sweaters are Made in Britain: hand-knitted by my wife. She doesn't knit when we are in France.

Yes but I was very disappointed to read the label on the ball of wool my wife is currently using - 'Made in Germany'!! So the land of sheep is currently importing wool from Germany - it's not just the steel and toolmaking industry.
There are a number of manufacturers, British, Scandinavian and European, that started making good outdoor products but have become fashion clothing and accessories now. Just look at Karrimor - (though please don't confuse with Karrimor SF) - https://karrimorsf.com/

 

[Broch]

Google 'Fabod" but NOT 'Fabodjantan" please!

I just couldn't resist; wish I had now though

 

[Janne]

Confess, you are downloading it now............

 

[Broch]

Confess, you are downloading it now............

I refuse to answer on the grounds it may incriminate me

 

[MrEd]

Personally I find all this obsession with kit a bit depressing, IMHO bushcraft (whatever it is) should be about doing things not about kit. Decent, functional kit (where ever it comes from), should be a means of doing something and (unless you are making it yourself), not an aim itself. For me, the finest artisan made knife only become a “bushcraft” knife when someone uses it to cut something useful (the hairs on your arm do not count! ) and a kid using a knife borrowed from his mum’s kitchen to carve a tent peg is more of a bushcrafter than a guy with a drawer full of fancy knives which will never be used.

Just my 2d.

This final phrase is spot on

 

[Janne]

A good example of a knife adopted for bushcraft use is the Nessmuk.
A butchers knife ( check the knife your butcher uses) taken out and used in nature, with some modifications like a slightly thicker blade and a sheath.

 

[Nomad64]

This final phrase is spot on

May be, but not for the first time, sunndog beat me to it.

As a boy my kit was what could be scrounged and run off with before my mum noticed I'd stolen it!

 

[Laurentius]

@Laurentius

I am far away from being a british nationalist.

(Impossible, because I am German.)

I asked the question, because I know very well the good quality stuff from Scandinavia, France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany, but do not know well made British stuff.

I own the British made Snugpack Special Forces sleeping bag system and I think, that this is the best sleeping system for bushcraft in temperate climate that exists on the world market.

So I asked myself what other good quality stuff you guys hide from us on your island.

I have the impression, that British outdoor products aren't very well offered on the continent.

Barbour and Land Rover I can see.
But that's it!

There are only THREE shops who offer Snugpack products in Germany for example. Swedish stuff we can get every corner.

Okay fair enough. Buffalo are UK, and as I and others have said you can still get knives from Sheffield. Hilltrek I have heard. Hebtroco (go google) have started making hard wearing trousers in Yorkshire again and Harris Tweed still hangs on. I believe Morris of Dunsford are still making billhooks at least I hope they still are. Henry Weston's Cider, especially Henry Weston's Cider

 

[Laurentius]

Oh and lest I forget Acme whistles are still made in blighty so far as I know.

 

[Nomad64]

The word bushcraft is quite young. Before ray mears we just called it camping or being outside....it was especially bushcrafty if you were poor lol
The only difference now is that it has far more of a consumer based element

As a boy my kit was what could be scrounged and run off with before my mum noticed I'd stolen it!

Spot on - it was only when I read some bushcraft books that I realised that those “dens” we had been making in the woods as kids were actually “debris shelters” and we had in fact been “bushcrafting” rather than just d!cking about!

As far as nicking stuff from your mum, you are in good company, I went to a talk by Doug Scott a few years ago, his climbing career started with his mum’s washing line in the Peak District it would be nice to think that his famous overnight bivvy just below the summit of Everest was in a shower curtain he brought from home but I suspect not.

 

[Laurentius]

Spot on - it was only when I read some bushcraft books that I realised that those “dens” we had been making in the woods as kids were actually “debris shelters” and we had in fact been “bushcrafting” rather than just d!cking about!

As far as nicking stuff from your mum, you are in good company, I went to a talk by Doug Scott a few years ago, his climbing career started with his mum’s washing line in the Peak District it would be nice to think that his famous overnight bivvy just below the summit of Everest was in a shower curtain he brought from home but I suspect not.

I was lucky to grow up on the outskirts of the City with good access to the country, tree climbing, den building and all that. At the same time there were City kids who handn't a clue where milk came from or wool.

 

[Janne]

I do not think many kids climb trees these days.
Most seem to live in an electronic cocoon.

Kids up in Lofoten are weird though. I see them talking to each other.

 

[Erbswurst]

In my opinion bushcraft in UK is a renaissance of colonial heritage and scout movement.

If I compare the level of knowledge with other developed and crowded countries it is relatively high in Britain.

 

[Nomad64]

Spending time in the wild has not been easy in the UK. A huge portion has lived in the cities for generations and were more interested in the sea side.
Also you can not use the wilder land, as you are not allowed on it.
No Allemansrätten.

Not easy to be a budding bushcrafter in UK!

Some rather sweeping generalisations there but perhaps understandable if your experience if the UK was limited to a county sandwiched between the urban sprawl of London to the north and the South Coast.

As for not being allowed on the “wilder land” - did you never go to Dartmoor, the Peak District, the Lake District, Snowdonia, Brecon Beacons, Scottish Highlands? You might not be able to wander around shooting and trapping the wildlife, chopping down trees, building fires etc, but there is a general right to quietly enjoy these areas which has been reinforced by addition public access rights over the last few years. The whole country is criss-crossed with public rights of way clearly marked on maps.

Swedish furniture does not equal IKEA, far from it.

Of course not, I was just yanking your chain - just bear in mind that the British countryside does not equal East Sussex - there are some slightly wilder bits if you are prepared to travel a bit.

The British way to enjoy nature differs, as I wrote earlier, because the possibilities to do so differ.

I think most people would agree that RM introduced ( reintroduced?) bushcraft to a wide audience.
NONE of my son's friends and families, both in and outside of school, had ever done anything resembling what you guys do. None were even in the Scout organization.
And we did live in the rural part of E. Sussex.

I introduced some b-crafting to several of his friends, by taking them first on the 'family' weekend RM course, then onto our woodland camp we created.
Daddies did not have time.

I am not going even to comment on your Empire building and wars. That is your history, your problem. Swedish empire building and wars are our history and problem. I do not do politics here.

East Sussex has (according to Wiki) a hundred Scout troops so if your sons friends were not Scouts or doing DofE, Outward Bound etc. and/or did not spend much of their spare time enjoying the outdoors then that was down to choice. Don’t make the mistake of judging the whole of the UK’s attitude to the great outdoors on the basis of a small group of middle class families in the affluent London commuterbelt.

In “real” rural communities, the Young Farmers will be at the hub of what kids are up to and they will be into chickens, sheep, horses etc. I’ve been spending my weekends back where I grew up in North Somerset learning to lay hedges. Unfortunately I’ve been working within earshot of two fifteen year old girls yabbering away talking the cr@p that teenage girls do while hacking away at hawthorn and blackthorn bushes with billhook and axes - I doubt whether they would even know who RM is!

That said, clearly the UK does have a large population compared to Nordic countries and does not have the large wilderness areas but people do get out into the countryside and as Laurentius says, there are kids in poorer inner city areas who do not have easy access to the countryside. Scandinavian style Forest Schools have become popular recently in city schools.

My reference to Empire etc. had nothing to do with politics, it was simply a gentle reminder that despite Britain’s comparatively mild climate and its lack of vast wilderness areas, its inhabitants made been pretty good job of coping in some of the more extreme parts of the world even before RM popped up on our TVs.

 

[Woody girl]

Me I was born in the new forest. Spent my childhood wandering about and building debris shelters and generaly bushcrafting as it is considered now. To us it was just playing and having fun. I've no idea how I knew what I knew. Never had an adult around to show us what to do. Now kids if they do get out go to forest school or to organised bushcraft camps. Parents won't let their kids roam free like we used to. Aged 10 I would often be 3 or 4 miles away from home with my little brother in tow.aged 6. I can see modern parents shudder in horror at this, convinced I was neglected or a tearaway! It was just normal and we never had a problem because we knew what to do.we got stung by bees, fell in ponds, fell out of trees, normal kid stuff. I now live in a cul de sac and the kids opposite to me are not allowed out of sight of the front door. So sad.

 

[Erbswurst]

Last summer I met on a small camping ground in France two old english guys who started at 10 a clock to ride with the bike in long trousers and shirts during an incredibly hot and sunny day.

I told them, everybody else would start at 6 and stop at 11.

They told me "Mad dogs and English men are hiking in the sun"

And I thought by myself:
They know what they are doing. They hadn't been out with Montgomery, but they knew, what they did.

Every body else I would have tried to convince. But this guys convinced me.

 

[Janne]

So we agree then. Sort of!
I wish we lived closer to each other, we would have a great time talking over a pint or another beverage!

Remember one thing though. You mention the British soldier coped in various, un Britain like climates in past times.
Yes and no. Service abroad ( or in the navy before Rose’s Lime) usually meant a death sentence. Less guys died from war related trauma then from diseases. Bad nutrition, bad immunity before the service is partly to blame.


Most were forced into it, but I still think of them as Heroes, even when today’s PC society seems to want to forget them.

 

[Woody girl]

Sorry I went madly off topic there on my last post. Got carried away on the old memories . What I realy wanted to say was that all our stuff was British made in those days because we made it ourselves. Back then we didn't have the amount of camping stores we do nowadays so apart from a tent and groundsheet possibly a rucksack all my kit was homemade or scrounged from home. No sporks made of titanium, just a spoon from the kitchen draw. It's gone a teensy bit commercial lately . Everyone wants the newest/ latest bit of kit that somebody has thought up or "improved on" it's a wonder we don't all turn up at the wilderness gathering or bushmoot with cars stuffed with things. ..... oh wait.... we do!

 

[Robson Valley]

It's been somewhat of a political concept = to be as self-sustaining as possible, on a national level, in times of conflict.
In this day and time, the sky doesn't seem to be so dark so imports and exports fly all over.
Some fields of endeavour do have the marque, the reputation, for quality, such as British woolens.

Some here claim to know nothing about the the British Hudson's Bay Company (est 1671, I recall).
Of course not = HBC did all their business in North American fur trades.
Bunch of Fat-Cats bankrolled the gig and it has gone on for centuries. The fur trade is alive and well.
Do HBC not supply the Canadian beaver pelts used in those gigantic hats worn by your own Queen's Guard soldiers????

Then, I get to drink reconstituted orange juice from some German company in Argentina.

 

[Janne]

I think they are black bear?
I have a beaver hat and the fur looks different.
Yes, Canadian born, bred, hunted and made.
Super quality.
Had it in a plastic bag when I carried it in London for the day between flights.