A Little Piece of England

Book excerpt: A Little Piece of England, tells the tale of how the author's family, living in a sliver of countryside in London's commuter belt, came, over some ten years, to make itself, in its 'spare time', self-sufficient in its requirements of milk, meat, eggs, vegetables and some fruit. The book can be read in two ways. One way is for those, particularly urban folk, who are interested in growing their own food or contemplating a life style founded on their own smallholding. In this way, it is a book for those who wonder about the practicalities of living in a self contained, permacultural way and for those who dream of making their own bread or even, perhaps, of eating their own mutton stewed with their own onions and carrots. The other way is for those, perhaps particularly anglophiles in other lands, who are in harmony with the stubborn, Saxon streak which runs strongly in the character and culture of the English. The streak which showed itself when London was fire-bombed night after night in the early 1940s and also when John's self-taught grandfather told his children 'You don't know what you can do until you try to do it'.