Hello from Epping Forest

[beechnut mick]

Hi Alba,not too far from you in Essex,will have to meet up for a wild camp soon. atb Mike

[Edwin]

Spent from when I was 12 to 16 around Epping Forest and fishing in the River Roding by Loughton and Debdenm school at Buchurst Hill.
Wonderful place was Epping Forset, great hornbeams and streams. Once tried to follow my brother in leaping a stream on my bike but I hadn't noticed that he had jerked up the handlebars of his bike at the crucial moment so I just cycled neatly round the curve of the bank head first into the stream bed.

Camped in the forest, shot our air pistols at twigs. High Beach was one of our favourite places, back then in the late fifties/early sixties it was still derelict from the Thirties charabanc boom. As to stealth, it was one of our amusements to "stalk" Bank Holidaymakers who would park on the verges and come perhaps twenty yards into the Forest.

Love this song:

THE WHITE BUCK OF EPPING

CHORUS:

Good luck to the buck,
Good luck to the doe.
Through the forest of Epping
Together they go.


In the forest of Epping the wild deer were black,
They'd been that way for centuries back.
'Till into the wood came a buck that was white,
The keepers of Epping were shocked at the sight.

The does they all followed wherever he went
So up to headquarters this message was sent
"There's a white buck a'wandering where he should not."
Back came the answer "The buck must be shot!"

A fair forest maiden with hair that was red
And a waist that was slim, to the keeper she said
"Oh why must you shoot him? I don't think it fair,
You can't kill a buck for the hue of his hair."

"Oh! Your heart may be tender, your hair may be red,
Your waist may be slender, my darling" He said
"But the black and the white we must keep them apart
Or they won't look the same as they did at the start.

Please try to look at this matter more sanely
I'll stalk him with care and I'll kill him humanely.
You may think I'm hard-hearted but really I'm not,
I'm an animal lover and a bloody good shot."

They hunted him here and they hunted him there
But they can't catch the buck with the wrong coloured hair.
And if you go down to the forest today
They're black and they're white and they're silvery grey.

Your hair may be black or your hair may be white,
There'll always be somebody shocked at the sight;
But if you were the buck and I were the doe,
Through the forest of Epping together we'd go.

[shovel reccy]

Hi alba epping forrest eh not done a wild camp in there for years,we will have to have a stealth weekend in the spring time.