THE SCHOOL FOR SELF SUFFICIENCY GOES ON

I sit here at my desk looking out at the beautiful view of the river Barrow which winds its way around our Killowen smallholding.      I have just answered the telephone for what seems like the umpteenth time.      It was another call from a would-be student wanting to find out whether the John Seymour School for Self Sufficiency is still running courses.     My mind wanders back to the first time I came to Killowen, little realizing then that it would become my future home.

         I first met John Seymour and his partner Angela Ashe back in 1991 at a dinner party in London held by a mutual friend John Papworth.      I was very much looking forward to meeting John as I had heard a lot about him and enjoyed the down to earth wisdom which I had read in his writings.      I soon realized that John and Angela were much more than I had been expecting.      Of course John had a wide knowledge and experience of country life but he was also a very well educated man with a wonderful philosophy with which I was soon enthused.

         I had been brought up in the fifties on a traditional farm owned by my parents in Northumberland.     I often used to feed the horses at the end of their furrows when I was walking home from the village school.       There was great excitement on the farm when we got our first single cylinder diesel tractor, a Fowler, and we had to light a fire underneath before we detonated the 12 bore cartridge that started the great flywheel each morning.     Sure enough as time progressed the farm moved over to more industrial ways and I decided to pursue my interest in the ways of the world by joining the Civil Service and moving to London.

At the end of the evening at John Papworth's, John and Angela asked me if I would like to become a partner at Killowen and help finance their project of setting up a School of Self Sufficiency at their home.    I must admit the discussion stirred up some old feelings - I had retired from the civil service and was looking for a new direction to turn to.     Perhaps this was what I had been looking for!   

So a few months later I found myself astride my old BMW motorbike heading west towards the boat at Fishguard.      I had telephoned Angela to say I would be along to see them by the end of the day.     It was just 9 am in the morning and Angela (who was later to become my wife) says she turned to John and told him that Will Sutherland had said he would be coming that evening but frankly she doubted whether he would make it!       She was very nearly right as I had several missed turns along the narrow irish backroads one of which took me deep into one of the neighbour's manure heaps.       As my heavily laden motorcycle crawled deeper into the black mire I had no alternative but to keep moving - the question was whether the slurry would get deeper still or finally slope up towards dry land!      Fate was on my side or my story might have been very different.     

When I finally arrived at Killowen Angela rustled us up a lovely supper.     A large ham was brought in from the storeroom and generous slices were cut, fresh eggs and mushrooms were fried and served with thick slices of home made brown bread and butter.     It was all washed down with large mugs of home brewed beer which John and I quaffed while sitting in the tiny wood paneled living room which they called the "snug" because it was so small.      We sat late into the night discussing their plans to start the School and I heard more of their story.

John had retired from farming in 1980 when he sold his farm to his children in Wales.     He had got into terrible debt after his divorce from his first wife Sally.     He was unable to buy another home for himself because of his debts but he had heard from a friend that there was a small cottage in Ireland which he could rent for £10 per week.       This sounded perfect to John, here was a rural idyll in which to devote some time to writing.    It was then he asked Angela if she would like to go along with him.      Angela was one of the young students who had been working at the farm.     She had already been doing secretarial work for John and, being Irish, she was deemed an ideal companion.

  They had arrived at Killowen on a dark autumn night to find there was no running water, no electricity and altogether the place was in a most dilapidated state with a leaky roof and a fine rats' nest above the front door!       From the outset Angela insisted that the place was sorted out properly - it was extremely hard work carrying all the water up from the spring down by the river.      Work began immediately on clearing the garden which was a mass of briars, brambles and rocks. Although the rent of £10 per week did not seem much, Angela told John he must get it reduced to £5 which was duly agreed.      At long last a breath of financial good sense had been brought to bear on the Seymour lifestyle.

Before long hard work had turned the cottage into a clean and comfortable home where John was able to concentrate on his writing.      Whilst at Killowen he wrote 15 of his books as well as making a major series of environmental films for the BBC.      These documentaries were broadcast at the very beginning of environmental awareness amongst the public and they took John and Angela all over the world with the BBC film crews.      Later John and Angela would spend 2 years travelling the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland giving talks to promote John's books and ideas.      It was during this time of hard graft on the road that John and Angela realized that just talking about better ways of living was not enough.       What people needed were practical examples of good home and community economies and so the seeds were sown for what was to become the School for Self Sufficiency.

After 10 years of hard work John and Angela had cleared off many of the debts but they were still not in a position to raise enough cash to get a school started.      A proper cowshed would have to be built, a cow purchased and there would need to be more tools and a rotavator.       I was able to give them the financial assistance they needed and I very much enjoyed my occasional visits to help with the project on the ground.    As time went by and John's great strength began to fade with age I was able to give more of my own time to making the project a success.      It was quite amazing how people from all over the world seemed to find out about the school and miraculously make their way to the bottom right hand corner of Ireland.

Eventually I decided to move over to Ireland and Angela and I were married.       From 1993 onwards John, Angela and I worked together running the school.      Unfortunately in the last years of his life John's health deteriorated.     His hard years in Africa, India and fighting in Burma during the second world war had finally caught up with him.     At the age of 90 he died peacefully at his old farm in Wales.     His daughter wanted John to be in Wales with her as it was evident that John did not have much longer to live.

Angela and I were with John on the day he died.     He was to be buried on the farm and that afternoon Angela and I took the ferry back over to Ireland.    We wanted to bring back some soil from the garden where he had worked so hard, a small stone from the house where he had lived for so long and small bottle of water from his beloved river Barrow.    Angela also felt that as an old Celt John should also be buried with some gold about him so she put into his pocket the gold ring which he had once given to her.      And so it was that John was buried along with parts of what had been his life at Killowen and lowered gently into a grave we had dug in the soil of his old farm.     He was wrapped in a beautiful blanket given to him by his youngest daughter Helen.     Our gifts were put into his breast coat pocket along with his famous red and white spotted hankerchief and his Wexford pikeman's silver pin.     It was a very sad and moving occasion.

A month later, Angela and I held a memorial service for John at Duncannon in Ireland.      The church was packed with people; neighbours, friends and people from various environmental groups all turned up to pay their respects.      John had already bought a burial plot in the churchyard and so it was there that we erected a memorial stone for him.

Sadly John is with us no more but his work certainly lives on, not just in his books and writing but also in the continued work of the School which he founded.       The sales of The New Complete Book of Self Sufficiency" which I was able to rewrite with John before he died continue to increase each year.      Indeed so great is its success that Dorling Kindersley are now publishing a special concise version which I have also helped to write; it's aimed at people who live in cities.      Each summer we still run a series of courses which give our students a hands-on opportunity to sample our lifestyle here at Killowen.      The barrel of home brew is still put onto the heated pad every week and the 4 deep freezes are full of wholesome organic produce from the animals and the garden.      Although John is not here himself, his spirit is still imbued in everything we do at Killowen.     So to those of you who wonder whether or not the School still continues I would like to say a resounding "yes, certainly the John Seymour School for Self Sufficiency still goes on!"

Will Sutherland