Life without electric

[Highlander]

We often talk about the effects of the National Grid going down to some EMP event, and how terrible that would be for us all,... but would it?

Life in the city would be hell thats goes without saying, but as preppers we wouldnt get caught out like the rest, and life wouldnt be too bad,... and in a way I know

Up untill I was about 12years old I lived in a house that had no Electric, no generator, no running water,..and to top that we didnt have a car either.

My dad used to work on a farm a couple of miles down the road, he used to cycle to work in the morning with an empty 5 gallon jerry can and a 1 gallon milk can,.. on his way home, he walked, and pushed his bike loaded up with the water and the milk,.... that was our water and milk for the next day.

When we first took over the house from my gran, there was an open fire in the kitchen with two ovens either side,..all food was cooked on this `range`,.. later we went up market and got a rayburn,.. but still that was the only cooking area.... there was always a large kettle with hot water at any time of the day

We didnt have a bathroom, the one and only sink in the house was in the kitchen with water fed from a gavity rainwater tank just outside,.. the toilet was up the garden about 70 yards away
Bath night was a tin bath in front of the fire, we used the rainwater heated on the fire/Rayburn and poured in from a large pan,..one bath a week each on different nights [ I have one brother ]

The `kitchen` didnt have any work surfaces, everything was either done on the Rayburn or the kitchen table, the pantry was just off the kitchen and all food was stored in a very large cupboard, on the `very] cold floor, or hung from large hooks in the ceiling,... I dont remember ever seeing food gone `off`,..it wasnt a big room, and only had one very small window with a fly screen

The Rayburn / fire burnt everything, all the coal dust, and any sawdust from other work was kept in a corner in the coal room,..and when we brought in the coal, we also put half a bucket of coal dust and saw dust in bucket with some water,..at night when we made up the fire, the coal dust/sawdust was squeezed into balls and laid on top, this usualy kept the fire in till morning
........There was an open fire in the front room, but it was very rarely lite, as that room was kept for deaths, births and Christmas

We owned four acres of land, and kept sheep [ about 15 ], chickens, and two pigs, we had a large garden and my dad kept two beehives,.. he was a great gardener, he grew almost everything going,..and would store much of it for the winter, carrots kept in boxes of sand, potatoes on boxes of straw, he grew lots of winter greens too.... the honey was put into jars and sold off a table just outside the gate, we often had a que of cars waiting,.. and we always managed to sell as many as we made up,... always keeping enough for ourselves

We also had a large orchard too,.. with apples, plumbs, damsans,..and one pear tree, the Apples my mum would stew and store in large jars, the rest we gave away or sold,... maybe even swaped as I can remember the basket on the bike being full of them, but cant remember where they went to

So if you are able to prepare well, then life without electric isnt realy as bad as it sounds,.. values were a lot different then,... which was spoilt somewhat when electric arrived,... I still remember the thrill of turning on the telly for the very first time, a little 12inch black and white set, that hummed, and seemed to change our complet way of life