Childhood Stories Hunting/countryside Related

[gnasher16 30,062]

The other thread has inspired me to start this ......i dont have the patience to read a whole book but love reading short stories........what are your experiences or humurous stories and memories as a youngster relating to Hunting/Countryside ?.....Trouble you got into....memorable days/accidents/successes etc

 

I dont have any so probably setting myself up for a bit of jealousy here

[WILF 46,687]

Go on then, I will start.

 

Even though born and bred Londoner, my old man had a deep love of the countryside which I think he got from his childhood when they used to go Hopping

Anyway, every few years he would get the bollock ache of London and go and buy a small holding somewhere, he bought 5 acres down in darkest Kent this one time and we went down there for a few years........I loved it!

 

I was only 5 or 6 but I could wander the fields without fear, they used to leave haystacks out in them days and I would lay on them in the summer with the smell of hops in the air.........didnt really realise at the time but now I know it was paradise.

 

We lived in three 40 foot caravans and only had a cold water supply (which my mother dug by hand across the 5 acres to put the pipe in while my old man was on "holiday").......mw and the old man would stand out in the morning in the summer as naked as the day we were born and wash by tipping buckets of cold water over ourselves!!

 

My mother always insisted she could drive but none of us had ever seen her do so, so this one day a few of my old mans pals were down for the day and taking the piss about here driving, she said she could so my old man chucked here the keys of his van and said "go on then, back that up".........in she gets and promptly backs over 4 of our best geese!!

 

Another time, we had to take the sheep for sheering and there my old man running round like a wally trying to get a rope on the big old ram so we can get it in the van, finally gets the rope round its neck with a "got ya, ya c**t".........the ram then takes off again through all the thistles and nettles towing all 18 stone of my pop behind him!!

 

Another time, he says to my mum, "get dressed girl we are going out for the day".........theres my mother all done up and we stop at some odd out of the way place "wont be a minute" says Dad

 

20 minutes later, he re-appears out of this old ramshackle farmstead carring a goat!!.......does no more than opens the door of the merc and drops it on my mums lap!!......."here you are, hold on to that, got you a present" he says!! ............my mums face was a picture, shit all over her on the way home it did!!

 

I could go on, but that enough from me I reckon

[socks 32,253]

I was brought up on a small mining village in the middle of the sticks and the mountain and the river was our playground we would spend from first light to last light either building rope swings, dens, making rafts on the river or splitting into teams and playing war ... I was a bit of an odd child and from the age of about 6 ( so my old dear tells me) i loved to grab one of the dogs and piss off up the mountain on my own all day coming him with rabbits rats and the odd squirrel that the dogs would catch .......

 

Now word soon got out that me my terrier and my ferret were pretty handy at catching rats and most of the people in the village would send for me to catch their problem rats as they only had to give me fifty pence compared to a few pints or a couple of quid if an adult did the job .....

 

I used to earn a nice bit of coin from doing this and I soon learned that you need to keep an enterprise going so I used to go down the river of an evening and live catch rats and give them their freedom in people's gardens their sheds chicken coops etc knowing full well they would be calling for me in the next few days lol ......

 

Brilliant times and a great place to grow up ... As hard as it was growing up in a mining village especially through the miners strike I always had the mountain to hunt and the river to fish to get away from it all .........

[Lab 10,979]

Well i'm going to cheat a bit here and use a story that my Grandad told me....well i say my Grandad but it was a mix of him and his 3 brothers. When growing up i used to love lunchtimes when they all worked on the rearing field. Everyone of them retired so work was slow but it was 7 days a week graft but lunchtimes were always a hoot.

The stories ive been told by them made me pmsl........I think 4 boys growing up back in the 20/30s they were a bit of a bunch of tear aways. Country lads going into the town and causing trouble. Anyway they told me how they were all banned from the local community hall. So one night when the Hall had a dance on they cut a big clump of turf and put it on top of the chimney and smoked the place out. Sat back and watched how countless folk came running out wi reek belching out the doors.....

[gnasher16 30,062]

Another time, we had to take the sheep for sheering and there my old man running round like a wally trying to get a rope on the big old ram so we can get it in the van, finally gets the rope round its neck with a "got ya, ya c**t".........the ram then takes off again through all the thistles and nettles towing all 18 stone of my pop behind him!!

 

 

I could go on, but that enough from me I reckon

I cant get the image of Arthur Daley and Terry trying to get that bull in the back of the wagon out my head

 

Crack on Wilf more the merrier......i can see a book deal coming here .....but even if not its still great reading......cheers lads

[BORDERSCOT 3,816]

I was brought up on a small mining village in the middle of the sticks and the mountain and the river was our playground we would spend from first light to last light either building rope swings, dens, making rafts on the river or splitting into teams and playing war ... I was a bit of an odd child and from the age of about 6 ( so my old dear tells me) i loved to grab one of the dogs and piss off up the mountain on my own all day coming him with rabbits rats and the odd squirrel that the dogs would catch .......

 

Now word soon got out that me my terrier and my ferret were pretty handy at catching rats and most of the people in the village would send for me to catch their problem rats as they only had to give me fifty pence compared to a few pints or a couple of quid if an adult did the job .....

 

I used to earn a nice bit of coin from doing this and I soon learned that you need to keep an enterprise going so I used to go down the river of an evening and live catch rats and give them their freedom in people's gardens their sheds chicken coops etc knowing full well they would be calling for me in the next few days lol ......

 

Brilliant times and a great place to grow up ... As hard as it was growing up in a mining village especially through the miners strike I always had the mountain to hunt and the river to fish to get away from it all .........

Thought Plummer had made a comeback there for minute...

[WILF 46,687]

 

Another time, we had to take the sheep for sheering and there my old man running round like a wally trying to get a rope on the big old ram so we can get it in the van, finally gets the rope round its neck with a "got ya, ya c**t".........the ram then takes off again through all the thistles and nettles towing all 18 stone of my pop behind him!!

 

 

I could go on, but that enough from me I reckon

I cant get the image of Arthur Daley and Terry trying to get that bull in the back of the wagon out my head

 

Crack on Wilf more the merrier......i can see a book deal coming here .....but even if not its still great reading......cheers lads

 

Go on then, one more.......

 

He bought another place of about a 3rd of an acre with a bungalow on the Isle Of Sheppy when I was about 8.

Anyway, we went round the blokes house and my old man gave him the readies to pay for the property and the man said he would move out by such and such a date.........anyway, a few weeks went by and he had not moved out so one morning pop says "f**k this, I have had enough of waiting for him"

 

In the car and off down the A2, got to the bungalow and jumped out the motor, there me trotting along beside my old man as usual, and he knocks on the door.......gives it a right "coppers" knock.

No awnser, so we go round the back.......theres the blokes old woman stood by the french windows in her birthday suit.......big old hairy fanny the works..........she looks a little shocked to say the least

 

"Open the door" says my dad........"thats got some minge on it boy" he whispers to me.

 

Anyway, in we go and the woman has a dressing gown on by now but the fella has just got out of bed.........he obviously hadnt had much time as he had on a syrup but it was all wonked over to one side on his head like Frank Spencers hat!!

 

Anyway, he was told to f**k off live oh.....but we were cracking up about that syrup all the way home.

 

Once we had moved there, the bloke over the road was an old boy who lived with his wife, George was his name and he liked my old man...............always popping over an such like.

"Silly old c**t" my old man used to say, anyway, sat down for dinner this one evening and there is a knock at the door........its George with his hand wrapped in a tea towel covered in claret.........my mum jumps up and starts panicking but my old man is still sat there eating.

 

"Ive cut my thumb off with a chainsaw" he says to my Dad..........cool as you like my dad saysn "Alright George, never mind..........let me finish my dinner and I will take you up the hospital.........what did you do that for?" ................and he did, sat there without a care in the world and finished his grub while poor old George looked about ready to pass out at any minute!

 

wicked old f****r!

[Born Hunter 17,751]

Some of the stories I daren't put up, we all do daft things, lol.

 

Here's one that sticks in my mind. I used to do a lot of ferreting with this lad called Steve, we sort of had permission in this bit of hunting heaven, a wood loaded with game.

 

Anyway, this Saturday Morning we jumped the fence for a bit of ferreting, Steve, my brother and myself.

 

Me and my brother were just netting up a small warren while Steve was mooching about a bit with his shotgun. Both barrells went off and moments later we heard in the distance "OOOOIIIIIIIII! YOU LITTLE b*****d GET HERE!!!!!"

 

I just told my borther to grab as many nets as he could and leg it. Those poor ferrets must have had a hell of a rough ride on my back as I hurdled, dived and rolled. Cut to ribbons, wet and panting like feck we all met up in safety.......... Steve turned up and explained he had just shot a fox and the bloke hollaring was a whip after a errant hound from the local mounted pack!!!................ Which happened to be pushing through the same wood we were in. We didn't even know the hunt were in the area never mind pushing through the same wood we were in and my mate Steve, the dopey twat, had just shot their fox!

 

An awkward conversation follwed with the whip on a fecking massive hunter and all missunderstandings were cleared up and we all went on our way.

[Frann 882]

I was born in Burry Port, a little town in west Wales. Pembrey hills at the 'back', sea at the front looking out to Gower and Worm's Head. Den's swings, climbing quarries, hunting bunnies behind the Power Station, you name it. I tried to canoe over to Penclawdd once Would have made it too if others hadn't put me off with all that "dangerous" waffle

[NEWKID 27,132]

Wilf the goat story rings true with me..

 

My Dad went out on day to buy something for the house ( can't remember what) came back a few hours later with 2 goats ( a mother and son) we had no idea about goats, but soon realised they don't stop eating.. The garden ( a wild mess) was soon eaten to nothing, so me and my brother used to walk them on long chains down the back, nothing was safe from them.. We'd never making dairy farmers with our pathetic attempts at milking, lol..

 

There was a huge Oak tree at the start of the woods, this was right behind our house ( we were at the end of a council estate that backed onto the tidal Exe and acres of reed beds plus a small wood, it seemed huge back then lol),

This oak had a big hole in its trunk probably 6ft high and 3-4 ft across, the plan was simple we'd gave a small fire in the hole, we set to work ( my brother, my next door neighbour and me) filling the hole with paper, wood, reeds anything that would burn.. A good dousing with petrol then up it went, and up, and up.. It didn't stop the tree is at least 50ft high, and no word of a lie the flames were licking the top branches within 5 minutes.. We shit ourselves and ran lol, we hid in our neighbours garden ( in full view of the blazing tree about 100 yards away) 2 fire engines arrived and after a while managed to put it out... I don't remember shitting myself so much before or after for that matter, we were sure we had burnt down the woods lol

The council promptly bricked up the hole in the tree it's still there now, my dad still lives there....

[Malt 379]

I've spent my whole life on the coast in a rural location, so I grew up in the fields and on the shore. My granddad was an avid bird man, really into his natives and it seemed like he knew the name of every bird we ever saw when we used to go out for walks. We used to spend a lot of time out in the countryside, whether it was out getting moss for his hanging baskets or just out walking for the sake of it. My stepdad was an avid sea angler, air gunner, ferreter and rough shooter, so as I got older I started accompanying him out and about. I got my first fishing rod for my 7th birthday, and from that moment on I was hooked! Won my 3rd place in an angling competition when I was 10, and a few months later won a 1st place with a big flounder beating the adults who I was fishing against, much to their 'amusement!' My dad took me to many fishing spots over the years, many of them places like at the bottom of cliffs where knowing the right route was essential to prevent a serious mishap, and other places where you had to be very mindful of the state of the tide to avoid being cut off. With that in mind, I've grown up with a healthy respect of the sea which I still have and will do my best to pass on to my kids..

[johnny boy68 11,726]

In the summer we would have sledge tracks, which consisted of getting a cardboard box from the shop and flatten it out and go up the mountain and slide down them, great fun it was. Now we would have different tracks some quite fast, some really fast and some that were just for stupid people with no "local" knowledge and were usually very dangerous.

 

One year this English lad from Margate came to stay in the village with a team of social workers and another 6/7 other kids, all were from broken homes and a bit on the wild side, well the lad from Margate was a fair bit older than us and was always giving it the big un, he'd done this and that and couldn't wait to tell us of his exploits. He was a bit of a bully too, he would push us around a bit and call us in-bred sheep shaggers, the usual kid stuff. So one day we are all heading to the sledge track with our cardboard when this kid asked where we were off too, so we tell him and he tags along, giving it the "I'll go down them no problem!" So has we're heading over he starts pushing a few of the boys around and being bigger and older he gets away with it and us being 7 or 8 we weren't at the stage of all jump him and beat him up. So we got to the sledge track and unknown to him we had made a plan to get him back, we'd given him a piece a cardboard that had been waxed up(we'd melt a candle onto the cardboard which after a few slides was real slidey) and pointed him in the direction of the Matterhorn, a sledge track that had claimed many a victim over the years.
You could ride it if you knew when to get of the cardboard and stop yourself, now we never told this lad and sent him on his way, now he was flying down this mountain and he went past the getting off point at a great rate of knots, at the bottom of this particular track is a 20 foot drop off and this lad is flying along. Well he hits the edge and he is literally flying, his cardboard flutters away has he goes spreadeagled through the air and then we hear a slight thud followed by a loud scream We get down there and the lad is a twisted heap on the floor and we try to hide our delight at getting our own back until we noticed his bone sticking out his leg and his foot the other way, well we did the decent thing and went and got him a bit of help which in them days was about as quick as using a pigeon, the poor lad was a mess he'd broken his leg and his wrist and dislocated his collarbone, he didn't pick on us again that summer holidays as most of it he spent in hospital and then in a wheelchair for a few weeks.

 

I could sit here reminiscing all day about growing up.

[Born Hunter 17,751]

This thread has just reminded me of a very silly incident quite a while ago now..............

 

I took up fishing when I was 7 I believe.................. That summer I would go fishing with my mate Chris off of the small bridges by the road. We would blag my mum for 50p and bike up to the maggot farm with a margerine tub, ask them to fill it, then say "sorry mister but I've only got 50p" they must have felt sorry for us and let us just have them.

 

There we would be with our Argos rods perched on the edge of the bridge looking under trying to catch Gudgeon to use as live bait for a Perch. All of a sudden I knocked the half empty box of maggot into the river and instinctively fecking jumped in!!!!! WTF!

 

Realising how deep and sludgy even the edge was this 7/8 year old filled with panick tried desperately to jump out and scale the small wall that held the bank up by the bridge. My mate Chris pulling but too weak (with laughing like a little c**t) dropped me straight back into the river! I then realised it wasn't as bad as I thought, waded for my margerine tub and climbed out a bit further down.

 

Such was the commitment a little 7/8 year old lad had to fishing in his summer holidays he actually jumped off of a bridge for a poxy box of maggots!

[Born Hunter 17,751]

Johnny, I'm sat here in a quiet office pissing myself laughing. That's a great story!

 

Were these mountains snow covered? Even in summer? Or did these tracks work some other way?

[Malt 379]

This thread has just reminded me of a very silly incident quite a while ago now..............

 

I took up fishing when I was 7 I believe.................. That summer I would go fishing with my mate Chris off of the small bridges by the road. We would blag my mum for 50p and bike up to the maggot farm with a margerine tub, ask them to fill it, then say "sorry mister but I've only got 50p" they must have felt sorry for us and let us just have them.

 

There we would be with our Argos rods perched on the edge of the bridge looking under trying to catch Gudgeon to use as live bait for a Perch. All of a sudden I knocked the half empty box of maggot into the river and instinctively fecking jumped in!!!!! WTF!

 

Realising how deep and sludgy even the edge was this 7/8 year old filled with panick tried desperately to jump out and scale the small wall that held the bank up by the bridge. My mate Chris pulling but too weak (with laughing like a little c**t) dropped me straight back into the river! I then realised it wasn't as bad as I thought, waded for my margerine tub and climbed out a bit further down.

 

Such was the commitment a little 7/8 year old lad had to fishing in his summer holidays he actually jumped off of a bridge for a poxy box of maggots!

Same sort of thing happened to my mate but we were older! We were about 15 and fishing in an old quarry. The fishing was shite, so we were amusing ourselves looking for toads, newts and frogs in a wet patch away from the main pond. My mate looked up and saw his ruck sack drifting out towards the middle of the pond! My mate was gutted because inside there was a pasty in a lunchbox which he was looking forward too, so he stripped off to his boxers and swam out to get it back! It was freezing, and the water even colder, and when he got back, he looked down the front of his boxer shorts with a look that could only be described as shock! "It's gone in!" He cried in panic! He got called 'invert' for the rest of the day and for some time afterwards!