My rookie era: I lived off the land for a week – by day five I was naked, my clothes dangling over the campfire

In the summer of 1971, I left behind my comfortable family home with a tent, rations and a Women’s Weekly cutting of Princess Caroline of Monaco

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At 15 I proved the maxim: “Hire a teen while they still know everything.”

That summer of 1971, I judged the world and concluded that civilisation was meh, and surely doomed. So with the zeal of the truly clueless I resolved to try living off the land, and left behind my comfortable family home and smirking parents.

Equipped for an epic, I’d packed a tent, canteen, billy, sleeping bag, cord, emergency rations (two carrots, bag of soup mix, creamed rice) and a bushcraft pamphlet protecting a Women’s Weekly cutting of Princess Caroline of Monaco.