years in the wilderness
Ray Mears reflects on his TV career, why he made his home in the county and Q [[[what irks him about his imitators R 353535 Words: Angela Wintle q
20 Sussex Life: February 2019 ray mears
Right: ay Mears comes across as Ray leads a a reluctant celebrity. bushcraft class He usually avoids the limelight, rarely Below: R Eating fish al appears on the red carpet or TV fresco, Ray panel shows, and when he does Mears-style
(his 2015 appearance on the BBC’s Mears Ray of Courtesy Photo: Room 101 springs to mind) he seems out of place in the bright lights of a television studio, like a woodland creature displaced from its native, leafy habitat. In person, he is more genial than his measured television persona might suggest, although he speaks just as knowledgeably and eloquently about his passions. It’s important to remember that television sought him out, not the other way round. In 1993 Ray was poached by a canny television company, and I like being alone in himself. Courses do not come producer who had seen him giving the wild. Being alone means there cheap, but Ray maintains that a lecture. He became the subject of are fewer disturbances, so you they are the best at what they do, a documentary, and as he needed see more.” despite the growing competition. to find a way to boost his income, Ray didn’t go to university and “We don’t advertise and we he found an agent and made it had hoped to get into the Royal have a very small team of outdoor known that he was available for Marines, but was thwarted by instructors who come through more work. poor eyesight. Instead, he read our system. The fundamental “I had a meeting with a voraciously and taught himself bushcraft course is where we start
Photo: David Osborn David Photo: producer at Pebble Mill who was bushcraft, seeking out experts people, which is a broad-based making a magazine-style series and badgering them to pass on introduction to the subject. about the outdoors and thought their skills. He worked in the “Bushcraft is about people I might be able to do five three- City briefly, but chafed at the and nature – bringing the two minute items,” he says. “I did a constraints and started running closer together. So if I was to take screen test and ended up doing six bushcraft courses instead, you for a walk in the woods and ten-minute items. This is how my alongside a career as a natural told you what’s there, I wouldn’t first ever TV series,Tracks , was history photographer. That led on just be telling you the names of born. Back then, nobody had done to books and television. things. I’d be showing you their bushcraft on television. At the It was the dense woodland of uses and values, which makes it time, it was called survival, which the High Weald that originally easy to remember them. Once you is the shorthand of bushcraft. It’s attracted him to Sussex. “I can’t know the trees and plants around what you teach if live without trees you for what they can do, you you don’t have much “I’ve steered away from and East Sussex is cherish them. It’s a very practical time. It doesn’t putting bushcraft on the most wooded way of involving people in large require finesse television because I got part of England,” conservation issues.” to get by. But in sick of people copying he says. “Sussex Inevitably, this leads us on to bushcraft there’s a what I was doing” also has global warming. He acknowledges lot of finesse; an amazing variety it’s a depressing subject and deals it’s the study of of wild plant species because with it by trying not to think about a lifetime.” we have such a diverse range of it too much. “There’s a real lack Ray is chatting at Woodlore, habitats – from freshwater of leadership in politics. It’s all his wilderness bushcraft school wetland areas and salt marshes about point-scoring rather than in deepest East Sussex. It to shingle shores.” making any attempt to make the doesn’t take long to pinpoint its Last year marked the 35th world a better place. It has been whereabouts online, but he is anniversary of his school, which very disappointing to see Donald nonetheless reluctant to discuss runs two-day and week-long Trump undoing the good work 4 its precise location – “we try to courses on fundamental bushcraft, keep a low profile”. woodlore tracking and wilderness He grew up in Kenley, in navigation, as well as expeditions Croydon, Surrey, and isn’t far abroad following in the footsteps good to know removed from the small, self- of the heroes of Telemark, tracking Ray Mears is celebrating the 35th contained boy who spent much of leopard and rhino with the anniversary of his bushcraft school, his childhood camping out on the Kalahari bushmen or travelling Woodlore, with a return to the field as a North Downs and tracking foxes in to the frozen Arctic Circle to sleep course leader this year. Participants will have his local woods. The fact that he beneath the beautiful glow of the the opportunity to work closely with him was an only child was significant. northern lights. This year, Ray will and master the skills of wilderness travel. To “I’m very happy in my own be leading some of the expeditions find out more, visitraymears.com
Sussex Life: February 2019 21 ray mears
of previous American presidents, who have set an example in terms of world conservation. I suspect that America, in time, will come to regret that. “You only have to look at the physique of the man to see that he’s not an outdoorsman, which is a great pity, because if he had been taken out on expeditions when he was younger I suspect his leadership and communication skills would be better, he would be more perceptive and a better all-round human being.” } Ray is rarely this outspoken. The }} only time he gets a little heated is when I mention his TV imitators, but he’d prefer not to name names. Photo: Courtesy of Ray Mears Ray of Courtesy Photo: “I’ve steered away from putting bushcraft on television because I got sick of people copying what “It used to be said that Above: They met when he was doing a I was doing,” he says. “This is presenters knew what they Bushcraft is about book signing after a lecture. “She oxygen that I’m not going to were talking about and then bringing people arrived with such energy, wielding provide to others. they worked with programme and nature closer one of my books in her hand, together, says Ray “But what really concerns makers to make television. Now that she literally knocked me off me – and I’m referring to what what happens is that programme Left: my feet and I fell to the floor,” I’ve seen on channels in other makers come up with a crazy Ray demonstrates he laughs. “When I got up, I felt countries – is the veracity of the idea and then look for somebody some of his completely different. There was information shown. They don’t stupid enough to host it. That’s whittling skills just this instant connection. I have do things honestly and they show very dangerous and damaging. It no idea how, but she just broke things that are also undermines through the fog that had been patently wrong. “Once you know the the strength of surrounding me.” That concerns trees and plants around documentary Away from the cameras, he me. I don’t you for what they can filming.” relaxes by watching wildlife and have someone do, you cherish them” He has more feeling in tune with the seasons. whispering TV in the No change there then, I remark, in my ear telling me how to do pipeline, but declines to say more. and he laughs. “I also like cooking. something. I do it for real. If you “I’ve got lots of ideas. Getting I’m quite cheffy. What I learnt have a 15-year-old watching a people to understand how good about fungi many years ago led me programme and they’re inspired they are... that’s the difficult into the world of cooking. If you by what they see, they will thing. Commercial pressures are travel outdoors, cooking is a very emulate it. I would hate to see also much greater now. Budgets important skill. If, at the end of a them come to grief by copying are tight.” rotten day, you have a very good somebody doing something idiotic I ask if he feels under pressure meal, everything is good again.” or downright dangerous, which to maintain his television profile You sense this could be a I’ve seen in buckets on television. and whether the continued success metaphor for his life now. u of his bushcraft school relies on it, but he shakes his head. “I don’t think of it that way. In fact, that side of it is a bit of a nuisance when you’re teaching because you My favourite Sussex lose your anonymity. Also, when Restaurant: The best restaurant in Sussex is taking a picnic people come on my courses they into the Ashdown Forest. think they know you because of Photo: Courtesy of Ray Mears Ray of Courtesy Photo: who you are on television.” Shop: Am I allowed Trevor Mottram, the wonderful cookware He has always guarded his specialist on the Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells? I know it’s in Kent, privacy. In his autobiography, but it’s not far from the Sussex border. published in 2013, he offered a rare insight into his personal life, View: If you go up onto Bo Peep Hill, near Alciston, and look outlining the death in 2006 from north across the Weald, the view is lovely, particularly at breast cancer of his first wife certain times of the year when you can see very rare orchids Rachel, which left him angry, and woodland in the distance. bitter and confused. He never thought he’d find love again, but Place to visit: Chanctonbury Ring, near Steyning. It’s amazing remarried in 2009, to Ruth, and to think Charles Goring planted those trees as a young boy in has a stepson. 1760 and they matured in his old age.
22 Sussex Life: February 2019