Hello all.

new to this site but not to forums, long time on trueways till they pulled the plug and a few thousand bcuk posts before it went impossible to read and too cliquey so even the mods I'm friends with don't bother to read it anymore. been on a few US forums but they tend to get too obsessed with ammo load out or zombies.

I'm 47 ex mil (infantry/recce then medics) and grew up with Eddie Mcgee, les hiddins and lofty wiseman on the telly in scarborough back when it was called survival not bushcraft and we prepped to deal with mutually assured destruction rather than global financial crashes or twisting an ankle on a wilderness stag do. Nowadays I live in south west brum and do the house up while waiting for the ball to be dropped and all hell to break loose as an intellectual side hobby.

I have a very varied skillset so hope to contribute where required hopefully without treading on the squeamish button in the process as I can sometimes be a bit blunt so tell me off first. I regard myself as a survivalist (for want of a better term as the US has ruined it like bushcrafter has been IMO spoilt by a poncy camping brigade who think that spoon wittling will get them out of any katrina like disaster the world can throw at them (as long as they can have all their kit with them and the internet). - some may be aware of my epic BCUK topic 'are we not allowed to be called survivalists anymore' which hit many hundreds of pages and the response at moots of 'ah so you're crazydave ) I am not a ray mears junkie nor a Bear Grylls superfan although unlike many I can see what he tries to do in his programs and it is of more use than much of RMs output where he was desperate for a countryfile job - as long as you paid attention and didn't spend all your time shouting at the screen while wearing your ventile pyjamas, reindeer skin slippers and swanndri night cap.

I've taught survival as well to soldiers and scouts so my take on things will probably be different to your usual bushcrafters mindset.

tea and buns

Dave C

now to figure out the avatar and signature bit.


OH and I currently have ebola grade man flu and am in quarantine, hopefully my antivirus will filter it out but you have been warned and I take no responsibility for the decimation that it may cause.