Keeping up with the Joneses

I first heard of Pilsdon from a book I read last November called Utopian Dreams. It’s written by Tobias Jones, who documented his visits to various communities in UK and Italy, searching for somewhere he and his family could feel at peace in. He was dissatisfied with the standard model of our contemporary Western lifestyle of consumerism, studio flats and TV dinners. He also wanted to discover whether a community with religion at its core would prove to be more cohesive than one without. It’s a very thought-provoking and intelligent read.

It turns out that since writing the book, Tobias Jones has set up his own small-scale version of Pilsdon on a woodland site called Windsor Hill Wood in Somerset. His website makes it clear that it’s more of an extended family than a community but like Pilsdon is open to people to come and stay for a while, particularly those who have been through some kind of personal crisis such as bereavement, addiction, separation, depression or homelessness.

I got in touch with him by email a while ago and he very kindly welcomed me over for a night, so on Tuesday evening I borrowed a community car and drove forty miles north across pastoral realms to reach his abode, which like Pilsdon is to be found at the end of a long, narrow and twisty lane. 

I’d never before met someone whose book I had read, and the book in question was not only intimidatingly eloquent and insightful but had actually changed the course of my life. So it was with some trepidation that I approached the house, not even knowing what he looks like.  However Toby (as he is called by everyone) turned out to be very affable and welcoming, and was doing the washing up when I arrived. It’s a fact that you cannot be intimidating whilst washing up.

I was introduced to his wife Francesca, their three kids, and the three guests they have staying with them at present, and after dinner was shown around the beautiful woodland site which included saying hi to the young chickens, the broody sow and the vegetable patch. My lodging that night was in a converted camper van in which the bed was interestingly positioned sideways, meaning the only possible sleeping position was foetal. 

The following day was a fantastic but bruising medley of various woodland activities, everyone pitching in including some local volunteers. “Brashing the coppices” meant dragging dead branches over the top of tree stumps sprouting new shoots to prevent wild deer from munching them. I helped Toby chip away at some long abandoned stone structure to try to extract a few nice square slabs for re-use. And I whiled the afternoon away simply splitting up short logs with an axe. The wood-geeks among you will already know that ash has a pale pink flesh, sycamore has white whilst willow’s is orangey-brown, but these truths were new to me.

I was impressed that Toby could find the time and energy not only to keep the whole place going but also write books. He is off to the Hay-on-Wye literary festival next week to promote his new book Blood on the Altar and has a deadline tomorrow for another, yet he is committed to keeping this special place open and welcoming to those who are in need. I certainly hope to return sometime, if only to satisfy the urge to swing an axe.