The Smallholder by John Seymour – Book Review.
Background:
This book is part of a three book series entitled ‘The Country Treasury’, published in 1983. The other two books are The Shepherd and The Woodlander. All three were written by John Seymour and illustrated by his wife Sally Seymour. In each of the books Seymour interviews people living traditional country ways of life and work.
In this book Seymour tells the stories of four families who live on smallholdings. He covers how they got started, the challenges they have faced, their everyday routines and how they have managed to turn their passions into viable lifestyles.
It’s a rather small book, 128 A6 pages. It makes for a pleasant quick read. As someone who dreams of living on a smallholding, I always enjoying reading about people who are doing just that. A kind of escapism I suppose. This book didn’t disappoint.
The Lights of Brockweir
The first family interviewed are the Lights of Brockweir. Mr. and Mrs. Light are members of what Seymour refers to as a ‘vanishing breed’ – the rural working-class who managed to acquire a smallholding by working hard and saving their meagre earnings. “Who earned his bread in the sweat of his brow and never dreamed that you could get it any other way”, as Seymour writes.
Mr. Light worked for the Forestry Commission as well as undertaking additional agricultural labouring jobs. Mrs. Light ran their home, produced most of their food and helped with the hard graft in the evenings. Typical evening tasks that they undertook together included sawing wood and transporting heavy goods such as coal and animal feed, which were left for them at the nearest road – half a mile away from their home. They worked hard and saved for 43 years before the opportunity arose to purchase a 35 acre smallholding mortgage free.
The Downeys of Castle Morris
The second family interviewed are the Downeys of Castle Morris in Pembrokeshire. Mr. Downey was a viola player in the Hallé Orchestra until he realised he wasn’t enjoying a fulfilling life. So Mr. and Mrs. Downey, and their two young daughters, sold their house and bought a 15 acre smallholding in Pembrokeshire.
Whilst renovating the house (initially living in just one room whilst working on the others), they built up a traditional cheese making business. With no experience in this field, they read extensively on the subject and started small – initially hand milking a single cow. By the time of the interview five years later, they can’t meet demand and have sent their cheeses as far as the Netherlands.
They lead very busy lives. As well as the cheese making they also open the farm up to the public twice a week and take guests in their home. The two of them do all of the jobs on the farm and in the dairy, but their neighbours lend a hand at busy times, and the Downeys return the favour when needed.
The Downeys also take great pride in the elements of their smallholding that are mostly for their own produce: their vegetable garden, pigs and poultry. John Seymour sings their praises for their level of self-sufficiency. They feed their whey (a by-product from the cheese making) to their pigs, who fertilize the land, which results in the cows giving better milk.
Seymour goes on to say that the Downeys make a better living from their 15 acres than many a 100 acre farmer. He says that if all of Britain were farmed like this then Britain could not only feed itself, but many other people around the world. It would also negate the need for imported artificial fertilizer, stock-feed grain and protein.
The Downeys, Seymour says, are “as self-sufficient as anyone ought to be”. High praise indeed from the man often described as the father or modern self-sufficiency.
The Lockes of Port Ellen
The third family are the Lockes of Port Ellen, on the island of Islay in Scotland. The Lockes first took an interest in self-sufficiency after they started keeping chickens and growing vegetables in the acre of land attached to their Kent home. A goat, sheep and ducks soon followed and they started selling milk and eggs. Soon they were attending courses at an agricultural college and developing a plan to get a farm of their own.
By the time Seymour visits them they have a 16 acre farm on a rocky coastal hillside frequently battered by salt-laden winds. Land on which one might suppose, Seymour says, “nothing useful to man could be nurtured”. But the Lockes are doing a very good job on it. They are running a successful market garden business on an island where the vast majority of food is imported from the mainland.
The Rodways of Welcome Barton
The fourth and final family featured in the book are the Rodways of Welcome Barton. Nick and Pam Rodway live on a seven acre organic smallholding on the Devon-Cornwall border. The land is owned by the poet John Moat and rented by the Yarner Trust. The Rodways run the smallholding on the trust’s behalf. They earn their income by taking on students and teaching them the skills of organic smallholding and self-sufficiency.
The Rodways are very nearly self-sufficient in food. They grow a variety of grains, roots, potatoes and brassicas, as well as raising livestock, and growing most of the livestock feed. Seymour is particularly impressed by the range of legumes they grow, ten varieties in total.
Seymour paints a very idyllic picture of the Rodways’ smallholding. He writes that their dinner table “often resembles a harvest festival”. They approach their farming very traditionally. They use very little machinery to cultivate the land. They harvest and thresh their wheat by hand and use their livestock to fertilise the land.
Conclusion
There are some recurring themes in the stories told in this book. All four families work very hard. But all are very passionate about what they do. It’s their way of life, and they find it a very rewarding one. Teamwork also plays a big part in each family’s success. As Mr. Light is quoted as saying, “the wife and the farmer has got to work together as a team… if we don’t work together it’s useless”.
I quite enjoyed this book. Seymour’s journalistic background largely involved travelling and interviewing people, so it should come as no surprise that he conveys the subjects’ stories very well in this work. He must have been in his element doing a job at which he was so experienced on a topic that he was most enthusiastic about. I also thought that Sally’s illustrations complemented the text beautifully.
Where to find the book
If it is available in your local library I’d certainly suggest you give it a read. Unfortunately this book is out of print. However a used copy can be purchased very cheaply indeed. At the time of writing there are several copies available on Amazon.co.uk for under £3 (including postage and packaging).
If you are interested in buying a copy from Amazon.co.uk we would be grateful you would consider doing so via our affiliate link, which will give us a small commission at no extra cost to you. Our affiliate link for this book on Amazon.co.uk is here:
I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.
Matt