I recently visited the National Outdoor Expo at the NEC. Besides the sell, sell, sell of many of the stalls, one thing struck a chord. It was Kate Humble speaking about getting youngsters into the outdoors. I grew up outside because of childhood Catarrh, and because my family background was in hillwalking, farming and field sports. Some may think this a privilege, but to me, it was the norm.
My comprehensive education was at Belper High School, where Outdoor Pursuits (OP) were part of the curriculum. Everyone (and I mean everyone) was taken rock climbing, abseiling, pot holing, sailing and canoeing, whether you liked it or not, by the teachers. You soon found the activities you liked or didn’t, and in the second year, could choose a preferred sport. Thousands of 13-16 year olds were given this opportunity, for free, within school time. Some liked it, some hated it, but we didn’t understand at that age the lessons it was teaching us. We didn’t do debriefs, or have hashtags to tell us what we were doing. Lots of the time we laughed, cried, screamed and generally got muddy and wet. Sadly those days are gone due to the requirements of guides, but what a wonderful education it was. Alison Hargreaves went through the same OP only a few years before myself, and became Britains best female mountaineer (in my view).
Jump forward to 2025, to a message from a local Hostel, which takes thousands of youngsters and families into the woods…
“So we are feeling really, really sad..unfortunately a guest hurt themselves last September when under the influence of alcohol in the early hours of a Sunday morning when they unbalanced and burned their hand and back at our fire-pit. They refused to go to hospital at the time and went later on after they got home, but they have put in a personal injury claim for negligence last month.
They had access to a fire bucket that should go with all groups to the fire pit, plus first aid kit and fire blanket.
Our insurer has denied all liability, as we have good risk assessments, policies and procedures in place to ensure guests stay safe – this is a priority for us!
But because the claim has landed as we need to renew our insurance, it looks as though we will be removing the fire pits from the hostel grounds at the end of this month as no insurer will now cover the fire pits.
We’ve had 10,000 people using the hostel or attending our collaborative sessions with @Woodland Connections at Shining Cliff Woods since I started keeping track of guest numbers in 2022. Most of these people have benefited from using the campfires and they are an integral part of our offering. We’ve had so many great times around the campfire with our groups, so I can only imagine that hostel guests have had the same great experiences and shared memories.
The business has had to start to reduce its’ outgoings to ensure we can weather this storm, resulting in 2 wonderful, super hard-working people having to have less work being offered to them and the potential of no work if bookings get cancelled.
At the moment we are waiting to hear if guests will be allowed to bring their own fire pits with them, but if not, then for this year at least, the campfires will be gone”.
We now have increased threats of litigation. I do believe in bringing people to task if there is clear negligence, but his is ridiculous. I’ve used the same fire pits to teach pupils from the Royal School for the Deaf in Derby, where we all enjoyed a wonderful experience, learning about fire lighting, safety and toasting a few marshmallows. The look on their faces will always be with me as they delighted in the smell, sight and heat of the fires.
How are we supposed to give children a real outdoor experience if the fear of unwarranted litigation sits above our heads..? Believe me, I dont want anyone to get hurt, but the outdoors cannot be sterilised. We cannot race for the bottom in our lives, hoping the lowest common denominator will save us. It won’t. Risk is part of life, and unless we teach it, we let down our younger generations. They will become adults who think that anyone can be sued, work stops when the snow starts, and fires are something we can light outdoors, anywhere we please. The Peak District has already suffered enough wildfires this year, and it’s still only March.
We need to find a balance, or we will leave our youngsters lost. Litigation has a place, but as Conan Doyle wrote in Sherlock Holmes ‘The Adventure of the Red Circle‘ – The law is what we live with; justice is sometimes harder to achieve…