Sunday 15th August, the BBC broadcast the first in their new series, called Secret Britain.
Here is the clip. If you’d like to hear more about the filming, and the things left out, please press READ MORE.
The songs sung were: My Son John, Harvest Song, and Sorrows Away.The first 2 are available on the CD album, and the second may be on our next album (more said soon).
This is where Ginger shows us how to make a three-legged stool, with all speed and ease. With the then weather warming, this stool kept us out the mud, and prompted a spate of replicas to be knocked out.
Thank-you Ginger.
Tools required, are:
a saw (chain or cross-cut) to cut the seat from a log.
A bar-auger (and sharpening file) to put in the angled holes.
A splitting axe (and comedy mallet) to split the legs.
A sharper axe (and chopping block) to make the legs fit the seat.
Hopper had already taught us the rudimentary techniques of hurdle-making (CLICK HERE), and in this video he shows us how to split hazel rods.
As well as the practical techniques of splitting, Hopper also shows how to measure the height of a tree, with a stick. Interested?
There’s also an interesting discussion, on recycling, universities, and Martians. And there is a very blunt billhook, the inadequacy of which led Hopper to loan us a nice sharp replacement.
The video might take a short while to buffer, but please be patient. Hopper is worth the wait…
This is a first attempt at video editing by Will, who is neither skilled nor trained in the art.
It is a series of clips from our first days in the woods last November, when we trolleyed in all the canvas, hand-tools and books that we felt necessary.
The track soon bogged up thickly. And once we’d done the many runs each, to bring in all the bits, we found a shortcut through a sheep field that would have saved us hours.
The film also shows the first part of building the A-frame, which was our immediate shelter while the main house went up.
And the fiddle tune was recorded by a doctor in a stone circle in Cornwall, on an earlier walk. It is a Breton tune, called (trans.) “the jumping chicken”.
This is a short video of one morning’s immedaite view, on waking.
We’d like to make a 10 second film every morning, on our next walk.
This video starts with a misunderstanding, and ends when the unintentional filming was stopped by the attempted photo-taking.
The tower is called Paxton’s, and we were sent here from Llandeiloes, where we should have stayed longer, but were fairly dragged to the end of our journey, we believe to preserve (in some measure) our health and sanity, which were beginning to shake for various reasons.
The night before had been spent in tipi valley. a long-running and beautiful Welsh community. Very few tipis still stood, and we soon learned why. What is good for the often dry and open American plains, with uninterrupted winds, is not so good in a blustery oft-damp valley. The winds blow from all directions, and if you want a fire, the rain gets in. We ended up having to string up tarps within the tipi.
So the next night, we followed directions to here, Paxton Tower in Carmarthenshire. Good land. We were told there was a stone fire-place we could cook on, but it has been bricked up since our advisor last came hear.
Anyway, this is Summer is full in, we are accompanied by Rose, and have not yet met Holly puppy.
We are glad to have met and sung with the Scout movement. They are curious souls, eager to learn and improve their interactions with nature.
The songs they sing are, however, strange and slightly fearsome, but so it goes.
They told us stories of how their boyfriends had dumped them for taller blondes…and these were girls of 9 years old. It was an education to learn where youngsters are these days, and truth be told, they are just where we are.
