… April 2024
and thank you for visiting our website, which is all about putting the planet first.
For us that translates as living as simply and lightly as possible. Being compassionate to other species. Not spending money just because we can. Accepting that culture and nationalism are the enemy. And if we want to avoid imminent extinction, stop being so human-centric and selfish.
It’s also a record of our personal journey over the last 40+ years. The experiences, good and bad, as well as lessons learnt.
Like:
How to believe in what you already know, innately, instead of getting sucked in by popular culture, the media, quick-fix faiths and isms.
How to avoid the need for a huge income or even a job.
Taking back responsibility for your own health.
And making & growing as much food for yourself as possible.
This is written especially for those with an interest in escaping the current economy-driven culture. Who want to live in a van/ off-grid/ frugally/ not have kids/ be vegetarian & vegan/ use alternative medicine/ or acquire survivalism skills. Because despite the recent upsurge in all these planet-positive ways of living, this path is still not the easiest one to choose, especially when the majority still think by taking it you’re either stark raving mad or downright evil. This website was created to let you know you are not alone.
Starting with a bit of backstory…
Until October 2013, we were Maureen (click here to visit her website) and Phil Rooksby.
Both originally from South London, where in the late 1970s we met at teacher training college. A choice made after both of us failed to get in at art college and feared without qualifications we’d be stuck in low-paid/ boring jobs for the rest of our miserable lives. The long holidays were also a draw, as well as the opportunity to indulge/ satisfy our developing creative appetites. However, by the end of the course we thought very differently. Instead of wasting our lives pointlessly we found ourselves working in the extremely alternative/ radical/ often weird/ and always exciting world of community arts. Which swept us up, kept us sane and solvent for the next 20 years, and allowed us to be present at some of the coolest moments in history. First in the the grittiest parts of London, then Milton Keynes during its heyday, followed by living in the wilderness of the North Yorkshire Moors. During which we not only witnessed the re-birth of Leeds, became part of that change. Maureen blazing a trail the length and breadth of the UK and USA as the first Associate Director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse, now rebranded as the Leeds Playhouse.
While all this was happening we were also gradually becoming aware that life on this planet was on the verge of imminent extinction, thanks to an exponential growth in population and a similar rise in how much they each had to spend. So much so that aged 25 I decided to have a vasectomy. By 1985 we’d become vegetarians. In 1991 I gave up working (for money) altogether, and we got rid of the tv and radio, stopped buying newspapers, and started learning how to become self-sufficient. Finally, in 2000 Maureen stopped working as well. By then we were 44 and 43.
Our next step was to sell the house, along with everything in it, and downsize into an old van. Where we quickly learnt how to live by our wits while searching for a place where we could put down roots and live without compromising our new principles.
The story of all this, what turned out to an epic nine-year journey, is best left for Maureen to describe, in her book: TREAD SOFTLY BECAUSE YOU TREAD ON MY DREAMS.
In the spirit of this website (that all information should be free), there is a download of this book, as a pdf (to read on a smartphone or ipad). To get that simply click here to start the download.
Or, if you would like to own a real paperback copy, either for yourself or to give as a gift to friends or your local library, then they are available through Amazon (yes I know, but we are still searching for a real publisher), anywhere in the world. Either type in M L ROOKSBY into the Amazon Search bar, or if you shop at the UK online store you can use this quick link here.
Please also ask your local library to stock a copy. J K Rowling did this with her first Harry Potter book, and everyone knows what happened after that.
Her book truly is a joy to read, and beautifully illustrated (by her). Aimed at anyone who loves cats, growing things, is thinking of living in a van, enjoys travelling off-the-beaten track, or dreams about building their own off-grid sustainable home. Certainly deserving of a place on your bookshelf alongside those other classics like Chris Stewart’s DRIVING OVER LEMONS, Annie Hawes’s EXTRA VIRGIN, and Thomas Firbank’s I BOUGHT A MOUNTAIN.
Also highly recommended are her blogs, which are now available in a single book entitled MUSINGS ON A MORE SIMPLE LIFE, available free (as a pdf download), simply by clicking here.
During those nine years we explored NW Spain/ Portugal/ and a tiny island in British Columbia (Canada). Finally ending up in the Sierra de Aracena, a region of Andalucia (SW Spain) where we came across what we’d been looking for. An enchanting finca (rural smallholding) called El Pocito, 3km from Almonaster la Real. The only place that fitted most of our criteria:
– somewhere we could live without debt. No mortgage/ rent/ utility bills/ or any other charge on our time, plus all the natural resources not only to build a home but provide our food/ fuel/ other building materials/ electricity/ medicine/ even earn cash when necessary.
– our own water supply. We had hoped to find land with its own spring, but that proved so difficult our search widened to include wells, as long as the water was as natural/ unpolluted/ and plentiful as possible. We would also harvest rainfall (at least one metre a year), for non-drinking purposes.
– high up. At +/- 600 metres. This is because the further you go up the less extreme the climate becomes (all-year-round)/ humidity is lower/ pollution less/ and probably most important of all right now (with the imminent melting of both polar icecaps potentially adding 50m to sea-level), there’s absolutely no risk from flooding or tsunamis.
– south-facing. Having tried all the other options this is undoubtedly the best. For crops/ minimising frost damage/ solar & wind power/ as well as being a lot warmer and lighter indoors.
– with a soil that is as sandy as possible. All the others just make the job a lot harder.
– where neighbours are as far away as possible. Which takes a lot more land than you’d think, even with 2.5 hectares (6 acres) at El Pocito we were still only 200 metres from adjoining land, though in this case there were no other permanent residents.
– proximity to a local town was crucial too. It had to be no further away than could easily be walked/ cycled, especially as we got older. But at the same time as small and remote as possible, far away from the culture of cities and modern life. No more than +/- 200 residents, of whom the majority would be working nearby, and all dependent on the kind of community that has long disappeared from anywhere in the UK. For which Almonaster la Real proved perfect.
– well away from all roads and any other hazards to healthiness.
– a climate where we could grow the widest range of crops all-year-round.
– have the perfect house, the most practical/ healthy/ and inspirational living space possible.
AND IN 2009 moved in
Spending the next four years making it as self-sufficient as possible. Which proved fortuitous, because in 2013 Maureen suddenly got ill and in no time (literally just 10 days) she was gone. We’d been together by then for 35 wonderful years.
Suddenly I was a widow. Living alone in the middle of a forest, 3km from the nearest neighbour, with no income and no right to benefits. Everything dictated that this would be the end of our incredible lifetime adventure. But no. Thanks to the wonderful home we had built, and the amazing people of Almonaster la Real, life went on. It was a good one too, even with only 20 euros a week (earned by teaching english) to live on. That is until the news came about the impending BREXIT referendum, putting my right to reside in Spain in jeopardy. A vote I was not allowed to participate in, along with 3 million other British citizens living outside the UK at the time. It was a frightening period, watching fascism take over. However, it was also the moment I got to know someone new, Pauline, and together we decided to live together. Not at El Pocito, but somewhere we could both start afresh. We chose the mountains of SW France, but then as the backlash to BREXIT spread across Europe that was no longer a possibility so we decided to go to her previous homeland in Shetland. Even though I had vowed back in 2000 never to return to the UK. At least it was as far away from Westminster as it is possible to get. And this is where we are currently, five years later and still searching for a suitable place to continue the moneyless/ sustainable life.
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On the following pages you can see/ read all about it. I would particularly draw your attention to our blog page, where we write about things regularly. Also included on the other pages are some of the many influences/ ideas we have come across over the years, which I keep constantly updated too. Hope you enjoy dipping into them.
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Please also feel free also to make contact (click here to be redirected). We are both happy to help similar travellers in any way we can. If you would like to receive updates when new blogs appear, please fill in the form at the bottom of this page.
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Now, To get you started
here is a spanish tv programme from 2018, featuring some of the more eccentric residents of Almonaster la Real, including me.
Plus, two short videos showing the inside of El Pocito.
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Here is a link to a video about a person I really admire, living an almost identical life, but in Ireland, Mark Boyle. Author of several excellent and highly recommended books on living simply (featured on the books on alternative living page).
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Finally, some excellent videos (which I hope you will share on social media), the first about why we should never treat others differently:
The next, all the reasons why no-one should be thinking of bringing any more children into this sick world of ours. Brought to you by the amazing new eco movement STOP HAVING KIDS.
This link takes you to their YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/StopHavingKids
Here is a sample, so make sure you visit their channel and subscribe.
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Thanks also to my dear friend Nacho Suárez Obel who provided many of the photos for this site.
Ending this page with some thoughts to ponder upon…
“To be free (as it is possible to be) you first have to escape the gravitational force of con-vention, that insidious pressure of con-sumption, created by those who rule over us, to enslave and conform. Once you have overcome that and all the other cons of our current epoch (religion included), and are well clear of their influence, then the entire universe will open out for you to explore.”
“It may seem wrong to ignore the sum of our collective knowledge, but land left alone, from human interference/ culture, will (given time) become infinitely more diverse and sustainable than any treatment we have or could ever devise. If in doubt always do nothing.”
There are only two solutions which will save us from imminent extinction, they are:
1) An immediate global ban on all further births, until such time the total population is reduced to a sustainable level again (more on what that means in a moment).
2) A similar ban on the use of money, but permanently.
And the reasons? Because this is the only way we can save the planet (and by implication, ourselves). That unique self-governing eco-system, composed of an ever-expanding number of interdependent species, created in such a way, so infinitesimally complex, that even all our collective brainpower and computer-resources could never even begin to guess how it functions. The sole provider of all the necessities we take for granted. From the oxygen we need to breathe, to water, food, fuel, in fact everything. Such an infinitely complex mechanism, that for us to tinker with any part of it is to court disaster. Which of course is exactly what we have been doing, for the last 10,000 years.
Before that we were actually a positive and integral part of this wonderful creation. For three million years, 98% of our existence, we did this by acting sustainably. Which meant keeping our numbers to a pre-determined level (around 5 million), and not taking anything out of nature (be it species or materials) that could not be replaced with exactly the same.
Then 10,000 years ago, we decided to opt out of doing that. Which first didn’t seem to matter, but destruction was exponential, and with each new day the damage was worse. Until now there is so little left of the eco-system it is on the point of extinction. We are all about to die. Today, tomorrow, next week, next year. Nobody knows when exactly. But what is certain, it will happen soon. Children born today will not live to become adults.
Sustainability is not rocket science. If we want a future we have to stop taking out, stop using money, stop multiplying.
Which leaves just the one question, “are you prepared to do that?”
“…each world has a song that is begun with the first life on a world, a song that sounds within the world to foster life and variation. All living creatures are a part of the song which shall be sung forever, until the last star goes out… sometimes living creatures do not wish to be part of the song, they do not hear it, they rise up against it, they cry that they are larger than the song and more important than the music, and when their words drown out the song, then the world begins to die…”
(Sheri S Tepper)
“Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear”
(Jerome K Jerome)
“There is only one cause for the ills of this world, and that is money. The purest souls among us are those who have none, for they spend nothing and harm nothing. It is an oxymoron to claim to be righteous, walk lightly on the earth AND have money.”
“The longing for Nature, strong, silent and healthy, is the vital phenomenon of our time, and is the counterbalance to an inorganic civilisation, which we mistakenly describe as culture”
(Viktor Schauberger)
“…by making the choice, not to have or do what everyone else considers right, you not only no longer have bills to pay but can experience that unique freedom of being able to live your own life …”
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