Suzanne Harrington: Going from Bear With to Bear Grylls
I am taking someone wild camping who has never been camping, wild or otherwise, because they are an urban metrosexual whose idea of getting back to nature is walking past a florist. They – he - wants to know the postcode and WIFI password of the wilderness, and is having a panic attack about footwear, rainwear, hypothermia, heatstroke, drought, being eaten feet first by badgers. “Bear with,” he says, with magnificent understatement. “I’m not Bear Grylls.” So many questions. What will we eat? How will we see? Are badgers really carnivorous?
Sometimes I forget that not everyone loves camping. Or that some people have never even tried it, which in my mind is like saying you’ve never had pizza or seen Star Wars. Yet such individuals – Bear With - exist. Refugee friends I met in the tent city of the Calais Jungle, now safe in the nearby city with a roof finally over their heads, look horror struck at the idea of recreational camping – why would anyone ever want to sleep outdoors if they don’t have to?
