WOOD YOU BELIEVE IT
UK’s most off-grid community is hidden deep in ‘magic’ woods where locals make cider for cash & have NO bills to pay
The family of 14 wanted a simpler life and escape the stresses that money can bring
A FAMILY have sacrificed their two businesses and annual holidays abroad to live off-grid in a woodland community in Somerset.
The Tizards have swapped their five-bedroom home with an indoor loo and washing machine to live in the Tinkers Bubble commune - where they make cider for cash and have no bills to pay.
8
8
Living at the top of a very steep hill, the 14 residents at Tinkers Bubble also grow their own food in the woods and rely on 19th-century technology to survive.
Among 40 acres of woodland near Norton-sub Hamdon, Yeovil, neighbours till the land using horses and a Victorian plough and saw timber using a 1930s steam engine.
The commune is powered by solar powered 12v electricity and they burn wood to cook food and heat their own bathhouse.
Each day, a family member is assigned to be in charge of the kitchen and cook for everyone else.
More on Off-Grid living
A rounded thatched building is the meeting point where everyone at Tinkers Bubble gathers to dine, play and socialise.
Residents pay around £120 per month which covers the commune's costs.
Mum-of-five Kirsty Tizard said she wanted a simpler life for her family and feels she's escaped the stresses that money can bring.
"We were earning enough money to be comfortable. We had holidays once or twice a year, Christmas was always quite affluent," she told .
Most read in The Sun
"But, I don't know, it just felt like we were constantly working in order to earn more.
"We've chosen to remove ourselves from the loop of constantly trying to earn enough money to survive in the world.
"We don't need money here and we have community here."
Kirsty had previously told the BBC she and husband Nick had a very hectic life running their businesses.
The dad said: "Over a long period of time I started feeling fairly guilty about consumption of things, of stuff that we buy constantly that we don't necessarily need.
"Christmases get fairly raucous, we used to buy them lots of presents and I just started to become aware of the wastage that we get from everything that we buy.
Nick and Kirsty's children have taken to the change and have joined the local school.
However, Kirsty said: "We’ve got one daughter who’s a bit of a townie.
"She’s said ‘mummy I can see that this is totally the way for you to live but I want a toilet with walls!'"
The commune, teeming with wildlife, has become a haven for professionals who are alienated by modern society.
Alex, a former civil engineer, told website : “Most of our food is grown or killed by us.
"Our fuel is wood we’ve chopped. It feels empowering, we’re not reliant on shops.”
Alex said that most members were in the late 20s and early 30s, and that life on the commune was physically demanding.
Alex added: "If I look at the crises of modernity, there’s so many aspects, whether it is loneliness, mental health, housing, access to food, climate change – life here provides an answer to a lot of that stuff in one go."
Self-sufficiency first became fashionable in the late 1960s and 1970s, as was strongly associated with Hippy led counter culture movement.
TV show The Good Life , starring Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal, told the story of a middle class couple who embraced self-sufficiency after becoming fed up with the rat race.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
8
8
8
8
8
8
Topics