A Little Piece of England: A Tale of Self-SufficiencyA Little Piece of England, tells the tale of how the author's family, living in a sliver of countryside in London's commuter belt, came, over some ten years, to make itself, in its 'spare time', self-sufficient in its requirements of milk, meat, eggs, vegetables and some fruit. The book can be read in two ways. One way is for those, particularly urban folk, who are interested in growing their own food or contemplating a life style founded on their own smallholding. In this way, it is a book for those who wonder about the practicalities of living in a self contained, permacultural way and for those who dream of making their own bread or even, perhaps, of eating their own mutton stewed with their own onions and carrots. The other way is for those, perhaps particularly anglophiles in other lands, who are in harmony with the stubborn, Saxon streak which runs strongly in the character and culture of the English. The streak which showed itself when London was fire-bombed night after night in the early 1940s and also when John's self-taught grandfather told his children 'You don't know what you can do until you try to do it'. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
CHAPTER | 17 |
CHAPTER THREE | 31 |
CHAPTER FIVE | 51 |
CHAPTER SEVEN | 67 |
CHAPTER NINE | 86 |
CHAPTER ELEVEN | 110 |
CHAPTER THIRTEEN | 127 |
CHAPTER FIFTEEN | 147 |
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN | 165 |
CHAPTER NINETEEN | 185 |
CHAPTER TWENTY | 201 |
Afterword | 221 |
Common terms and phrases
Andy Angus and Ogilvy animals arrived auctioneer autumn Bagpipes bales beef birds Bossy bought Bramble breeding bucket building bullocks Burmese cats calf calves Chance chicken colour Dartmoor eggs ewes eyes farm farmers fence Fleur flock foxes friends Frog garden gate goats going grass head heifers hens horns horses Jacob sheep Jersey Julia jumped keep knew lambs land lived look Mark meat milk millimetres Moon and Sixpence morning Neptune nest never nice night Orion paddock pair Patsy pony Pyrenean Mountain dog Q’s field ridge Rodney roe deer round Saanen goats Seamus Shadow sheds side Sixpence soon Splash Splashdown spring stable started Sue’s tail things Tictac Tiger Lily Tippy told Tony and Diana took trailer vegetable village watched weather weeks wellington boots winter woods young