Friends and family

[Memphis]

As some of you have read I left the forces recently and moved back home with the parents until this new career gets underway. It's allowed me to pool my kit together and make myself a better BOB as well as sort everything properly.

During the sort out the old man wandered in so I thought I'd bring him in on it, and while it didnt make him pull out his backpack and start stuffing jumpers and pen knives in he did agree its a good idea. So he's aware but he's of another era where communities existed and I think he believes we could come together to get through so I dont see him stockpiling any time soon.

I also let a couple of mates in on what I'm doing, they were much more interested and I think keen to form theyre own BOB, which is a success, and all going right could mean a good little group, it might mean some teaching from my part on some basic survival training (after a little refresher of course) but if we all know it we can better look after ourselves.


Has anyone else gone through this and found family and friends starting their own preps? Ill be interested to find out if any formed a group or where you went next after introducing them to your preps?

[Yorkshire Andy]

Keep your preps quiet..... You'll find most people do bugger all but they won't forget their "nutty" mate has half of asda and an army surplus store stashed in his loft.... From you telling them...... They will all be your best mate when they can't get to Tesco even ones who haven't been near you in months....


Just before my God son was born I got my heavily pregnant mate a bistro style camping stove and a pack of gas just as the papers were talking up the killer winter that never was..... She looked confused..... A "how do you plan on heating the baby bottles of milk up or sterilising them if there is a power cut?" (Since her house is all electric) Really got her thinking so much so she went and got a couple of torches

Now that's probably very tame in terms of our level of prepping but she is still in a better position now over then..

Think for most people a bug in kit would suit them better for normal "home front" emergency's

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=8652
It can quickly be altered to form a bug out kit if needed...

[SooBee]

Best thing is not to couch things in prepper terms.

Just say that it is always best to be ready beforehand than caught out if something happens. My sister has taken this readiness stuff on board and likes to keep cupboards full rather than empty nowadays. She is also picking up new skills at 'Make do and Mend'...beats watching telly.

If you treat this approach as the most natural thing in the world rather than some sneaky secret society, people will join in because it will feel natural to do so.

No...not everyone is lining up to rob you. If you have been in the forces, you should know how to pick your friends by now.

[Arzosah]

Doing whats natural, absolutely ... last winter, when the drainage/sewage system was close to overwhelm in our part of the country (as opposed to people who were *actually* flooded) I mentioned to my sister that she might like to get a couple of those 5 litre water bottles - can't be fun coming home after a 12 hour day to find no water in the house. She said "ooh, thats quite a good idea!". Every so often, I drop practical hints like that, to her, and to my 2 best friends, but nothing big, nothing as in "I'm a prepper", no way!

[external]

My Mrs let slip to my parents and hers about prepping and they both laughed and thought we were mad.

I've told her to keep quiet and tell nobody. Its a shame because she is such a gossip I know she won't be able to help herself. Luckily we live in a small village which is rural so most locals should have some reserves.

[Memphis]

Yeah ive not got on facebook and announced it, its 2 good friends who I know have the will to look after them self in a scenario, but a little show of my BOB might encourage them to start some preps.
They didnt see the bergan and all the rations and more bug in supplies though

[redskies]

Given the regularity with which we're cut off from supply routes, most folks here are pretty well prepared for just about anything that could happen.

I've never viewed what I do as 'prepping' in the manner shown on things like Doomsday Preppers. Never used the word either. It just makes sense to me to have a surplus, to have plans B, C, D, & E etc thought out and to have alternative options to everyday items, should they be required.

If I talk to others about it at all, I avoid the word prepping like the plague. I refer to it as more like an insurance policy. I hope I'll never need it, but just in case I do ...

[Hamradioop]

@ redskies That sound very much like my mum, when i was growing up Dad was a Farm hand and we lived in some remote ish places, One bus a week and a mobile shop on a Wednesday, Mum always had a stock larder just in case and dad always had veggies growing. I still maintain a stocked larder for the same reasons you cannot rely on other people to deliver. My garden is not that big so I am considering a raised garden, it also might keep the damned sluggs away

[PreppingPingu]

Best thing is not to couch things in prepper terms.

Just say that it is always best to be ready beforehand than caught out if something happens. My sister has taken this readiness stuff on board and likes to keep cupboards full rather than empty nowadays. She is also picking up new skills at 'Make do and Mend'...beats watching telly. If you treat this approach as the most natural thing in the world rather than some sneaky secret society, people will join in because it will feel natural to do so.

Aye a popular thing I am heard of saying is "it must be the girl guide in me!" if someone remarks how I have a torch or first aid kit in my shoulder bag. I do tend mutter about "its good to keep up with the old skills" when people comment on me having an allotment, making bread or going foraging for hedgerow harvests - some of my friends and acquaintances just think I'm a little eccentric!

My dearest friend who lives some miles from me does joke that if we had an apocalypse, then her and her husband would come to our house as my husband has a gun and I always have full kitchen cupboards! I then tend reply that if she kept up a supply of food in her house then she wouldn't have to travel 40 miles to my home. When I mention about harvesting food she laughs and says I belong in a bygone time - I should have been born a generation or two earlier she says... Humorous but I wish she'd get the idea that she too could prepare a bit - not that I call it prepping to her face. Sad really, because in a real emergency she probably wouldn't be able to drive the 40 miles to our home, besides my house is open for my brother and his family who are local.