slagg

This one is a little odd, but its one of my secret passions.

It ran for 6 episodes earlier this year and has an accompanying book.

Synopsis:
Essentially 3 experts in varying aspects of victorian life set about living on an old farm in shropshire for a year as people would have done of the age. They live in the victorian house, rear breeds of animals that would have been used in the day and even restore some technology of the period to work the land, etc.

Rating:
8/10

Notes:
I really enjoyed this insight into a more subsistence based lifestyle, it strikes a note about the difference between lives then and now. Today your career is simply an adjunct to your life, there are other ways to survive beside work and most labourial work is fairly unskilled. However back then it wasn't a career it WAS your life, essential skills and knowledge would have been used on a daily basis. Failure resulted in you going hungry or worse. It seems like much harder work, but certainly looks much more fulfilling as you've got a tangible result for a days labour. There's also a vastly increased sense of community as large tasks such as harvest would have required the manual labour of many neighbours to undertake.

I'd love to go back to a simpler, more reward and yes even harder way of life. It also has some good lessons to teach us about how far removed we are from knowing how to live off the land and be self sufficient. Should we ever find ourselves in the PAW, studying and learning the required skills to survive extends simply beyond immediate security and shelter, but into forging a life from the land. In this way the victorians have much to teach us.

25 years ago I read a book in this very vein as part of my O-level English Lit. There was a film adaptation, too. Memory is alas failing me when it comes to the title