Hello from the forest

[Teapot]

Hello! Welcome to the forum. . The Forest of Dean is lovely. I grew up in the New Forest and miss it massively, especially now I live in a city up north!

[skippy]

Hi and welcome to UKP



Skippy

[diggerg66]

Forgot to ask whereabouts are you based digger, region that is not full address!

the forest of dean,glos as yourself

A lovely area. We have a couple of members from that way. I would love to move to the forest, have a smallholding type of thing (just a dream!)

yes it is very nice, born and bread here, although ive spent a lot of time away i had to come back and settle, plus the woods are so vast its ideal

[Plymtom]

Hello Diggerg66, I figure you may be a good one for this question, I don't get out much so genuinely have no idea, when you say the woods are vast you see, around these parts not going far the woodland gets lots of recreational use, you may call it crowded at times so is there trueley anywhere in the UK where bugging out Ray Mears style in a SHTF scenario is a realistic option ? I cant help thinking that in many scenarios, people would be bumping into one another alot banding together or fighting for a spot.
I know there are places in the here and now which you could call secluded ( I am strugling with trying to find the right words here) remote, but if we all felt the need to get out of the cities/towns would that be the case, Britain being so comparatively small?

[diggerg66]

Hello Diggerg66, I figure you may be a good one for this question, I don't get out much so genuinely have no idea, when you say the woods are vast you see, around these parts not going far the woodland gets lots of recreational use, you may call it crowded at times so is there trueley anywhere in the UK where bugging out Ray Mears style in a SHTF scenario is a realistic option ? I cant help thinking that in many scenarios, people would be bumping into one another alot banding together or fighting for a spot.
I know there are places in the here and now which you could call secluded ( I am strugling with trying to find the right words here) remote, but if we all felt the need to get out of the cities/towns would that be the case, Britain being so comparatively small?

Hi Plymton, I think in that scenario that would be very likely to happen, ime counting on the general population running around clueless and also most of them wouldnt stand a chance living out in the wild,i think the forest of dean is plenty large enough to find a safe remote location to bug out to, in fact thats exactly what ive been researching for the past few weeks

[moocher]

Good luck digger I lived 6 years roughly just outside coleford and nearly always bumped into someone when out with the dog.

[Plymtom]

I think my train of thought was really to ilustrate how for most of the country it may be as I feel it would be in our locallity, a rural invasion of townies with some survival knowledge (albeit practically no experience) spreading out like locusts, simply buggering up their own and anyone elses chances, by using up all the resources, can't be all bad, for example a perhaps unexpected consequence would be Land owners suddenly needing much more labour if oil were in short or non existant supply, so townies may get taken in both to tend and defend farmland in exchange for a bug out location, maybe we should be befriending farmers and landowners instead of the instinctive hide in the bushes and wait for the sheeples to whitle themselves down approach.

Not that I think Digger's approach, with Digger's experience, in Digger's location, especially if he is single will work effectively, what I speculating about is a "horses for courses" approach, even without the more Zombie/EOTWAWKI scenarios as we have to change our ways of doing things because oil/fosil fuels will in the not too distant future become rare or gone, or their continued use changes the environment, so things will change over time for sure, prepping will get many of us through the transitions back from globalisation to localisation?

I think I will look for or make a thread covering this train of thought, as I reckon it could make for interesting debate.

[moocher]

There's a few hobos or eccentrics that get discovered now an agin with camps in woods,it can work,the key would be camouflage,intimate knowledge of the area,and not to strip the area of edible rescources.

[Arzosah]

I think my train of thought was really to ilustrate how for most of the country it may be as I feel it would be in our locallity, a rural invasion of townies with some survival knowledge (albeit practically no experience) spreading out like locusts, simply buggering up their own and anyone elses chances, by using up all the resources, can't be all bad, for example a perhaps unexpected consequence would be Land owners suddenly needing much more labour if oil were in short or non existant supply, so townies may get taken in both to tend and defend farmland in exchange for a bug out location, maybe we should be befriending farmers and landowners instead of the instinctive hide in the bushes and wait for the sheeples to whitle themselves down approach.

Not that I think Digger's approach, with Digger's experience, in Digger's location, especially if he is single will work effectively, what I speculating about is a "horses for courses" approach, even without the more Zombie/EOTWAWKI scenarios as we have to change our ways of doing things because oil/fosil fuels will in the not too distant future become rare or gone, or their continued use changes the environment, so things will change over time for sure, prepping will get many of us through the transitions back from globalisation to localisation?

I think I will look for or make a thread covering this train of thought, as I reckon it could make for interesting debate.

The first bit of your post that I bolded is *really* interesting, Plymtom, thats a good point. Thinking about it, there's something like that in Larry Niven's book Lucifer's Hammer, where the senator takes *some* people into his ranch, but turns hundreds more away.

Second bit I bolded - yes, I think prepping and the transition towns network have a lot in common - the transition peeps focus more on building local community, rather than prepping as such, but there's huge crossover.

I'll watch out for the thread, if you decide to start one.

[Plymtom]

OK I did it but i fear you are all going to think Plymtom’s been watching too much TV and you’d be right yet bits of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s foraging and community growing/farming stuff and Kevin McCloud’s Grand designs touching Eco housing along with many others Jimmy Doherty, Jamie Oliver’s done some good foraging stuff along with making us think seriously about the crap we eat, and more recently just how much of everyone else’s menu we assume is our own invention, Grow your own drugs_ there’s another useful show, all reality stuff with hints of how we can prepare and work towards a future worth having, community is probably the key, yet before you type cast me as some sort of happy clappy tree hugging hippy who wants to set up a commune, you ought to know I don’t talk to my neighbors much at all, live in a terraced house with an extremely small yard backing on to the yard of a pub, which is more a pain in the arse than any social advantage, many of what you may think of as the average pagans these days think I am dark simply because like some of us I see the world as a necessary blend of dark and light and won’t be caught talking to imaginary deities, if someone kicks me or mine I’ll kick back, hell I’ll kick first if I see it coming , I am a bit reclusive these days, with few friends simply due to the hand life has dealt us i.e. not getting out and meeting/interacting IRL much, doesn’t mean I am anti-social get me drunk and the guitar will come out and you would be getting hard rock, not folk or arty farty fairy tales so rest assured if I am mad it’s in a good way.