Becoming Domestic

I’ve just read another attitude-changing book, again borrowed from the library but like other inspiring reads this too will be bought for the home bookshelves and most probably as a Christmas present for other similarly minded friends or family.

We have rented a house in the countryside between three English towns for two years now we are in the process of thinking ahead and wondering what sort of environment we would like to raise the kids in when/if we buy a place of our own.

It is well documented that we do love living in the the countryside (the space, the sounds, the quiet, the ability to produce our own food) and have felt until reading Ian Walthew’s account of his move to a small village in the Cotswolds that we should probably not move too far away from a commerical centre and the so called benefits they bring (namely shops, leisure centres, cinemas and according to my five year old son the constant lure of fast food establishments offering ‘free’ toys). Reading his book has radically changed my mind and has helped me to realise that I have no real affinity to large towns any more and actually the small town we live in has the few things we need/like as a family (a lovely village school, a playground, a doctor, a chemist, a butcher, a greengrocer and a charity shop). If we were to move further away from such things it may mean we have opportunity to experience the pleasures of other things we haven’t even dreamt of yet.

A Place In My Country has opened my eyes further to the turmoil modern farmers are in.

I feel I’ve learned so much about his neighbour’s small old fashioned farm, the hard, hard relentless physical labour he has put in day in and day out since he was a small boy and now only to earn a few pounds per animal or per quantity of grain but despite this there is no question that his neighbour would ever consider farming another way or  selling up.

Modern farming methods are rapidly destroying our soil structures (with their heavy reliance on chemical fertilisers instead of spreading manure to enrich soil structures), our wildlife (most modern farms comprise of huge swathes of land managed by one person with enormous machines, many hundreds of acres without hedges, dry stone walls where wildlife would have once resided) and these smaller farms are now a minority which are disappearing fast along with the knowledge, skills, experience and the wide variety of crop and animal breeds which once meant we enjoyed a diverse range of products instead of the monoculture governments are turning this country towards.

Throughout the book there is a sense that no-one in a position of power is thinking rationally about the future of our land and what will happen to future generations of people wishing to live and work in a rural environment. The people who are struggling to maintain a living from the land are continually up against legislation and the push for producing cheap food on a huge scale (as well as the weather, poverty and people with more wealth wishing to build housing estates on their land). It’s a really well written book which manages to be both informative, moving and hugely entertaining too.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Place-My-Country-Search-Rural/

NB: While I’m waxing lyrical about books I’ve recently read about life in the English countryside I also read another moving and inspirational account called ‘The Fight for Fordhall Farm’ by Charlotte and Ben Hollins.

It is their story of how they saved their fathers delapidated organic farm in Shroshire, UK from being bought by property developers and turned it into a community ventre by sheer determination, hard work and positively refusing to give up when it looked like they would never be in a position to raise the £800,000 required. Given that they were only 19 and 21 when the events unfolded it is an incredible tale.

Both these books give us non-farming readers a tiny window through which to peep through into a world where people are giving their whole lives’ effort to  work with nature not because it will earn them a fast car or a foreign holiday, new fashionable clothes or the latest gadget but because it is something they love from the core and would not give up without a lengthy fight.

Both have made me want to do more in the way of producing our own food and aiming towards an even more simple and self-sufficient way of life before our nation is forced to re-examine our unhelthy dependence on oil.

Posted on September 22nd, 2008 under Country Living, Downshifting • Tags: farming. • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback