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Self-Sufficiency in Style 

Running for Cover

Terrorism, in itself, will not cause people to desert the towns for rural safety, but...

Whilst we can be sure that people will not run away from their cities to escape terrorism, there is little doubt that the disruption does make a rural self sufficient life seem more desirable. 

One of the causes of the writer partially turning his back on modern society stems from an act of terrorism many years ago.

We need to go back to the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

But this was the notorious 1972 Olympics when Israeli athletes were first taken hostage and then killed.

Munich was a sad city.

We left by rail to go north and travelled alongside the infamous Iron Curtain - a profoundly depressing sight.

Munich - A sad Oktoberfest in '72

Powerless

The Arab oil embargo produced chaos with shortages in the shops. For a time, salt, bread and lavatory rolls were almost unobtainable. Candles had become an unavailable essential.

The electricity supply became erratic and eventually the country was working a three day week to conserve power.

The people were determined to overcome the problems, but the experience was frustrating and unpleasant.

It was a journey of just about a hundred miles, crossing the Thames by tunnel below London - a couple of hours each way by motor car.

But there was a problem.

A Taxi for the Children

We decided to go by railway. The route was south to London and then out again to North Kent.

It was necessary to break the journey in London, to cross the river and catch the Kent train; a routine crossing of the City and the Thames and easy to walk by the famous London Bridge. We had made the journey many times as both Mrs P and myself had worked in England's equivalent of Manhattan some years before.

But having the children, and the armfuls of presents to get back home, we decided to cross the City by taxi.

We left quite late, reached London and crossed the Thames by taxi.

As we approached the mainline station on the north bank, the traffic thickened and came to a halt. Police and fire engines were everywhere. The driver's radio began to crackle.

Within a few minutes, it became clear that we were driving into a major bomb alert.

The police began closing roads all around. We tried to turn back, but were trapped by traffic outside the Bank of England.

Eventually, we managed to escape, but back the way we had come, across the river and south again.

After a hurried consultation, with anxious children picking up the tension through the sound of sirens, we decided to return to the grandparents.

The "Old Lady of Threadneedle Street"
- The Bank of England

We crossed the damp winter river downstream of the capital by little passenger ferry intending to get a train from the northern side. Children in hand and laden with Christmas wrapped presents, we found that the trains were not running. Yet another bomb scare!

So we caught a bus, and another, and yet another, crossing the country by routes not normally used. Then three trains, before a sad bedraggled group of travellers arrived home in the dead of night to a cold electricity less house.

Distraught and equally exhausted parents trying to get them to bed by candlelight.

The bomb scares were hoaxes, of course.

The product of sick minds determined that their cause and their views should disturb the Christmas sleep of small children.

You can return to The Effects of Terrorism. ponder Self-Sufficiency v Survivalism, take a look at planning for emergencies in When the lights go out, or read more about the Writer and his sometimes hectic life.

The milking, the wood-fired heating, the gardening, the plucking, the butter-making, the feeding of sheep and the thousand and one other jobs; some pleasant and some plain dirty and boring."

The answer is "Of course, but we would not have it any other way."

We are not running from anything. We choose not to make ourselves so vulnerable.

...masters of more of our own destiny

at the remote Hangman's Cottage, just to the south of Misery Corner.