My prinicpal knife when rambling or trekking is always an Opinel. Either a No7 "Tradition" (Trekker) or more recently a No8 Effilé as used here. You can see it has an ebony sabot (handle) and a modified Sandvik (12C27) steel blade... Sometimes when I most need to use the knife, I find I have only one hand free. Here then is an illustration of at least one traditional technique for opening and closing the knife safely.

I first saw this action performed by a farmer in the Abondance Valley (Savoie, France not too far from the factory) and most recently by a Bearnais shepherd in the Vallée D'Aspe when he was pinning a ewe with one hand and a knee. She had something caught in her skirt (wool beneath the belly), that he decided to free. Interestingly he was using a knife with the tip/point ground off, presumably not to cause accidental injury to the ewe.

I'm hoping that anyone who watches this will have the wick (as they say in Derbyshire) to know that you can get quite badly hurt using a knife improperly or carelessly. Opinel knives are exceptionally sharp. Knife accidents are common in all walks of life. Treat them seriously.

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