Hello from an urban prepper in London

[ukpreppergrrl]

Morning all,

I have been a long time lurker on the board and thought that I probably ought to join in properly. I am a 40 something woman living and working (in IT) in London. My potted prepping history dates back to my childhood: I am an army brat and my father was one of the ones involved with the Miliatary's prepping - which back then was mostly about nuclear fallout from The Cold War (coughCorshamcough). Being an army brat I also had to get used to being self-reliant from an early age. When we had to leave home at short notice (because of imminent invasion or simply a new posting), my father was responsible for…well…doing his job; my mother was responsible for packing up the home, and, as the senior NCO's wife, she was also responsible for the other ranks' wives and their families (you don't marry the man, you marry the army!); so my sister and I had to be responsible for our own things, because there was no-one else to do it for us. Basically, if I didn't pack teddy, then teddy didn't go! At the age of five I knew this to be true. It’s still true today - I try not to be in a position where I am entirely reliant on someone else for help.

Like most UK preppers, I am a bug-in person, and my home is reasonably equipped for dealing with food, lighting, heating and electrical eventualities - though there's always more to do! I have to confess to being a bit of a gear-slut, which I try to reign in and control....but in unguarded, idle moments I do find myself occasionally sketching the plans for a bunker under the patio on the back of fag packet!

About a year ago I read a book: "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why" by Amanda Ripley which got me more concerned about my physical fitness and lifestyle as she quite rightly points out that you stand a nearly 60% chance of dying from cancer, heart attack, respiratory disease or a stroke (all of which are often termed "lifestyle" diseases), as opposed to a considerably less than 0.001% chance of dying in a shoot-out whilst defending your preps from the Zombie Hordes! The chapters on fire are particularly informative reading with regard to your home preps, and indeed is one of the few reasons I'd bug-out. I can't recommend this book enough.

The book made me consciously write down and quantify exactly what I was prepping for and the likelihood of it happening to me personally, and therefore what preps I needed to do to ameliorate the problem. As it got quite lengthy, for the want of anywhere else, I put into a blog: http://ukpreppergrrl.wordpress.com/ The act of writing it all down really helped me to focus on what was important, and enabled me work out exactly what I thought about, say, hoarding gold as a prep.

But at heart I still really want that bunker!

[jansman]

Very interesting intro there. I am sure you can contribute here. Welcome.

[Stasher]

Wow!

More reading to add to the list.......................

Look forward to your posts

Oh, and a big welcome too!

[Cougar]

Hello and welcome

[tigs]

welcome to the forum

[Arzosah]

I just had a read through your blog, it looks great! Welcome to the forum

[dizzydays]

Hey, very interesting looking blog there; I've bookmarked it to look through when I've got spare time. Also I'd like to thank you for flagging up that book - a quick browse on the Amazon free intro has made me think, and I've downloaded it to Kindle to read properly.

So, thanks for that, and welcome to the forum

DD

[ukpreppergrrl]

Many thanks for the warm welcomes .

The Amanda Ripley book is very much worth reading, as it's about how the brain and body work when faced with a disaster, which is not necessarily how you'd expect them to work, and the often simple reasons why some people survive and others don't (like the shy, nerdy IT guy in the World Trade Centre who used the fire escape back stairs every day to get to the canteen because he consciously tried to avoid the people and crowds using the lift, on 9/11 he just automatically started hoofing it down the stairs and escaped whereas many other people had no idea where the fire escape even was and the delay cost them their lives). In the paperback version (and I think the Kindle version) but not in the original hardback release, is an Appendix called "How to boost your survival odds" which bullet points 6 things you can do to increase your chances of surviving a disaster based on what has been discussed in the book.

If I may be allowed to quote the the bullet point headers as they are directly relevant to prepping, falling under the mantle of "be prepared":
1) Calculate resilience
2) Get to know your neighbours
3) Lower your anxiety levels
4) Lose weight
5) Calculate your risk
6) Train your brain (e.g. using the 9/11 example above: always know where your escape exits are, and practice using them frequently because in a disaster seconds count, and repetition teaches the donkey!)

Nos. 4 and 5 have particularly inspired my prepping over the last year. Paraphrasing No.4 only slightly: "in a disaster, it's the overweight and unfit people that do not survive". Or to be more factual, "on 9/11 people with low physical ability were three times more likely to be hurt" As someone who has battled with my weight all my life, my mantra in the face of temptation this last year has been "fat people die!"

[pseudonym]

Hello and welcome to the Forum.

[kizzie]

Hello and welcome. I have just bought the book off ebay. Thank you for that.

I was a Londoner for 40 years but then moved to deepest darkest Herts
Still go back for a visit but its way to noisy/ busy for me now