The Humble Knife. Why shouldn't we carry one?

My Mother brought me up to love knives, I realise that sounds rather odd and maybe it was. But when she was a little girl her father had a modest pocket knife collection from pipe smoker's knives, little pruning knives and second world war soldier's knives. This she then handed down to me when I was old enough to appreciate it, I swiftly became a lover of sharp things and hunted out knives wherever I went and added them to the collection.

25 years on and my penchant for the knife is as strong as ever.

My relationship with the knife hasn't always been positive or ended well. When I was 15 I was arrested and cautioned for accidentally taking a locking Swiss army knife in my backpack to Wimbledon. As I laughed at the police officer arresting me for the madness of the whole thing he asked me what was so funny, I explained that I could walk into any of the restaurants within the grounds and pick up an equally sharp and dangerous fixed-blade steak knife. He didn't see the funny side. I reminded him of this when I was marched back through the gates of Wimbledon, once I was released from custody. Madness.

Hunting Knife after its been used to bleed a Deer

Although this wasn't a particularly major event, nevertheless it was the start of me realising how misrepresented and misused the knife could be.

The second run-in was a year later when I was walking home with a friend on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We managed to stumble upon a mugging and ended up intervening, to cut a long story short, I ended up being stabbed multiple times in the chest, stomach, arm and head and spent 7 days in the hospital with a stomach drain and chest drain. This was a rather more significant event that luckily only physically scared me.

Given these experiences. I feel fairly qualified to philosophise on knives to defend them when they are villainized and to carry one whenever I feel it appropriate.

The Knife as a companion.

Now it's true many people these days shouldn't be carrying knives as they are too often used as a weapon rather than a practical tool.

These amazing tools are abused and increasingly used as tools of violence in our ever-growing urban areas, this culture needs to be addressed and changed urgently.

However many people, myself included, need that little companion in their pocket or on one's belt, once you're accustomed to having it there when it's not you really miss it.

Recently I was driving home when someone hit a deer on the opposite side of the road from me, the deer was not dead but laying in the middle of the road. Having seen the collision it was clear it was not going to survive. While people stopped to stare no one knew what to do (possibly the subject of my next blog "the erosion of the practically knowledgeable human" working title!), I reached down and thankfully had a little pocket knife on me, with a few words to the deer and a hand covering its eye it was swiftly sent to the afterlife. This is an extreme example, but without that knife, the deer would have suffered for some time.

Back in the day, you could get away when asked by a police officer why you're carrying a knife by telling them it was for peeling oranges, I wonder how saying it was for killing deer hit by cars would go down.

The world has changed! You can no longer take a Swiss army knife on a plane or even walk into a pub with a pocket knife, for this the penalty is up to 4 years in prison. Don't believe me? look it up!

A link to our ancestral past

When I pick up a knife to do something like butcher an animal. I often can't help but feel a connection to our past. Like sitting around a fire, using a knife for something like skinning a deer or whittling a spoon can draw one back to a forgotten past where our Hunter-gatherer ancestors would have been doing the same thing. I can get lost in these visions of the stone age dwellers butchering deer in what would almost certainly be a very similar way but with a flint instead of our fancy stainless steel blades.

They probably even had similar emotions to what modern-day hunters feel, gratitude, satisfaction and of course reverence.

I love that link to our ancestors. There is something significant and humbling about it that I struggle to verbalise.

The Knife as a weapon

The Knife, of course, has always been used as a weapon but I don't believe this to have been its original design, it was first and foremost a practical tool for daily activities. Of course, it could be used as a weapon but this is true of so many tools.

Today's villainization of the knife, to me, is a sign of losing our connection to the land. It's a sign of urbanisation and discontent. Many people now see the knife as a weapon, rather than a tool. As mentioned, I have been on the sharp end of this and can understand why people want to blame the knife.

So many things these days can be used as a litmus test of society's health, and I think the humble knife becoming an icon of violence in the 21st century is one of them. Amazing to think this tool was once a prized position of our ancestors.

I can't stand the fact that I have to make sure to empty my pockets before going to the supermarket or pub or risk the hand of the law!

Who knows what the future holds for the knife?

I suspect the divide deepens between those who use the knife as a tool and those who carry it as a weapon.

Interestingly in 1669 King Louis XIV outlawed pointed knives and ordered all knife points to be ground down. Strange how History repeats!

My only hope is that the line is not further blurred and more red tape is not wrapped around the wonderful tool. It's not the knife's fault it's the Humans. So let's work on society before making a criminal out of the object and the innocent.

Here's to Knives and all those who use them respectfully!