So what use are the "old folks" when TSHTF?

[Susiemb]

Well, once you've survived the initial chaos and disintegration, you have to be able to feed yourselves long term and it'll be no good waiting until your food stocks runs out. We're in our 60's, so maybe zombie bait - or it might be worth you youngsters keeping us alive: can you raise livestock, kill it, skin/ pluck/ gut it, cook it? Grow veg? Make the most unappealing scraps of food into a nutritious and tasty meal? Can you repair your equipment using whatever you can scavenge? Make your own clothes - more importantly, cure the leather for shoes - I'm assuming you won't be able to pop back into the towns for a new pair............ Maybe the smallholders will inherit the earth?
We aren't self-supporting by any means, but if the food supply chain collapses we won't starve or freeze.

Seriously, I know the people on this site are making what preparation they can, but I'd advise everyone to get as much practical experience as they can, the more independently ( off-grid) you can live the more chance you'll have long-term.

[NorthernRaider]

The skills and knowledge the 60s and 70s have will be priceless after TSHTF so most of us would embrace the wrinklies just so long as they have not spent their entire lives on benefits or in the pub. Failing that Wrinklies make excellent Soylent Green.

[Susiemb]

Most 60 and 70 year olds have been paying IN all their lives and getting very little back.... and we now have a government that refers to the State Pension as a 'benefit' - which isn't what it was called when they made the deductions from my payslip.

Northern Raider, wasn't Soylent Green the product of ' a state hell-bent on domination '............to which you claim to be ' the sane voice of the resistance' ?

[Skean Dhude]

Yet again we start to go off track.

Older people have a lot of experience living rougher than the namby pamby youth of today. They grew up with no central heating, no ready meals and had to walk to get where they wanted to go.

The youngsters have had everything given to them without them having to work anywhere near as hard. Many have not seen live animals and some don't even know what a cow looks like. They have grown up in a cotton wool society.

Then you have to consider the class we read in the papers every day, stabbing each other and breaking into peoples houses and getting away with it because Plod is too busy nicking people for speeding and littering. They have not been mollycoddled and will do well, to our detriment. Youth and experience of rough living.

Older people will revert back to being the wise ones, the ones consulted before moves are made, and from the sound of us when it is our turn we will be the last that remembers coal fires, family meals and single glazed windows.

[Arnie72]

I personally think that 'old folks' are a very valuable asset - especially post SHTF.

I am early 40's and grew up in a house with no central heating in the bedrooms, a real fire, single glazed windows, family meals etc and my family now do the rolling eyes at my 'when I was a lad' stories.

However I still take my kids out camping and teach them bushcraft, the eldest are being taught archery and shooting (and fencing but that is more for fun!) and we have regular family meals around a table (not daily like I did as a lad but 3-4 times a week).

Much of the youth of today (or X-box generation) never leave the comfort of their centrally heated bedroom, many with ensuites (whilst when we went to my nans on a sunday the only loo was outside which was freezing in winter!) and will have a huge culture shock when the SHTF.

When the SHTF it is my humble opinion that only those families who have the knowledge, skills, training and sheer willpower to survive will survive and that will rely heavily on the 'old folks' to guide them.

[bigpaul]

oldies have got one thing youngsters lack= its called a lifetimes experience!

[Arnie72]

I agree BP that some oldies have valuable life experience however not by any chalk all of them....in fact most that have just signed on all their lives will in my humble opinion have little to offer post SHTF (which unfortunately is a lot of those in near vicinity to me).

However for me the oldies that survive the SHTF will hopefully be the ones with the necessary skills, life experience, knowledge, survival will power etc to pass on to the new community that evolves post SHTF. These will become the revered ones post SHTF (as it used to be when I was a youngster).

[bigpaul]

I've got an old guy near me who's in his 80s, cant hardly walk-hips are gone but he was a farm worker all his life, started with horses then moved onto tractors, just chatting to him when walking the dog is a mine of information alone.

[Arnie72]

Yep there are quite a few good uns out there - its a pity that they are treated so disrespectfully in our current society.

I for one have a few oldie friends who when the SHTF will survive well, unfortunately I also know that my OHs folks would not have anything to offer other than waiting for the state to save them.....

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So that will probably come down to me to make them part of our enclave but I know all they will do is bitch and moan about it and how their lifestyle has changed

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However my folks are as close to self-sufficient as they can be, my old man is ex-forces too and is of a similar mindset to me so is a very valuable asset, my mum is a natural homesteader and between them and me we can look after all for our enclave (siblings and their families too).

Though it will not be easy by a long chalk!

[NorthernRaider]

I think most of the skilled wrinklies are gone now and the current crop are the products of the welfare state, fortunately among them is a tidy minority of people who have lived the agrarian lifestyle or have maintained small holding and allotments, with guys n gals like kenny eames being a rare gem in a pile of old fossils. That tidy minority should be nurtured and cared for whilst those with a sense of entitlement can be ignored.