BRG wrote:

Not intended as "smart arse or rude" simply factual - if a question like
that has to be asked in a public group for a task that is so simple that it
was being done by ten year olds in my day,

There you have it. I was doing it when I was 10. My kids weren't,
because we've never had an open fire and we live in a smokeless zone
where garden bonfires are forbidden. It's just a skill that most people
never need any more; the OP has presumably moved somewhere where it is.

Andy