New Life

Pilsdon's "Hay Field" with the manor house and church in the distance beyond the polytunnel.

My third sojourn, and my third winter, at Pilsdon Community is drawing to an end. On Monday I’ll be stuffing my car and trailer full of luggage and seed potatoes and driving north back to Wales to pick up where I left off last November.

The difference from last year’s migration north is that this time (a) I don’t know where I’ll be living on my return, since a planning officer has decided that I am “in breach of planning control” by living in my caravan on my land, and (b) a girl is waiting for me in Wales. For it is true, shortly before I headed south last November, I began to date an Irishwoman, another veg grower near Machynlleth who I found myself spending quite a bit of time with over the last two growing seasons. I suspect we will find even more time to hang out together amongst the runner bean frames this year.

The blackboard is used for broacasting important messages to the community.

The winter has been a good one. This place has been buzzing, full of energy, laughter, comradeship, good food and Scrabble. To be back amongst these friends during the cold months, sharing my joys, hopes and planning woes, and getting to know new folks recently joined, has been a privilege. 

I have been helped in innumerable ways - Frank* has fixed my trailer door hinge, put my greenhouse heater up for sale using his EBay account and gave me a book on how to speak Welsh. Kyle got my chainsaw running a bit better. Bernie gave me a nice large carry-bag as he saw mine was falling apart. Arnold gave me a brand new single duvet cover that was going spare, and his wife gave me some tent pegs she found. Two people have given me lots of seed potatoes they didn’t need or want (Casablanca and Winston varieties, if you are a potato geek.)  Nathan lent me a copy of an RS Thomas anthology, the great 20th century Welsh poet. Alfonso gave me two bags of rather good coffee beans, and when I admitted I didn’t have a grinder he let me use his top-of-the-range electric burr machine which instantly zapped them into powder. Others have helped in all sorts of little ways. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve or can do to repay all these generous gestures, but people seem to like me to play the piano. Which thankfully I also love doing.

The denuded oak tree

Not only do we live communally but sometimes there are large tasks which we achieve communally. This winter was no exception - the removal of the huge fallen oak tree (or its many branches at least); clearing and burning all the brambles that had covered much of our stock fencing so we have access to replace the rotted stakes (still ongoing), and clearing out Brook House to name but three. Brook House was Pilsdon’s “Halfway House” until recently, a large residence in Dorchester with up to ten bedrooms which had a zero-alcohol policy and shared evening meals. For the last fifteen years or so people have had the option to move there from Pilsdon, and so retaining community life whilst getting reintegrated into the world through local work. Unfortunately it had been chronically under-utilised for some time so Pilsdon was unable to keep it going financially. The last remaining residents have been re-housed and we are making trip after trip there to empty it of furniture and clean it before handing it back to the landlord, who has in fact already sold it on. 

I’ve saved the best bit of news until last. In the early hours of Monday night Mary and Matt rushed off to Dorchester hospital, leaving the whole community on tenterhooks. Just after 2pm the call came through - it’s a boy, eight-pounds-worth, and they’ve named him Rowan.  She stayed in hospital last night so we have yet to meet the young chap. Welcome to the world, Rowan, and to Pilsdon Community! Congratulations to his exhausted mother. And ok Matt, you can be congratulated too.  May God's blessings rest on the three of you.

This being my last post from Dorset, if you want to follow my progress up in Wales check back next week on my other blog : mattswanoffgrid.blogspot.co.uk. 

*all these names are made up (except those in the penultimate paragraph!)

Sign O' The Times

Over the weekend there were five children at Pilsdon, the most I can remember being here at one time. Admittedly two of them were still unborn and hence nice and quiet. One of them, currently residing in Mary’s womb, is expected to be born any time now.  The other, visiting us from Northumberland encased inside the body of its mother Catherine, has a few months (non-)breathing space before being welcomed into the world. Both sets of parents have elected to be ignorant of the gender of their unborn children, a fairly common thing here in the UK I believe but almost unheard of in the States according to our resident Americans - they had also asked not to be told what sex their two children would be, to the astonishment of the midwives.

 

Truffle, heavily pregnant, being taken on her daily perambulation

Over the nearly six decades that Pilsdon Community has been communing there have doubtless been much pitter-pattering of small feet around these hallowed corridors. Some of them still live nearby. Clive*, in his thirties, who lives in Broadoak down the road and sometimes comes to Pilsdon church on Sunday evening, was born in and grew up at Pilsdon. The cheerful chap at the garage a mile or two away at Marshwood who does my car’s MOT used to hang out with friends here when he was young. There must be many others with early memories of this place - very occasionally someone drops by who claims to have old links with Pilsdon and wants to rekindle those old memories. We give them a cup of tea and let them get on with it.

Jedekiah Sykes and Nathaniel Goodfellow in front of their woodpile

Meanwhile I’ve been knuckling down to the jobs that need doing before my departure in twelve days. Ever since I first arrived here in spring 2012 I've been irked by the illegible Welcome sign perched on an old plough at the entrance. It was weatherbeaten and without any paint, so the carved letters could barely be made out. So I finally got round to giving it a good few coats of Cuprinol paint and picking out the lettering in white (an undercoat and then gloss). It went back to its plough yesterday morning, so hopefully visitors from now on will feel that little bit more welcome.

A rather larger job has been the chainsawing of the fallen oak. Or more accurately its branches, as the width of the trunk is almost my height so as we don’t have a chainsaw with a one-metre-long bar, I’ve left it be. Over this winter I have kept returning to it, sawing more huge branches into chunks that could be lifted onto a trailer and carted back to the woodstore where I would saw them further into chunks that could be split with an axe. The end is now in sight, one more session should see to it. I have without doubt gained more confidence with the chainsaw through such repeated use, mostly because not a single limb has been severed in the process.

It's disappointing when a jigsaw turns out to have a hundred pieces missing

My thoughts are often on my patch in Wales and in particular where and how I will live on my return. As the planners are still saying that I will not be allowed to continue residing in my caravan on the land I must find somewhere else to live nearby, at least until a One Planet Development planning application can be submitted, if that’s the route I choose. Wherever it is, it will be difficult to cover any rent from the veg business income. I’m considering various options including offering labour and veg in return for accommodation, or parking my caravan on a caravan site for a season. Something is bound to turn up. 

* not his real name

Attack of the Drones

Logs from the fallen oak that I've been chainsawing my way through 

Imagine a world where someone in another country, say China or Indonesia, can get up early on Monday morning, drive to work, get in front of a computer which provides them remote-control of a flying machine based in France, send it humming over to where you live in Sussex or Manchester where it is still late Sunday evening and you’re just thinking about retiring for the night, and fire a rocket straight into your living room.  It would not be conducive to a peaceful and happy existence. 

Change the names of the countries and there's no need to imagine it. A 13-year-old boy in Yemen was killed on 26 January by an American drone. He had been interviewed by the Guardian newspaper the previous September because his father and brother had been killed the same way in 2011.  “They tell us that these drones come from bases in Saudi Arabia and also from bases in the Yemeni seas and America sends them to kill terrorists, but they always kill innocent people. But we don’t know why they are killing us” he had said.

Seed potatoes on their way to be "chitted" - left to sprout a bit before planting

There is something I find abhorrent about war drones, more so even than fighter jets dropping bombs. At least the fighter pilots have to be in the same geography as their targets, and at least in theory be at risk of being brought down by opposition firepower. But the people who pilot these drones lead a very safe and comfortable existence. They can go home to their loved ones at the end of each working day, happy in the knowledge of having successfully carried out their killing orders.  

A derelict horse-drawn hay-turner we found on our walk to the coast

This is a new type of warfare where “combatants”, in the loosest sense of the word, are in completely different parts of the world.  A country (or in some dystopian future, corporation?) which owns such machines can define who they regard as enemies, specific individuals living in other countries, and decide to eliminate them with zero risk to themselves.  And tough luck if you happen to have popped round to their target’s house for tea when they do.  The war-zone is where the rockets land, not where they are controlled from, so one side in the “war” need never enter the danger territory at all.  

The military are even beginning to phase out the human element altogether, allowing the drones to fire on people according to pre-set criteria.  

Proud to have lost 21 pounds over her time at Pilsdon

The US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Russia, China, India, Iran and Israel all have Unmanned (but certainly Armed) Aerial Vehicles according to this 2012 report, and three of them (US, UK and Israel) have used them in combat. No doubt many other countries are looking to play catch up.  I expect many of these same nations who happen to have enough cash in their so-called Defence budgets are also building anti-drone technology in case anyone should have the temerity to use drones back against them.  Those without such means will just have to get used to the fact that their citizens may get blown up from time to time by other countries who feel they have the moral imperative to do so.

More info on UK drones here and various UK campaign events listed here.  There is a petition to stop the deployment of UK drones.

Next week, back to the more wholesome subject of rural community living!

Turf from our field cut out to form...

...a firepit for all the brambles we've been hacking down from around the field fencing

The Long Arm of the Law

The stakes for the edging for our two new strawberry beds

The long arm of the law reaches all the way to Pilsdon. Last week we welcomed a trainee Police Community Support Officer to stay and work with us for four days, and this week we have a trainee Police Officer for the same duration. Either the police are seeking to ensure their new recruits are exposed to forms of community life and active rehabilitation, or they’ve just decided to keep tabs on us. 

Our PCSO, let’s name her Sally, was in her early to mid twenties and had left her native South Wales for Exeter, a city where she knew no-one, because she had found a job there answering the 999 emergency line. Even during the couple of years she did this she found working conditions deteriorated with more pressure exerted on them to deal with calls in a certain time. There was no flexibility allowed to let them deal longer with elderly or confused people. She said it had become like a call centre, so she got out and onto the trainee scheme for PCSOs for Dorset. The training programme is based in Bournemouth but she has asked to be assigned to Beaminster in West Dorset (not far from us!) so she can still feasibly commute from Exeter, still over an hour’s drive each way. She loved it at Pilsdon and plans to pop in from time to time - we hope she will! 

The police officer in training, who we shall call Steven, is perhaps a few years older, in his late twenties. He’s from Dorchester, just 45 minutes drive from Pilsdon, and has also requested to be stationed in West Dorset somewhere, presumably so he doesn’t need to move house. Given that all his spare time is taken up with organising his own wedding in the summer, this makes perfect sense. He’s previously worked in the prison service but has followed his kid brother into the Force who apparently already has something of a superstar reputation, so he’s having to get used to that. Apparently Steven’s been sworn in (“attested”) to the police so he is already a bone fide Police Officer with all the powers that go with that, but doesn’t yet know how to wield them as he’s only three months into training. A slightly scary thought but he calmed our fears by saying that if a trainee constable did go and do something silly they wouldn’t be a copper for long. 

Both Sally and Steven got stuck into community life with gusto, making meals, hacking back brambles, hefting wood, and chatting with everyone. As they weren’t wearing their uniforms they could have been anyone, visiting Pilsdon for a few days for a break. With luck they will have taken something away with them back to their jobs when they finally go on the beat. We’ve certainly enjoyed their company. Maybe the other emergency services could start sending their newbies our way too! Young firefighters, paramedics and lifeboat rescuers all peeling our spuds for us, can’t wait.

Ready for the strawberries!