Was at work this week to meet a new manager who had joined our company. Nice enough guy and I think we will get on well. During the day he was asked to supply some details on his life history for the company newsletter and they also ask new starters to define a single statement that defines them as well as to state a fact that nobody else would know about them.
His single statement was ‘Be prepared’. A bit short for the magazine but one that sounded good. A real boy scout but enquires found he had never been a scout. His fact that nobody else would know was he owned his own smallholding. That got people talking.
However as I enquired I discovered that although he has his own 10 acre smallholding with a few cows, horses, goats, ducks, chickens and some game birds. A 10 acre wood with ponds and lived almost entirely off his own land he did not class himself as a prepper. He was just self sufficient. He moved there four years ago in response to the way the country was going and he thinks it is going to hell in a handbasket. He doesn’t however see the total collapse scenario and not because the government is competent but because he thinks it will collapse slowly and will stop before it hits rock bottom. He lives far enough away from major cities that he doesn’t see any significant risk from hordes visiting and plundering his home. He doesn’t have a large stock of food stores but he probably has enough for a few months not counting what he gets from the smallholding. I suspect his not much is more than most of us.
He also seems to live in a very gun relaxed county as he has several firearms and loves to go out shooting for deer and rabbits at least once, preferably twice, a week. This non prepper is in a much better situation than I am.
As you can imaging we had quite a chat and I’ve been invited down to his place for a night out shooting. Whoo Hoo.
While we were talking about his past in the team meeting I had noticed he worked in a place I had worked near Bath. He had joined just after I had left and enquires discovered that one of my close friends, a long time prepper, was the one that got him looking at moving out of the cities. Small world.
I didn’t tell him about this site as he seemed very dismissive of preppers. Seeing them more in the mould of survivalists who were more interesting in stocking up with firearms, ironically he has more than most of us, and simply preparing to survive in the woods but with no real long term strategy. Interesting talk from a non prepper.
So leaving it that we would arrange something I got on the train home where I called my aforementioned close friend. I told him I had bumped into this guy and what was said and he laughed. He said that the guy was so much like we were but didn’t recognise himself as a prepper as he didn’t see himself making any plans. It was simply a way to save money was how he justified it.
Funnily enough I was contacted by one of my old work colleagues for some advice this week as well. We have discussed prepping in the past and she has helped me with my preps. She was looking at selling up in London due to all the crime and buying a smallholding out West somewhere, I think she meant the Wild West, somewhere like Torquay, the way she was talking. I asked her why and it appears that the family is fed up with the way things are going and fear for the future. They though Cameron was going to fix it and are disappointed with the way things are going. She always looked on the positive side. They want somewhere they can be self sufficient and as she and her hubby can work over the Internet, with occasional expense paid trips, they were looking to move and semi retire. No, not prepping she insisted just time for a move and a well deserved reduction in workload.
Seems there are a lot more of us than we think although the media has done the damage around the label prepper and made it unpalatable to your average person in a similar way they have demonised survivalist and survivalism. So people just do it, they don’t label it to make themselves feel better. Bit like all the tory voters who just denied it in the polls to avoid being tormented by socialists they just put their heads down but voted as they wished.
Perhaps this new group think explains why I have so many lurkers on the sites. If so, good luck to you all.
“Be Prepared” he was having you on he’s obviously a Villa fan
She was looking at selling up in London due to all the crime and buying a smallholding out West somewhere, I think she meant the Wild West, somewhere like Torquay, …
🙂
Tell her not to move to Torquay ,its not the quaint place that it once was, full of palm trees and retiree’s, the palms have all gone “in case they fell on someone” and the retiree’s are all cowering in their homes, the place is full of crime and grime, with drug dealers and junkies all over the place.
not recommended.
Iknow 4 individuals/couples who I would describe as preppers but only one who ascribes to that description , the others are just “taking precaution’s/reducing there dependence….it does seem that prepping/preppers are viewed as a strange bunch.
Lives in a very gun relaxed county ???
Wtf ?
OK. I meant in comparison with other counties in the UK. I appreciate this doesn’t make much of a difference in the scheme of things but every bit counts.