Sitting at home, full of the lurgy, I decided to put procrastination to one side and clean up a couple of my knives and multi-tools. It is surprising how much gunk can build up in the slots and crevices of these tools.
A bit of kitchen towel, a couple of cotton buds and a rinse under warm water with some scrubbing from a nylon brush sorts them out nicely. No need to dismantle any that I have been looking at. Dried out over a warm radiator and a wipe over with a smidgen of dedicated oil is all that is required.
Job done…
Three Points of the Compass 
Hi Jools – I’m sitting at home full of lurgy too. The first lurgy I’ve had since LEJOG, as it goes! You’ve got three and a half months left until it’s your turn. You must be looking forward to it… Do you have a specific goal in mind, as in, for example, the number of days you would like to complete the walk in? Or each section of the walk? Do you plan on going all out each day, walk till you drop, see where you end up, and repeat? Or have you planned it methodically like Andrew Martin; he booked accommodation a year in advance for every single day of his 30 day LEJOG walk. I’m keen to know…Sam.
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What type of Swiss army knife is show in the picture? It looks a really useful size. I use the ‘Hunter’ which is ideal for my purposes. I still have a Royal Engineers Knife, complete with marline-spike. It was given to all recruits when I joined, over 40 years ago. Does anyone know if they still issue them?
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Hi Colin
The tool in the pic is my Leatherman Squirt, mine is the S4 version with the scissors. I have written about it on my Knife page.
I recall the RE knife well. A couple of years ago I turned my house inside out looking for my old Army one as I am convinced I still have it somewhere. There is no way I would have got rid of it. But it remains hidden somewhere about this house. Mine had a big heavy sheepsfoot blade, tin-opener and a mean spring, wide screwdriver tip at one end and heavy shackle at the other end and the marlin spike for rope work. We used to have the shackle fixed to our shoulder lanyard and carried the knife in right breast pocket. I think it was a chargeable offence if you didn’t have yours on you when inspected. At guard duty you got ‘extras’ if the inspecting officer found lint in the joints of the knife. Made in Sheffield, the knife had plain steel sides, unlike the scaled version from WWII it was based on. There was a year stamp, Broad Arrow and the instruction ‘oil the joints’! Not all those knives had the marlin spike though, I would occasionally see a squaddie that had the other variant that came without. Both were NATO pattern, one or the other was used by each of the British Armed Services and modern versions can still be bought. All more modern ones are marked with ‘British Army Knife’, but any you see marked with that, were NOT actually used by the Army but were produced for the consumer market
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Hi Jools
Thanks for the info. I shall most certainly take a look at your knife page, and commence a search of this house to find my old army knife. I hope it has not gone the same way as 90% of my old army equipment, ‘borrowed’ by my eldest son who subsequently takes ‘possession’ of it. I did a survival course once with Eddie McGee, an authority in the field. He suggested we purchase a golock (not sure about the spelling here!). It’s a fantastic hand tool for making shelters and for general survival use. It would obviously not be appropriate to take backpacking due to its weight.
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Yep, you got the spelling right. A Golok machete, sometimes called a Parang. Not quite UK street legal I suspect. The blade length is ‘just as a tad’ over what is permitted on these shores. So no popping down to Tescos with one of those strapped to your thigh. You can buy an ‘OK’ mass produced genuine British Army Martindale No 2 for less than fifty quid. I do use a similar, modern equivalent with plastic handle, in the garden, usually when I have left it too long and have to attack the undergrowth
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