Woodsman

by Ben Law

  The timber is transported to the power station by horse. There are twelve village horses – four are Ardennes, and the rest are cobs of one cross or another. These are all working horses, owned by the parish for work on the land and in the woodlands. They are ridden for pleasure on occasion, but time for such luxuries is rare. After the oil crisis, most horses were eaten, and only those with the ability to work survived. Allowing for lameness or pregnancy, twelve horses seems to be about the right number for the village. There are nearly always at least two working at the power station, and a couple in the woods and on the land, leaving six for private activities amongst parishioners, the moving of re-settlers, weddings, funerals and deliveries. Their main grazing is up at Vinings, close to the power station and out of the main growing area to the east of the village.

  I emerge up at Vinings and look across to the South Downs. So much is unchanged from the time before the oil crisis. It is certainly quieter, with the lack of motor cars and air traffic. The roads are almost empty, save for a few electrical cars belonging to doctors and peacekeepers, and the hydrogen buses that form the basis of the main transport link across the country. Bicycles are abundant again and the waterways are seeing active service. Many of the old canal routes have been re-opened, and all large industrial works are based around the river network. Steam power has had a small renaissance and is in use once again on the railways, proving to be more reliable than the remaining electric trains. The country’s nuclear power stations are still producing energy, although a couple of reactors are being shut down, so the supply is irregular and when demand is high in the winter, long power cuts across the country are common.

  My route takes me past the village hall and the school we built back in 2017. The school has 108 children and they work on the new curriculum. Half of their time in school is spent learning English, maths, science, history and computer programming, and the other half working on projects for the parish. Land-based skills are nationally recognised as essential, and survival beyond school without sufficient skills to work on the land will soon prove impossible. I teach at the school one afternoon a week – coppicing and craft skills during the winter, and roundwood timber-frame construction in the summer. The school is a roundwood timber-framed building, so the children see the structure and the jointing techniques every day. Practical sessions are always developed around creating something that is needed within the parish community, and we have been building a new caravan for the re-settlement area over the summer.

  When children leave school they do two years’ community service between the ages of 15 and 17. This involves parish maintenance of roads, tracks and buildings, and work in the fields, the power station and wherever there is need for labour at that time. Every resident of Lodsworth, whether long-term or from the re-settlement area, must work in community service one week out of every four. This ensures that everyone contributes to meeting the parish’s needs, and that seasonal tasks requiring extra labour are easily met. As most work tasks are shared, there is a strong sense of working together, and the village has developed a fine range of songs that are often heard on the wind when particular tasks are being carried out. Most work has a community benefit, but entrepreneurism is not discouraged, and although it is possible to build up individual wealth through trading and hard work, few people want to be seen to be doing that. The problems caused by bankers are still fresh and raw in most people’s minds.

  I pass the gnarled and twisted chestnuts, and head down the drive to Lodsworth House. It is bustling with activity, and I join in with the sorting and stacking of apples. Lodsworth House has become the main apple store and root cellar. The village has acres of orchards and, although much is made into its now famous cider and traded with other villages, a large number of apples are stored for winter and spring consumption. The house looks unchanged from the exterior, but the wire, rat-proof cages and the parish administrative offices inside the building betray its change in function. Only the offices have any form of heating; the rest of the building is kept naturally cool to help the preservation of the stored fruit and vegetables. Inside Lodsworth House, the smell of apples is pervasive, and the cages, with their trays of apples marked with varieties and dates, look well organised. Our food organisation has really improved over the last few years. Necessity dictates good work. The cider store is fairly empty, but pressing will begin in earnest over the next few weeks. Most of the poorer-quality village apples that will not store are graded out for cider, although some are reserved for apple juice. This mixed cider is called ‘Lodsworth Standard’, now a well-known drink across Sussex. The better-quality reserve cider is made from the orchards of single-variety cider apples such as ‘Kingston Black’, ‘Crimson King’, ‘Harry Masters Jersey’ and ‘Yarlington Mill’. These are carefully looked after and brought out for celebratory occasions, of which there are a growing number.

  With its return to being a more land-based community, Lodsworth celebrates the traditional seasonal festivals. The solstices and equinoxes are turning points in the day/light calendar that have become increasingly relevant when working on the land, and the marking of these occasions is well attended by the majority of the parish. Dancing and traditional Sussex songs have returned, as well as a number of good musicians who come together to form makeshift bands for these occasions.

  Back in Lodsworth House, I head up to the parish administrative offices and register the number of boxes and varieties of apples harvested on my holding. I have arranged to take ‘Haspen’, a sturdy cob, together with his cart to collect the apples the following morning and transport them to the store. From the house I continue south, to the Langham Brewery. The brewery is a real asset to the village. Locally grown hops and barley have meant some recipes have had to change, but the quality of beer is recognised across the county and beyond. The brewery produces some fine pork from the Tamworth pigs living in the fields behind the brewery building that benefit from the spent grain from the brewery and the apple pulp from the cider pressings, which take place outside the Hollist Arms pub. The barrels are taken by horse-drawn dray along the roads for local deliveries, or taken down to Selham Quay, where the nimble barges head down the Rother to the Arun and beyond.

  The bakery has expanded at Langham’s stables and is now a bustling enterprise, ensuring the village is supplied daily with fresh bread. Seasonal recipes have developed and the abundance of walnuts makes a fine walnut bread, while in early spring the wild garlic ciabattas are eagerly anticipated. I stop for a pint at the brewery whilst discussing the number of chestnut poles that need to be cut this winter for the expansion of the hop gardens. I walk back up the main track to the village and pass the ever-bustling Hollist Arms. The pub – as well as the shop – is now owned and run by the parish, and this arrangement, which occurred with the community purchase prior to the oil crisis, has ensured the pub/shop combination is the focal point of village life. Much trading, discussion, banter, words of wisdom and utter rubbish are discussed, as would be expected in any good pub. The Hollist Arms has a wonderful history for me. I look back fondly to the days when Nick Kennard would leave a kitchen fork in the gutter by the back door and I would poke it through the keyhole, lift the latch, let myself in, help myself to a pint or two and settle up when he returned. Today, with the disappearance of the motor car, the use of the pub has greatly increased and a lunchtime pint is probably as popular as it was in the 1950s. I decline today, having already had a pint at the brewery, and go straight to the shop. Lodsworth Larder is a thriving hub of exchange and, since we expanded it in 2015, has become a trading post, not just for the supply of food and a wide range of domestic products, but acting as a go-between in sourcing some of the community’s more unusual requests. Since the breakdown of the country’s postal services, most unusual items are sourced on the Internet and delivered by an often slow and laborious route to a central drop-off point. In the case of Lodsworth, this is Lodsworth Larder. There is never a guarantee of delivery time, or in fact whethe
r the item will be delivered at all.

  Since the oil crisis, in Lodsworth we have been fortunate, as we had set up much of the infrastructure to deal with this moment. The localized power station, the vast orchards of fruit and nut trees we had planted and the established vegetable production to the north-east of the village put us in good shape; we were seen as a good example and chosen as a resettlement village for this reason. Seventeen years have since passed and although many aspects of life are as they once were, and in my mind better for the loss of the motor car and reliance on more local resources, there is still a cautious, unknown, uncertainty about the future. This may well diminish as those who were born since the oil crisis begin to take over the working of the land. Lodsworth is now a thriving village of over 1800 residents, and as a resettlement village it has a rural medical outpost to deal with the majority of medical needs. The rural medical outpost has one emergency electric ambulance for Lodsworth and surrounding villages.

  I take the path through the cobnut platt and continue along the edge of the Lod and then climb towards Leggatt Hill. Through the vegetable gardens, I pass by hedgerows being foraged for blackberries and haws ready to make jams and wine. The richness of our hedgerows and wild food is being appreciated once again and children are growing up learning to forage and work the land. Maybe the oil crisis was a turning point, a reminder of what happens when you lose your connection with the land and where you come from and neglect to look after the needs of the next generation.

  I turn for home, across Lodsworth Common and up the familiar track to Prickly Nut Wood. I look up at the old oak, a beacon of calm throughout centuries of human struggles. I sit beneath the tree and look out across the coppice. The smoke from the outdoor kitchen fire drifts across and I pick up the sound of laughter from those around the fire. I hear a stag bark in the distance, and I smile from deep within. ‘I know this place. I belong.’

  Postscript

  This book is not meant to give answers to our environmental crisis and in particular the question of human survival on our planet. The answers to these uncertainties are incredibly complex, and human beings might only survive after disease or disaster has considerably reduced our numbers, forcing us to rethink our position as a species on this planet.

  What I hope the journey I have shared will do is show that by acting now in a way that is responsible towards our resources, we are leaving our children with some hope as they grapple with the problems over resources that are awaiting them. Living in a world so dependent upon one main resource – oil – means that as it runs out, life as we currently know it will dramatically change. The greater the number of sustainable systems that are in place when it does run out, the easier the transition into a post-oil world will be. To me, it is easy to imagine rural settings in a post-oil economy, as it is those that I have the most direct contact and familiarity with. I do not doubt, however, that the urban situation will be the most challenging, and there will no doubt be overlapping migration in each direction.

  If I take my own village of Lodsworth, there is clear evidence it has made some good steps towards being prepared for the challenges that lie ahead. The construction and opening of Lodsworth Larder, the community village shop, has created a trading point, an outlet and a local focal point for village life. The village pub next door keeps the supply of food and wines closely contained within the village. The opening of Lodsworth Larder as a retail outlet has both helped and encouraged local businesses to thrive. The village has its own brewery, the Langham Brewery, producing a fine range of beers, and acres of new vineyards have been planted on the southern slopes of the parish and are beginning to produce some excellent wines. A village baker produces a range of quality breads to supply to the shop, and fresh seasonal vegetables are supplied by a local grower, now looking to establish the vegetable-growing business in the centre of Lodsworth. All of these businesses have sprung up over the past few years and the community village shop has been the catalyst. Add to this my work in the surrounding woods, together with the type of infrastructure that will need to be in place post-oil, and our planning is already underway.

  What is happening is that the local infrastructure of supplies of food and resources is already beginning to be put in place. This model can be expanded upon and reproduced all around the country to create healthy, vibrant communities that are taking responsibility to ensure a better way of life both now and for future generations. Lodsworth could be further improved by considering the feasibility of a small community wood-fired power station. Lodsworth is surrounded by woodland and could easily become self-sufficient in fuel. Its surrounding fields could be better utilised by turning some in to orchards and by producing more food. All of this goes against the trend of the large multi-national supermarkets that worm their way into small communities, extracting the hard-earned cash and resources from these communities which then disappears into the pockets of shareholders living in other parts of the world. Lodsworth Larder was set up as an industrial provident society, with the profits being returned to improving the infrastructure and needs of the village community. In other words, spend your money in your local shop and the profits will improve the environment in which you are living.

  Town and country planners could do with enlisting the input of permaculture designers when they draw up local plans. Administrative boundaries are likely to become less important in a post-oil world, in which resource boundaries and river catchments should dictate development where necessary. New settlements can be built to help house our burgeoning population, but design needs to be led by available resources and future resource needs, not by how much space is needed to park large numbers of motor cars.

  Our aim, wherever we live over the next few years, must be to build up the necessary infrastructure and resource base to enable us to be in the best possible position to deal with the changes post-oil society will bring. The work of the Transition Towns Movement is attempting to implement such plans and strategies at local level, and is a good place to start the process. It is easy to feel very isolated as the juggernaut of oil-based economic development powers forward, seemingly unaware of the critical position of its fuel gauge. But every change, however small, in putting in place strategies for our future will make such a difference when that time comes.

  One action that most of us as individuals can take, whether in the country or the city, is to plant a fruit or nut tree and tend it, so that it will produce well for the next generation. Every person who undertakes this simple yet satisfying act will be greatly improving this environment and ensuring the necessary extra supply of perennial food is underway. Others in groups might target their councils. Together they can work towards the introduction of edible varieties of street trees, the transformation of wasteland into productive land, the harvesting of domestic rainwater, and the generation of local markets for local produce, to name but a few. Putting positive solutions for future generations in place is an empowering way to survive the challenging times ahead.

  Once we start on the positive route of thinking for the needs of the next generation, our decisions become more balanced, more long-term and more sustainable. Implementing such strategies should be at the forefront of decision-making. Our democratically elected governments are trapped within short-term, five-year plans. Unable to look ahead to the next generation, they are constantly locked in a cycle of trying to get re-elected, often blinded to the future of our country and its needs. A reformed House of Lords might become the house for the next generation, a house that proposes and puts in place policies that move forward to be implemented, no matter which political party is in place in the Commons or for how long they govern. These universal policies could help us to put in place the necessary infrastructure to cope with the huge changes that the end of the oil-based economy will bring.

  And throughout all the changes and upheaval, the chestnut coppice keeps growing; the woods, static in their rooted certainty, continue to put on growth, preparing to supply both us and
the following generation.

  Tree Cycles

  When I first felled you

  I was a young man,

  Eagerly I watched you crash to the ground

  I only glanced at the hidden rings

  No other had seen

  I now stare at in middle age.

  How many have you warmed through winter’s cold

  How many houses hold your limbs

  Holding up roofs for those who never knew you

  How many cattle have you penned within the field

  How many have eaten from your table and sat upon your chair?

  Next time I fell you will be my last

  Not yours, you will see many others, young and headstrong

  Middle aged and reflective, old and frail

  All taking what you so freely give.

  Ben Law (first published in The Woodland Year, 2008)

  Glossary

  Bender: temporary home or shelter made from hazel branches and canvas covering

  Binders: twisted binding between stakes on a laid hedge, usually hazel – also called ‘etherings’

  Brash: small branches from side and top of tree

  Cant: a defined area of coppice, also regionally referred to as a ‘panel’

  Cleave: to split un-sawn timber by forcing the fibres apart along its length

  Coppice: broadleaf trees cut during the dormant season producing continuous multi-stems that are harvested for wood products