BP's Scenario.

[bigpaul]

Scenario: "Last Man Standing ??" The year was 2015, not that dates or months or even time mattered any more. Since the collapse of the European Union and the financial crash that followed, when millions of people were made redundant and unemployable, factories and shops were closed for the last time and their windows and doors were boarded up. Next came the riots, muggings and arson as desperate city folk fought for anything "not nailed down". Gas and Oil were no longer available as the supply of gas from Russia has simply been turned off, and the oil from the OPEC oil producing nations has stopped, as Britain could no longer afford to pay the escalating prices. Electricity supplies spluttered and died as one by one the Power Stations ground to a halt. Many people died then, if they hadn't already in the riots and the fires,in the worst Winter Britain had endured in decades, the old, the infirm and the very young expired in their millions, by the time Spring arrived the population of the entire country was but a tenth of what it had been........................ The Man awoke with a start, blinking in the grey light of dawn, he realised that the noise he had heard was his dog, Judy, the Airedale, stretching "Saluting the sun" he called it, Judy jumped up on the bed- as if to say " come on, Dad, time to get up!" He threw back the covers and got out of bed, walked across the room and pulled back the Blackout curtains and looked out of the window at the Devon countryside. The one bedroomed(originally 2 bedrooms until someone had taken out the partition wall a long time ago) Holiday cottage had started life as an 18TH Century Hay Barn or Calf Shed. It was owned by an Asian business man who lived in Birmingham but who had disappeared during the riots and arson in that city, and was assumed to be "missing-presumed dead". The cottage stood in a clearing on the edge of woodland looking over a "Pony Paddock" of about half an acre, the track-it could never be classed as a road-lead from the very minor, unclassified, county road through the wood to the front door. It was now about 3 years since TSHTF and the man was very happy with his life at the cottage. He had been forced to leave his Council flat in the market town as the rioting got closer and closer, "Bugging out" it was called in "Prepper" circles as British Survivalists were called. He had headed North East into the hinterland of North Devon, first by car and then on foot once the main roads became blocked by abandoned vehicles. He knew exactly where he was going, as he had searched the area previously and had found the cottage,empty, he had marked it on his "bug out" map for use in such an emergency. Once he had moved in and had scouted the local area around the cottage and had found no one else-which was not surprising as it was SO remote-even in the good times-to say the least, which is why he had picked it, he wanted to be as far from "Civilisation" as possible. As the time passed, he cut and stacked logs-the cottage had a small wood stove made out of an old gas cylinder, repaired hedges and fences and dug out ditches. He "pursuaded" 6 sheep that he found in a deserted barn to move into his paddock, he would try and find a Ram one day so he could start his own breeding flock, snares were laid and "deadfalls" were built to catch rabbits and squirrels, pheasants were everywhere as there was no longer any "country set" to pay thousands of pounds a day to shoot them. He often went to the nearest high ground, a few fields away, and used his field glasses to scan the far distance, but he never saw anyone, he guessed most people had gone to the "Rescue Centres"-like he was supposed to have done-to be fed by the "powers that be"(who ever that was these days?) and probably they were still there now. The man wondered some days, but not very often, if "society" would recover and if Britain would ever be "Great" again, but as he was a "Loner" (alone but never lonely) he really wasn't bothered, and was content to live as he was, and as his ancestors had lived, for the rest of his life-come what may........................................Written by bigpaul, November 2011.