Documentary about man living self sufficiently - Leeds festival

[Tarrel]

(6 November 2012, 09:45)NorthernRaider Wrote: Tarrel do you think what you and many other inteligent Brits are trying to do in real terms, is adapt to a" modernised" version of the semi self sufficient lifestyle most of eastern Europe has lived with since 1900 ish, Mainly once you get out of modern western Europe into places like Serbia, Czech republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland Ukraine and central France most non city dwellers have continued to live in smallholding with their own livestock, wells, wood burners etc. They live a livestyle not much changed since the 1800 just with cars, cell phones, internet, modern medicines etc, something we " Modern" western europeans frowned upon for the last 60 years.

Hey NR, I guess you rumbled me! I never really thought about it before, but my Dad's from Poland. He's been here since the war. He had a pretty tough teenage upbringing; taken by the Russians into a gulag at age 14, in lieu of his older brother (a serving army officer). Put to work on the trans-arctic railway construction. Lied about his age and managed to join the Polish army-under-Russian-command as a way out.

He always told me stories of how hard it was to get by during the years leading up to the conflict and, obviously, as a prisoner. Basically a life of barter, improvisation, black economy, swapping home-made booze for shoes, etc. In 1968 he took me to Poland and I met my family for the first time. Bear in mind this was at the time when Poland was still very much behind the iron curtain. NR is right; very much a "make do and mend" culture - a legacy of the past I guess. We were last there in 2004, just before they entered the EU. The attitudes still prevailed. I got to know a cousin very well, who I had not met previously. He was one of the new breed of entrepreneurs, running a steel stockholding business, but still had all the underlying mindset (and skills). They owned an area of woodland which provided them with firewood and mushrooms for pickling. He also shoots deer there, and is a good fisherman.

My Dad was brought up in the Ukraine, which was Polish occupied territory before the war. He tells a great story about his Grandfather, who was a resistance fighter against the advancing Russians. (Maybe it was his Father; I'm not too certain about the history around that time). Anyway, apparently he got caught out in the middle of nowhere in a major snowstorm. He was taken in by an elderly woman living alone. She fed him a stew to warm him up. He found it delicious and asked what was in it. Apparently, she'd made it from a whole load of mice she'd caught in her barn! Tough times...