Do your own research. DO NOT take the following article to be in any way competent financial advice. It’s not. If it sparks an interest in you then go and speak to a professional because I am certainly not one in these matters.

You read and act on the following at your own risk. You have been warned.

Audience and motivations

This article isn’t aimed at investors in the normal sense of the word. People with enough money to buy chunks of land off-plan for long-term capital growth or tax planning (avoidance?) reasons will likely have well paid advisers to do the work for them. Instead the aim of this article is to act as a how-to for individuals or groups like-minded people looking to free up capital that they had previously thought to be locked away and to convert it into something tangible that they can use to start planning for their future(s). This post is also very focussed on a single issue. Owning a piece of land won’t suddenly solve your long term ‘resilience’ goals. For that, amongst other things, you’ll need a tight community and the desire to be a part of it.

Background

Over the past 3 years we’ve been actively looking to buy some land of our own to, amongst other things, grow food, fuel and have a place (and the space) to try some of our ideas out. Unfortunately for us and for everyone else, land is expensive, really expensive, and as people often quip ‘they are not making it any more’ so its price is generally on the rise, recession or no recession.

It’s not within the scope of this post for me to delve any deeper into the historical issues surrounding land ownership (or more accurately theft) in this country or to discuss the arguably unenlightened aspects of our planning laws that make it insanely difficult for you to live on your own piece of land as a subsistence farmer which in turn massively inflates the prices of land that have residential planning permission. But I would say that if this is a subject that interests you then Simon Fairlie’s A Short History of Enclosure would be a really good place to start.

During the period of searching that I mention above we tried out a few different communal land sharing options including a 6 month stint in an intentional community as well as getting quite far down the line setting up a housing co-op but each time something ended up not working out. All the time our sense of urgency kept increasing. Tick, tock, the clock was ticking away, time was passing and we really wanted to get planting.

So, we were left facing the decision of using our limited money to put towards a mortgaged house with tiny garden or to buy some land with that money and rent nearby for ever as we’d be unlikely to ever get permission to live on it. It was this stark choice that gave me the motivation to act upon a hunch I’d had previously about pensions. I already knew about self invested pensions but they were not of interest to me as I don’t have the inclination to play money markets and neither do I have any confidence in the stability of financial system that they belong to. So much so that the few pension pots that we had built up as a husband and wife over the previous 15 years of working had been sitting parked in cash funds growing little since just before the stock market crash of 2007.

I got to thinking that if I was able to buy chunks of companies or virtual funds with my pension could I buy some real land? Land that I could walk on, land to plant trees on, land that when I’m too old to convert my labour into money I could continue to receive an income stream from?

Well it turns out the answer is yes, mostly, and we’ve recently gone ahead and put those plans into action, getting a pension set-up and completing on the purchase of a chunk of mixed agricultural land and woodland. When we’ve talked with others about what we’ve done the questions have started flowing so I decided to put this post together mainly to point people at when they ask us how we did it.

Pension Types

There are two types of pension that can be used to buy land:

1. SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension)
2. SSAS (Small Self Administered Scheme)

As I understand it (scroll to the top, read the disclaimer) a SIPP is for an individual. They are much more commonplace with lots of brokerage websites offering them to buy stocks and shares with. From what I can gather it’s definitely possible to buy ‘commercial property’ through a SIPP too. If this is your preferred route then you’ll need to look into it more on your own as we didn’t go down that route, we set up a SSAS instead.

If you do go with a SIPP you’ll probably want to skip ahead to the ‘what you can and can’t do section’ as the next bits won’t apply to you.

Broadly speaking a SSAS is a pension scheme set up for the benefit of the directors of a business. We’d recently set-up Geekowarriors Ltd as a commercial umbrella for our various business ideas, both active and planned, with the both of us as directors and equal shareholders. The important thing for us with a SSAS is that we were able to then combine our four (two each) existing pension pots into the one fund in order to have enough to buy something with.

Setting it up

I spoke to five different SSAS providers and ended up going with SSAS Practitioner.com to set-up our scheme. They just ‘made it work’ guiding us through the  inordinate amounts of paperwork, chasing both us and the existing pension providers to sign the relevant forms, telling us what we could and couldn’t do and generally dealing with all of the correspondence involved to get our scheme set-up. They were also the cheapest in terms of fees as well as being the most helpful, which was a nice combination.

Luckily we’d thought ahead and were doing this all with no target purchase to add to the stress. One of the pension providers dragged their heels a bit to transfer the money and at least one set of forms got lost so including these delays I reckon we had the scheme set-up and a new bank account belonging to the scheme with all of the money in it within 8 weeks.

It’s worth noting that the SSAS provider is likely to get you to sign a disclaimer saying you’ve received financial advice elsewhere. They will be efficient in getting the scheme set-up but the decision about whether it’s a good idea or not is for you to make based upon the professional advice that you’ve received elsewhere.

Charges

As the SSAS is a company pension scheme it needs to be attached to a business. We already had a business  but if you were doing it from scratch then getting a Ltd Company set-up on line is really easy and you should get change from £50. On top of that there are the annual company running costs which is a Companies Annual Return (a simple form to fill out and £15 payable to Co. House) as well as filling of annual accounts. The latter can be quite expensive and I’d budget £1K if you’re using an accountant and the business is actually trading but if all it’s doing is being the umbrella for the pension then it should be pretty simple to do the annual accounts yourself. All of this will need to be set-up in advance and you’ll be paying set-up and ongoing costs through the businesses own funds.

When you buy the land there will be legal costs, I’d estimate £750 for this, to include the searches and conveyancing. The pension or attached business can pay for this.

Surveyor. I’ll explain why below but you’ll need to use a chartered suyveyor to value the land as well as a lawyer to draw you up a business lease. Erring on the side of caution I’d estimate a further £1500 for this but would hope to get it done for less. The pension or attached business can pay for this.

The SSAS Provider will charge you to get the scheme set-up and then charge an ongoing annual fee to administer the scheme. The firm we used charges £800 +VAT with no hidden charges including per new acquisition (you particularly need to check this with yours). The pension or attached business can pay for this.

As a ball park figure, assuming you’re already a trading business, expect to pay around £2.5K to be set-up including the transactional costs of your first purchase and the business lease. Ongoing costs estimate around £1K annually. Both of these figures can be paid out of the pension’s funds but we decided for the set-up to get the attached business to pay for it.

If £1K per year sounds a lot then I suggest you look at the charges being applied to your current pension. I’ll bet you’re paying at least 1%-2% so on a pot of £50K you’re looking at £500 – £1k annually.

What you can and can’t do

The next bit is the most important.

When your pension buys some land YOU DO NOT OWN IT. You are simply a trustee of a financial vehicle recognised by HMRC as a pension scheme and it is this entity that owns the land, not you. You can’t just turn up, tether your goat, pop up a yurt up, get a fire going and break out the ukulele. Well actually you can if you like but you’ll need to pay rent for the privilege and as you are ‘connected’ to the pension you need to make pretty darn sure that whatever you’re doing on the land you’re paying market rate for it. If you don’t and you get caught by HMRC then they’ll slam you with a big tax bill.

You also need to understand that the pension cannot trade. It’s there to earn an income from its assets either as rent from them being utilised or  from their appreciating in value. If you do want to do anything commercially on the land then you’ll need a commercial lease that you pay to the pension. This lease has to be at market rates. The pension can’t, for example, directly sell firewood or rent its land out to put on a festival. A leaseholder would need to be involved, paying a rent to the pension for the privilege of having the option to do these things.

What we’re planning to do

Given the above we’re going to split the land into two chunks. The first part – a few acres – we’re going to buy outright with money from our savings at a market valuation set by a chartered surveyor. We can then do whatever we wish on this land within the usual legal frameworks. Our plans are simply to plant some food crops and get a small roundwood barn up for shelter as well as water and solar collection. 

Edit: We decided against buying that small chunk mainly because the surveyor placed a pretty high value on it, their rationale being that a smaller chunk would fetch a higher value, much more than we were able/willing to pay.

The rest we’re going to have our business lease from the pension at a rent set by the same surveyor to cover any business activity. We will set-up a nature reserve in the middle, it’s already teeming with life compared to the monoculture desert around it and we’ll look to derive an income from using the land in a multitude of ways as per our businesses longer-term vision.

This leased part of land also includes some woodland, our lease will include commercial use of the standing timber. We will also have some of the leased land planted up under existing grants. The pension will be the beneficiary of the grant funds and own the growing asset. As a leaseholder our lease amount will need to reflect the fact that when the timber is ready for coppicing in – say – 10/15 years time that we’ll be deriving a greater commercial yield from the land and so we’ll likely be paying more back to the pension.

As a business we will also supply land management services back to the pension, maintaining its asset for a fee. This land management could include fixing boundary fencing, creating tracks or clearing ditches. To ensure we’re totally squeaky clean should HMRC investigate us we’ll make sure we have a 3rd party quote to give us a market rate benchmark per job. We will also need to ensure that any billable work that we do doesn’t provide a benefit to the leaseholder – for example a new track to make timber extraction easier – if so then the lease will need to be changed to reflect this new benefit.

One option we’re investigating to make the lease less complicated is to take the majority of the liability for maintaining and improving the asset within the lease but then pay a much lower rent. It’ll depend what the difference is between the two rates whether we go for this option. This is all a work in progress so a decision has not been made yet.

Common Questions

Can I buy woodland with my pension?

Yes. You can buy ‘commercial property’ with the pension, which would include farmland or woodland. You can also buy other asset classes such as stocks and shares. You cannot buy residential property, works of art, wine or antiques.

Can I live on my pension’s land?

No although one workaround that’s probably too unwieldy to bother with might be to have a residence being owned by many pension schemes where yours is only owning a small share of it.

Can my pension borrow money?

Yes! Up to 50% of its value.

What happens if I’ve put more in that other scheme members?

This is all accounted for with an annual valuation. If you put in 75% and the other member puts in 25% then the growth in value and any share of income is attributed accordingly. At retirement you get your share.

You can also continue to pay into the scheme and this will alter your share accordingly.

What happens when I retire?

You can retire from age 55  onwards. At the point of retirement you can take 25% of – your share of – the ‘fund’ as a tax-free lump sum with the rest being taken in a number of different ways far too confusing to mention here.

Importantly the rules have changed that mean you are no longer compelled to the sell the pension’s assets to fund the purchase of an annuity. As we understand it (see disclaimer) if your fund’s assets are illiquid (read: land) then it would not be unreasonable to mortgage the asset to start providing benefits to the members.

Another option would be to have new members to come in and start paying in. Your kids, say. The new members’ contributions could be paying towards the retired members’ benefits.

It’s also worth pointing out that pension rules keep changing and it may be that in the future land investments in a pension become a really attractive option or equally they could become really unattractive. This is one of the serious risks of going off-piste with your investment choice.

Wouldn’t you make more money with index linked investments and compound interest?

Who knows? Possibly. This is the personal choice aspect and it depends whether you’re confident that the business as usual and infinite economic growth paradigm is going to keep on going. We’ve decided that we want a tangible asset and more importantly we want to get utility from that asset now. There is a certain amount of sitting on the fence, though, so we’ll take great care to ensure the scheme does increase in value and if over time it has some spare cash then we may use that for other investments.

I’ve got a really good public sector/final salary (or whatever) pension scheme with excellent prospects, should I switch?

Almost certainly not. But as I say, I’m not providing financial advice so do your own research.

Summary

As a couple we had some money tied up in a few pension pots and we already had a major desire to purchase land. Getting some land with the pension works for us as we’ve still got our savings to put towards a home or building plot near to our land when one becomes available that is within our price range.

We already had the business set-up and a bunch of land based business ideas that will one day hopefully generate enough income to at least pay for the commercial lease.

We are extremely motivated to be good stewards of the land for all of the current residents, flora and fauna alike.

It’s a perfect investment choice for us given our circumstances and world view. We’re delighted that we’ve managed to pull it off.

Mention the name Ben Law to most people and they’ll say “Who?”. However if you follow that up by describing a certain episode of Grand Designs where a woodsman, permaculturist & author who, whilst living in a caravan in the woods, built his own home from timber sourced from his wood and there’s a good chance they’ll know exactly who you mean.

Since his Grand Designs appearance in 2003 Ben has gone on to form his own timber framing construction company and by using a fusion of ancient and contemporary techniques he’s now building similar structures for others including an outdoor classroom for The Sustainability Centre and a shop for his local village.

Ben also runs a few courses a  year on the building techniques and by booking well in advance I was lucky enough to attend a 4 day introduction to round wood timber framing at his home in Sussex recently.

Ben using a scribing tool

Over the 4 days we learned that round wood is up to 30% stronger that sawn wood of the same size and how a properly managed woodland can provide the raw materials for the majority of a house’s structure thus reducing the processing overhead (no need for milling or seasoning, just strip the bark off) and if it is sourced close to the build it keeps the transportation costs low as well as helping to support the local economy in terms of employment.

a partially finished cruck frame

We spent a good deal of time discussing the tools used and some of the more advanced techniques like log scribing where a transfer scribe is used to trace the profile of one log onto another in order to make a close fitting joint.

We quickly rolled our sleeves up, though and for the majority of the time we were busy making 2 cruck frames (A frames) big enough to support a large shed like structure. We laid the ‘poles’ out on a framing bed and spent a while measuring and marking before being let loose with gouges and a huge chisel like thing called a slick which is used to get similar results to a plane but within the joint itself.

On the second evening we got a première of Ben’s new timber framing DVD which we watched in his lounge of his wonderful home. It goes through a lot of the techniques we were learning as well as giving a much deeper background to the full build from laying the foundations, the frame raising day all the way through to putting the roof on and laying the floor.

A finished joint

It was a great 4 days and I left inspired and with the confidence that I could now put these new found skills to use (land and raw materials permitting!). Ben is a really nice down to earth and modest guy who also happens to be good at transferring his knowledge. If you’re even mildly interested in learning more about sustainable building techniques then I’d urge you to take in one of his courses.

Highly recommended.

Simon Fairlie holding a scythe

Learning how to use a scythe has been something on the to do list for a couple of years now, ever since hearing Simon Fairlie enthuse about them at a course I attended that he was leading on low impact smallholding. Unfortunately life and other projects got in the way until during the summer I read a great blog post by Paul Kingsnorth on the very same subject.

Fresh with enthusiasm I quickly found Simon’s site and was pleasantly surprised to see that he’s now making a living by selling scythes and giving courses. I immediately booked myself onto the next course that I could make.

Fast forward to the middle of September and I find myself at a community on the Dorset/Devon borders called Monkton Wyld Court. Simon has his shop here and we spent the next 2 days outside in his small yard learning all about Scything.

Firstly we discussed the sociology and history of scything and how large scale farming in the UK mainly killed the use of the tool whereas in countries where there was still a good degree of smaller scale agriculture, its use prevailed right up to the present day.

There was a lot of detail around the blades (heavy American/English vs. light Austrian) and the importance of having the handle (snathe) correctly set for the operator’s height. Failure to have the correct snathe set-up and the blade at the wrong angles would quickly lead to back ache, frustration and poor mowing.

I arrived at the course fully expecting to be soon hacking away at weeds and things with a sharp blade on the end of a long stick.  What I had not expected is that within minutes of instruction on the actual use of the tool I would be mowing grass, on a neat lawn, at a decent clip down to a level I’m used to with a lawn mower.

Whilst technique is obviously important – and I admit I did dig the blade into said neat lawn on a few occasions – it’s also all about the set-up and the sharpness. Every few minutes we’d stop and pass a stone along the blade to bring the edge back up but even after only an hour or two the stone was starting to have less of an effect. At this point we learned how to ‘Peen’ (cold forge) the blade which is where using a flat hammer struck against the blade on a small anvil we drew the blade back out to a very thin sharp edge. this was quite fiddly and will take some practice out in the field to get right but it was not particularly difficult and we soon has sharp blades again.

Various Austrian scythe blades

An illuminating part of the course was haymaking. Firstly we talked about yield and the merits of rotating between pasture and meadow. We then went through the differences between silage and hay, how labour intensive haymaking can be but that conversely, how it is still possible on a small scale to create enough hay in a few acres to keep 2 dairy cows going through the winter (note these two cows give the community all of their milk and cheese). I was particularely interested in the frame used by Simon to stack the grass on to dry which is so effective that even should it rain – an occurrence that I had though up to then would ruin a harvest – the majority just runs off onto the ground.

Since attending the course I’ve so far managed to mow some of the lawn and made short work of a nettle patch. It’s now obvious to me that with some futher practice I’ll soon be as quick as the lawnmower without the need for any fuel (other than maybe a cheese sandwich) or complex servicing.

If you manage some land and you’re looking at a cheap and simple alternative to a lawnmower or strimmer then I’d highly recommend trying a scythe out. Assuming it’s correctly set-up for you not only will you be saving money but you’ll get fitter in the process.

I’ve not regularly cycled since I left London 4 years ago. There I would commute circa 10 miles a day on my cheapy Raleigh hybrid. Since moving to our current house I tried my new commute once on the aforementioned cheapy Raleigh and it was horrendous. The (big) hill home nearly killed me and I had to stop (collapse) 4 times; I had no intention of doing that journey unassisted again (though I fully admit that over time I probably would build up the strength to handle it OK).

I’d already tried an electric moped – an Elecscoot 1 bought for a bargain second hand – but it didn’t do the steep hills and just ground to a halt pretty quickly. To be fair it’s a tough test for it and if I lived in a city I’m sure it’d be great, but it’s just not cut out for big Welsh hills.

So, I knew I wanted an electric assist and because I’ve a requirement to take it on trains for commuting around London (see test 2) I opted for a Brompton because I’d heard good things about it and as a bonus it is British made.

The Kit

The bike is a Brompton M6R – the M (original style), 6 speed with a Rack – with a ‘factory fit’ conversion by The Electric Wheel company which adds a 25W front wheel motor, a custom twist grip accelerator, lots of (neat) extra wires, a modified front bag carrier and a modified C type (courier) bag which contains the (10Ah) battery.

Test 1: my daily commute

I live in a rural location in Wales on top of a big hill and it’s about 2 miles one-way with a rise (or drop) of ~ 800ft over one of those miles.
To work is easy, it’s mostly downhill. It does feel nice and stable which was initially a concern because I’m easily getting up to 25 MPH on the way down.

It comes into its own on the way home, though. On the flat the motor is only useful when going walking pace and as soon as you’re going a decent clip it makes no difference. Hit a hill however and a twist of the handle means you get an immediate boost. When the going gets really tough it makes the difference – for me at least – between stopping completely and keeping going, albeit with me working very hard.

Therein lies the beauty of the pedal assist in my opinion. I didn’t want a bike that could get me around without peddling. I *want* to pedal for the exercise etc, but it does take the edge off which on a long or hard journey is very welcome.
I’ve been doing the commute for 3 or 4 weeks now and at the end of the first week (combined with a London trip, below) I was feeling more tired than usual but no aches or sore bum.

Test 2: London

I’m helping a renewable energy company with a spin-off start-up of theirs in the metering and billing space. This means I need to be in London a couple of days a week – boo – and even though the tube system is great I like being independent when traveling around.
So, I drive to my local station which is 8 miles away. I’d cycle this too but it’s a single carriageway A road and I’m not comfortable being so close to cars and lorries doing 60+.
Folded up the bike is no bigger than a small suitcase and with the C bag rammed with stuff and my trusty Crumpler messenger bag I’m (just) able to carry everything I need for two evenings away (assuming I have access to an iron at the other end). It’s dead easy to fit the bike on the train in the usual luggage spaces and the two bags stow away up above no problems.

My first trip I was staying near Southgate which allowing for getting a bit lost (thank you Google maps and iPhone GPS) it took me just over an hour to do 9 miles. Mostly up hill (Highgate Hill anyone). I arrived a bit out of puff as I’d pushed it hard but I was certainly not a tired mess.

What is striking when using it in London is how on the lights – especially hill starts – I’m able to pull away faster than everyone, even cars and the hard-core bike courier types. This is really big confidence booster when at the head of a line of traffic you know motorists are urgent to dart in front of you; I’m able to get away safely before they do.
It’s worth pointing out here is that when I started using this bike I decided to do away with my usual lycra gear. It’s more to carry and it’s a big faff to get changed before each journey. So I’m cycling around London in smart-casual – shudder – business attire: smart shoes, smart shirt etc.

The next morning in said attire I did the 12 miles to SE1. I went *really* gently and did the journey in 1hr 15 arriving about as sweaty as if I’d run for the bus. It was a really nice way to start a day (though I’m not convinced I’d want to do it every day).

I think a bike like this is made for the city and it’s a real pleasure to use. The manufacturers recommend that you don’t use it as a ‘twist and go’ but it’s hard not to sometimes especially when at the lights (and yes I do stop).

Some observations after using it for a while

The build quality of both the bike and the after-market electrics is superb. It is all well-made and sturdy.

The folding of a Brompton is as easy as they say. I still fumble it a bit but it’s really no big deal.

The range is reported to be 60 miles. In my first week I did 3 home commutes and a trip to London which in total came to 41 miles though to be fair there was a lot of bill hill cycling and some cheeky twist and go when in London so I think that’s pretty good on one charge. I purposely didn’t charge the battery on the first week and on the last trip home I was still showing two out of the three power indicator lights on the twist grip. Unfortunately the battery gave out on me (luckily at the top of the hill!) on that last day when still showing 2 out of 3 lights. Checking the same set of lights on the battery it was down to one, so definitely low. I now charge the bike more regularly but it’s a bit of a shame that the twist grip indicators are a bit over confident.

I fancy that there is a slight bit of drag from the motor when peddling unassisted. Now this could just be in my head but when going uphill for a long stretch, starting to feel a bit lardy and that I really should be doing a bit more work, taking the assist off really does feel like I’m peddling against something other than just gravity. For the record it’s not noticeable on the flat or downhill.

Weight. It’s fine to carry for a short distance but I have struggled a few times when running between platforms to change trains. I’m going to invest in the ‘B bag’ that costs around a hundred quid. It has a shoulder strap and wheels on the bottom

Don’t expect blistering 0-60 performance the motor is only useful on hills or when stationary. Unless you’re really slow you’ll be peddling faster than the motor pretty quickly

Summary

This is an excellent bike that is perfect for my needs. It is easy to take on transport, the assist on hills is fantastic and it’s great to have an edge when at the lights. It’s a very good city commuting bike and fine on the country lanes. It’s a shame about the rather binary charge indicator and the weight is an issue if it needs to be carried any real distance, but this can be rectified with a proper bag for it.

Recommended.

I had a really great time and I met lots of interesting and friendly people who had all come together to discuss options for – as the website puts it – “a challenging and unpredictable future”.

The place was full of writers so there will undoubtedly be much more eloquent write-ups than I could muster; what follows are just my edited highlights.

The not-marketed-as-such-but-plainly-was keynote was Saturday at 3pm when George Monbiot was interviewed by Dougald Hine as a fireside chat. George reiterated his robust objections to the project’s aims though did thank it for starting a healthy dialogue. I enjoyed the talk which Dougald directed through some pointed and calculated questions though George did seem to be very much on the defensive which was a shame. He also did confirm that, yes, ‘we’ all were the weirdos relative to the mainstream UK population and warned us to not underestimate the global economy’s resilience even when under extreme pressure as it is currently.

Paul Kingsnorth – the other organiser and, as we figured out during the weekend, he and his wife were also fellow attendees at the Low Impact Smallholding course that I went to a year or so back – asserted very eloquently that western society had reached ‘peak comfort’ and that the sustainability/green/environmental movement which has now gone mainstream has been subverted to such an extent that its main focus is now on maintaining our current levels of energy availability and comfort, which is of course unsustainable.

Vinay Gupta gave a no holds barred pitch to us that our lifestyles are such that collapse would leave us ‘living the same as the people that grow our coffee’. He also informed us that we ‘live on a militarised island of prosperity’ gained through years of blatant theft and exploitation.

Alistair McIntosh gave a powerful and deeply moving talk on spirituality. As a card carrying atheist I normally run a mile from anything like this but it was compelling to say the least.

Mark Boyle also known as the moneyless man has been published in may places recently talking about his year or so living without money. He was pimping his new book which he was very keen to stress he would not be receiving a penny for, instead the money would go towards setting up moneyless communities. He was straight-up and clearly passionate about his cause and we had an engaging conversation with him.

Tom Hodgkinson of idler fame, in amongst a literary history lesson, talked (and sang) to us about how we’re taught to love the new and the shiny in order that we feed capitalism with its need for constant growth. He also talked about work-based positive psychology, to quote him from a recent article in the Ecologist:

Positive psychology is the idea that forced cheerfulness can actually make you happy. Happiness is good because happy people make productive and uncomplaining workers. Positive psychology is about being cheerful, outgoing and cooperative in the office. It is not about negative acts such as joining a union or protesting about pay and conditions and exploitation. It is also about loading a gigantic burden onto the shoulders of the individual: be positive, be happy, be successful. Any failure is your fault.

Overall I think his was my favorite talk, I’ll certainly pay more interest to the idler publication in future which comes out each year.

Andy Hamilton author of The Selfsufficientish Bible and founder of SelfSufficientish.com took some of us on an interesting tour of the pavillion area for a some wild food foraging. I learned that daisies are edible so would be a great addition to a salad sprinkled on top, nettles with white flowers are ‘dead nettles’ so don’t sting but can be used for all same uses (wine, cordage, tea) as normal ones. Apparently dock leaves boiled up twice (once for 15 mins to get rid of the toxins) can be used like vine leaves and clover toasted can be used like seaweed in chinese cooking.

Deek Jackson of the FKN News (follow the link and see him stood behind Gordon Brown at the recent general election) gave us a talk about his newly formed political party The Landless Peasants. Deek’s presentation style was rather forthright and he explained to us how we were all economic units crammed into our Gerbil cages (houses) going to work (on the wheel) and having our cages emptied (the binmen). I really enjoyed the talk as his style was rather refreshing however, I still have one issue with his party. As a concept – buying up land for the use of its members – I think it’s cracking however mixing that with politics isn’t for me.

There were other interesting talks. For instance I sat in a small circle discussing practical vs. creative chaired by Viv (who it turns out designed Ben Law’s house) and I was really annoyed to miss Vinay’s discussion on Collapsonomics not mention the countless other breakout sessions or main-hall presentations that I missed because I was chatting with another complete stranger out on the grass.

Oh, not to forget the music! I forget most of the band names but there was the excellent Powerdown gig on Friday by Marmaduke Dando and BBC2′s Folk Singers of the Year 2010 Jon Boyden on the Saturday proved himself to me multi-talented on the guitar, fiddle and accordion as well as being an amazing singer (and evidently songwriter).

Luke Concannon (famous for the JCB Song) did an amazing set on the Friday night. He was practically shaking with enthusiasm almost like an excited little kid and for his first number he was running through the aisles barefoot and serenading some of  us individually. The highlight for me was him inviting his friend, the author Alistair McIntosh, up on stage for an incredibly powerful rendition of a poem they had only performed a few times; it made the hairs stand up on the back on my neck. (London Permaculture snapped a good picture of it here). Luke is so hugely talented and I really look forward to him releasing more material.

It was a really great event that I’m so glad I attended. When I got home Cathie asked me what I’d taken away from it and without a pause I said “we are not alone”.

Thanks to Paul and Dougald for organising it, I look forward to next year.

Related links

The Importance of Being Earnest (a Morning Star review of the Monbiot talk)

London Permaculture’s Flickr stream

Why use green wood?

Well Mike Abbott who is, as you’ll read, the guy that ended up teaching me explains in his article of the Summer 2009 edition of Permaculture Magazine that:

Green wood is wood that has not dried or seasoned. Green woodworkers usually start with a fresh log rather than a dry plank for a host of very good reasons. They can be categorised as follows:

• Enhanced strength and quality.
• Better workability.
• Simpler and faster seasoning.
• Much lower cost.
• Numerous advanteges to society.
• Many environmental advantages.

When we were investigating the purchase of 20 acres of woodland near our current home outside Malvern (which fell through as we were hugely gazumped) and I found a local guy called Mike Abbott who was evidently well respected in Green Woodworking circles – for example his name is mentioned on numerous occasions in my Traditional Woodland Crafts book – offering courses on it I jumped at the chance. Amazingly Cathie agreed that me taking 9 days away from work and family was reasonable so I booked my self onto a combination 3 day introduction leading immediately into a 6 day chair making course.

The Course

Well that was a few months ago and I recently attended the course in Mike’s rented wood and I really enjoyed it and learned a lot about working with green wood.

The first three days I spent making a shaving horse, which is used to grip the wood as it’s being, erm, shaved. You can see me to the left using it with my drawknife.

I also learned how to use a pole lathe (want one!), started to crack the much more difficult than it looks art of cleaving wood with a froe and I was also shown how to use my axe to roughly shape the wood after cleaving and prior to shaving it down on the horse.

It was a pretty full-on three days but an excellent introduction. Of the two other guys doing it with me another also made a shave horse whilst the third guy made a stool and some smaller pieces on the lathe.

Chairmaking

With the intro out of the way I was lucky enough to be able to stay on for a further 6 days to make a ladder back armchair. This article succinctly gives some background to the sort of (locally) traditional chairs that we made:

When they [Mike and his wife Tamsin] moved to Herefordshire together, they delved into the work of a Victorian chairmaker called Phillip Clissett, who made frame chairs such as the spindle-back and ladder-back. They were impressed by his simple yet efficient approach to chairmaking. Like the bodgers of the Chilterns, Clissett also used the shaving-horse and the pole-lathe to produce his chair parts. Unlike the bodgers, he made the whole chair, from buying the logs to selling the finished chairs in the local market.

One of the key features of the chairs is their lack of glue usage. Using a pre-dried tenon jammed into a slightly undersized mortise (there are some subtleties to this) the joints are very solid. So much so that one is able to hook it onto a beam and hang from the peice putting all body weight onto the joint and it not come apart.

The most nerve racking bit was bending the legs which after spending the best part of a day to make I wasn’t particularly keen to snap. I’ve put a video of the process can be seen on youtube.

I really enjoyed the course and got a lot of practical, reusable, experience out of it and I’ve already made a workbench, lump hammer and a maul since getting home.

The course comes highly recommended. For more information see Mike’s green woodworking website, he also has a book Living Wood: From Buying a Woodland to Making a Chair which gives you all the information you need to have a go at home.

p.s. Here’s the finished chair.

It was a very detailed course covering things like planning law, how to choose a plot, what to do when you’ve got it and how to derive an income. All very essential information and delivered by someone with intimate knowledge of the subject in a very relaxed and informal manner. It was also good to hang out for the weekend with other people also looking to do similar things to us.

It was quite frankly superb and my heart has come away urgent for us to move onto our own plot of land and start planting. Head says that having three kids one of whom isn’t one year old yet it’s probably best to wait.

Either way it has become much more of a feasible option now with the biggest challenge being to find somewhere in this country that is even mildly affordable…

If you’re seriously considering setting yourself up with a  smallholding I’d highly recommend this course.