No trev it was Lofty himself with the one I remember seeing. Seriously long time ago though. It was him as it had his name on the tv page listings for the programme. Funny what I do remember like that yet not the name of the programme.
Yes again as all the others he states "I used lots of knives on the show but did not find what was in my mind the perfect survival knife!' Thus he designed one! Which is then sold on! Mostly to knife collectors as take that baby out into the field, just as with a Ray Mears knife similarly, and the value plummets faster than a new car's value does, lol. New Lofty knife in the pipoeline too by the way very soon, later this year; will let you know about that here as soon as it is all sorted.
BTW Trev - BG, RM or Lofty's book if you had to? Desert island discs stylee you can only take one, which one?
Always looked at RM's books but somehow didn't really think they were that good. BG is out as it is just a tv tie-in. Lofty's well there's the collins gem one which is too small to contain that much info but could be good for on the move. What about that newer one from the Royal Marines?
No trev it was Lofty himself with the one I remember seeing. Seriously long time ago though. It was him as it had his name on the tv page listings for the programme. Funny what I do remember like that yet not the name of the programme.
Oooh will have to ask my mate Chris Caine to ask Lofty for you personally ok, as he is always in touch with his mentor!Wasn't aware of a lofty tv show though.
BTW Trev - BG, RM or Lofty's book if you had to? Desert island discs stylee you can only take one, which one?
Always looked at RM's books but somehow didn't really think they were that good. BG is out as it is just a tv tie-in. Lofty's well there's the collins gem one which is too small to contain that much info but could be good for on the move. What about that newer one from the Royal Marines?
Uuum that is a toughie! For desert island survival would take the Craighead brothers book actually, that was up till quite recently the US Military manual for Navy personnel survival skills training; as you likely know the Army have the FM21-76. You can download a free online copy of FM21 - 76 at Survival monkey.com, just leave the other military manuals there well alone ok. If they find you with those on your pc the law might think you're a jihadi or something, lol! And the USAF have their own manual too. The Craighread book is still available, but pricey and is especially good for desert island survival in the tropics. It is titled How to Survive on Land and Sea. I have two editions of it, one from the early eighties one from the early nineties. Better than any of the above books for that type of environment. Only recently bought the new Royal Marines one and is too a good manual. Not really given it a good going through just yet though. I am in the middle of watching the DVD of Lofty and Chris Caine at Trueways Survival School, that Chris kindly gave me when I saw him last week! Always good to meet one of my survival and outdoors heroes! Yes the CollinsGem SAS Survival Lofty book is good for carry on the move as is the companion volume on wild foods. You can get both cheaper than in the shops at www.dvd.co.uk on books section click on Gem guides offers.
I've actually not got any but the first Bear Grylls survival manual that came out; the last two books I've not really bothered with, as they were more adventure books. I will try to look them out to see if there is really anything new or interesting in them some time soon. As you say it is silly to just dismiss them out of hand. Before there ever was a Bear Grylls or a Ray Mears on the scene, and prior to about 1986 when Lofty went public publishing the first hardback book version - flipping great big tome it was - of SAS Survival Manual that went onto become a worldwide best seller, there was one main best survival skills book on the UK market! That was Eddie McGee's NO NEED TO DIE - A manual of survival. That is a damned good book too. It was the bible of many a soldier, including the psychotic killer and ex binned TA SAS guy Barry Prudom. He went onto muder quite a lot of people across Yorkshire, living wild and on the run using survival techniques learnt from the book of Eddie's. When McGee heard of this he was incredibly angry and vowed to track Prudom down. He did so within a week or so, the two men meeting eye to eye crawling through the bushes of a forest. Prudom would have recognised the face of his survival book author hero. Knowing the game was up, and he was now cornered and close to capture, Prudom crawled back to his woodland survival shelter hideout and quietly put a bullet through his own brain rather than be captured alive.
I do hope I am right and there is a copy on the internet for viewing. If true I remember thinking it was a good show.
Let us know about LW knife. Where do you get your information? On one of the UK knife forums? Who is Chris Caine BTW, showing my ignorance.
Anyone seen the bushcraft mag? the one that is on its second 2 month per issue with an article on BG. Including an interview where he was asked about what people had been saying about him. I think RM might have said something uncomplimentary about him. He was very, how can I put it, new age christian about it. By that I mean he wasn't going to be drawn into a counter slanging match and as a result he came across a bit like a weak schoolboy. Kind of turn you cheek to present a fresh surface to be hit. He did come across as a nice guy though. And you must admit he has something about him to make special forces (unless they are taking anyone these days).
Tev - seen a few online manuals, I think BCUK has a link to it on their resources/links/information page. There are some Scandi versions too I think. I didn't mean for the desert island BTW I meant for general UK and other temperate environments. I was really asking what book I should get to find out about survival and its newer term "bushcraft". I'm afraid I'm a backpacker with a hankering to get to the stick whittling side of living outdoors.
Watch the forum this week and I will be telling everyone about my outdoors survival skills hero Chris Caine, one of the originals of survival skills training in the UK. He used to work for Trueways Survival, but has parted ways with them after a good deal of rather disappointing behaviour from the Trueways management. Chris Caine was originally trained and mentored by Lofty Wiseman. Chris's dad was in 22 SAS with Lofty you see, so Chris grew up going on trips out to Norway and everyplace, living wild learning to survive with Lofty and his own dad instructing him in the arts of survival outdoors. Chris's dad was in fact the SAS survival instructor, trained by Lofty, who took the SAS manual skills teaching of Lofty - who really did write the manual on survival outdoors for the SAS - to the TA SAS 21 Artists Rifles. I am very proud to know Chris and call him my friend! Chris and Lofty together are doing the next Lofty knife project. I get info from just everywhere I can do, lol!
I do hope I am right and there is a copy on the internet for viewing. If true I remember thinking it was a good show.
Let us know about LW knife. Where do you get your information? On one of the UK knife forums? Who is Chris Caine BTW, showing my ignorance.
Anyone seen the bushcraft mag? the one that is on its second 2 month per issue with an article on BG. Including an interview where he was asked about what people had been saying about him. I think RM might have said something uncomplimentary about him. He was very, how can I put it, new age christian about it. By that I mean he wasn't going to be drawn into a counter slanging match and as a result he came across a bit like a weak schoolboy. Kind of turn you cheek to present a fresh surface to be hit. He did come across as a nice guy though. And you must admit he has something about him to make special forces (unless they are taking anyone these days).
Ohh so many different interesting points raised there, TTG! I have previously answered most in threads here actually, but well over a year or more ago probably now. Yes, I do not dislike Bear Grylls! I do like to have a moan about some rather silly stunts pulled in Born Survivor though! At the end of the day though I still like the guy, has nothing to do with him being a Christian too or anything either. I respect him for the good things he has done amongst the stuff that is plain annoying. I am on record stating that numerous places on this forum and others. There was a bit of a newspaper induced spat yes between Ray and Edward. Ray Mears was simply asked in an interview what he thought of the Grylls tv show! He replied it was a show full of showboating and showmanship, and that Grylls was a boyscout! Little did he know then that maybe some one in the realms of the Scout movement was listening lol! Now Bear is officially Chief Scout. There was an argument raging in the press and online then about who was the best survivor. Ray would not be drawn on that issue gallantly. Bear when told of the interview response of Ray simply agreed with him! Gallantly he simply said yes I have great respect for RM as he is much better than me at the survival stuff. Good for him! I think I bought that May June issue of the Bushcraft mag in WHSmiths. Not looked at it yet much, guess that is the July August one with BG in it?
Tev - seen a few online manuals, I think BCUK has a link to it on their resources/links/information page. There are some Scandi versions too I think. I didn't mean for the desert island BTW I meant for general UK and other temperate environments. I was really asking what book I should get to find out about survival and its newer term "bushcraft". I'm afraid I'm a backpacker with a hankering to get to the stick whittling side of living outdoors.
Yes, that scene of them meeting on all fours eye to eye was later nicked by Hollywood for the Hunted film, loosely based characterisation on Tom Brown Junior of the US Tracker school. But it was Eddie 'Jungle' McGee - or 'Jungle Eddie' as he was known - that really came face to face tracking down a real killer in the UK around abouts the late seventies or very early eighties. Eddie McGee is retired now of course, lives in Spain, a great guy though, an inspiration like Lofty too is! McGee though was the survival school trainer for the Paras.
Ahh ok, on the book avoid Bear Grylls and go for a lofty Gem guide and a Ray Mears Bushcraft book then ok! Best of both worlds; also Lofty has a brand new survival book out soon as does RM.
TTG, I just have not taking the issue all that seriously. That was a bit flip of me so sorry for that, it's just that I have seen the same defence ignoring the facts against, or even the lack of proof of some facts for, rolled out time and again.
Defend Bear Grylls if you must but surely it would be better to build your defence on the rock of his charity work which has been prolific, apparently, rather than on the sand of his military career and adventurous exploits.
But remember, the lad was born into a privileged world and has never done a proper job in his life yet financial support and sponsorship for his activities has come easily because of his social standing and contacts, he has powerful friends in the upper middle class and upper class echelons of society but then so does Jeffrey Archer. At the same time he has some pretty authoritative detractors in the military and bushcraft and survival world and they are utterly credible detractors at that. The main charges they would lay against him are that his military service was less extensive and demanding than he claims and that his claim that he sustained his back injury in a special forces training operation in Africa is entirely false. So what? You may ask. Well, the so called SAS service and particularly that claim of a serious back injury has underpinned his image of gritty battling determination and thus of his career in the world of adventure sports, i's all calculated to manufacture an aura of derring do around the man.
Of course, nobody suggests he wasn't injured but as far as the severity of that injury is concerned, his surgeon is reported to have said that he was close to being permanently paralysed but do you know the name of his surgeon and have you ever seen him interviewed?
He never had surgery and the spinal cord was not severed but as most in the job know, it is less frequent for that to happen than for the cord to be compressed by bone fragments, contusion, or both leading to compression of the cord and a lack of blood supply below the level of the occlusion, as it is called. This will happen where fractured posterior elements of the spine are involved and some neural deficit often develops, sometimes complete paraplegia but prognosis is extremely difficult to determine so only time will tell whether the effects, in part or wholly, will be permanent.
In a sense, anyone who sustains such an injury, and thousands do every year, comes close to being paralysed, if the injury had other elements in addition to those presenting, but about 90%, with no underlying causative bone disease, recover fully with conservative treatment and many younger victims go on to lead extremely active lives with no further problems apart from occasional back pain. If you receive no interventional treatment it will only be because you have what is termed a stable spinal injury which is regarded by spinal surgeons as of no great clinical significance to the patient so long as certain dos and don'ts are adhered to for, typically, six to eight weeks.
Chris Caine has just opened a new survival school of his very own I am pleased to say, after his departure from the Trueways Survival School after their very bad treatment of him there management-wise! I hope he gets the best of life now in his new venture on his own as ChrisCainesurvival.com. I look forwards to seeing that survival school become the nation's top one in years ahead now, with Chris himself in control at the helm; as essentially if you meet him or are lucky enough to be tutored by him, then you soon see that he is a most remarkable and rather inspirational individual, a greatly skilled gifted outdoors survival skills teacher! Chris I wish you the very best of luck and success with your brave solo venture there my friend. www.chriscainesurvival.com
Mal, I even bought Grylls autobiography to read to find out about his back injury too! It is a great book that I now keep by the bed to help me nod off very easily if my insomnia is playing me up!Works everytime. About eight pages and I am asleep.
Do none of you remember being young and bored ,and then finding something exiting and outdoorsy on the TV .
His shows are as much for children as for anyone ,and before anyone comes out with "and what a bad example he is doing unsafe things" remember there are loads of people complaining about how kids are wrapped in cotton wool .
Are any of us really qualified to rip the p**s out of him for raising the profile for outdoor adventure , or has this become an egocentric elitist website ?
As my dad said to me on too many occasions as ayoung man "When you're about to disappear up your own a**e pull yourself out !"
Mr Angry? Looks like I've got a fight on my hands for that title.
I think it's important to differentiate between the person and the part the person is playing on screen. He performs in entertainment programs, not documentaries, so is under pressure to make the content entertaining to a general audience - hence some of the idiotic choices that appear to seek out danger rather than survival. Away from the restrictions of a Director, Producer, Commioning TV station he would probably make different decisions - and I'm sure he'd be a different person to the one he portrays as a means of making a living.
Yes again as all the others he states "I used lots of knives on the show but did not find what was in my mind the perfect survival knife!' Thus he designed one! Which is then sold on! Mostly to knife collectors as take that baby out into the field, just as with a Ray Mears knife similarly, and the value plummets faster than a new car's value does, lol. New Lofty knife in the pipoeline too by the way very soon, later this year; will let you know about that here as soon as it is all sorted.
