Childhood influences

Coming to the Diploma aged nearly 50, there are a wide range of influences on my current thinking, but looking back at my childhood it seems no surprise that I have an interest in building and self reliance. My parents are an artist and architect, and I grew up seeing design processes unfold, interspersed with being taken to building sites. Architectural plans were still entirely hand drawn (indeed up until the late 1980’s when CAD systems began to arrive). An absence of computers or screens during my formative years let to a lot of creativity and den building. My earliest memories are of living in our old house which was being refurbished, and the smells of what I now know are plumbers using gas torches on copper pipes.

Another huge influence was that my grandparents built their own house on a two acre plot in Hampshire and had extensive vegetable gardens, orchards and fruit cages. Our visits there  were spent making campfires in the orchards and building tree houses. Three decades later I came to realise that I was in search of a very similar lifestyle. They would have seen theirs as simple necessity, whereas I had the luxury of choice.

Part of the great machine

For some reason I came to understand before the age of 16 that I was about to become part of what Mark Boyle referred to as ‘The Great Machine’, receiving my National Insurance number in order to make me part of that machine and thus set me on a path of work and taxes. I had no idea how I might find an alternative to that path – the internet had not been invented, but I carried with me the distinct feeling that something was not entirely right in the world.

My school years were characterised by the phrase ‘could try harder’. I applied myself in areas that interested me, and was fortunate that my state comprehensive school had extremely well equipped workshops, where I learned to weld, to use a metal lathe, work with wood, plastics, and later electronics. At home I had a keen interest in electronic kit building, and a desperate urge to dismantle household goods – something that I am eternally grateful to my parents for encouraging.

Succeeding in spite of the system

Overall, my attitude was one of succeeding in spite of the education system not because of it, and I undertook a number of O levels in my own time, where the school timetable hadn’t be able to accommodate them. At this point I had discovered horses, and was determined to attend agricultural college to undertake the very first HND in Horse Management and Science. This required me to have a couple of A levels, and a year’s practical experience. I applied at 16 – three years before I needed to attend, and convinced the college to give me a place, conditional on my A levels and experience. Not having the pressure of the university application system certainly made my sixth form years more relaxing, and I enjoyed my Art, Design & Technology and (to a lesser extent) Physics A levels. I’m sure I spent more time riding horses.

Developing a work ethic

My need for work experience led me to attract a job at a nearby yard owned by a famous veteran showjumper and two time Olympic medal winner, Peter Robeson. I spent one of the hardest and most rewarding twelve months of my life there. It instilled a work ethic in me as well as an attention to detail, driven by the terrifying Renee Robeson (nee Rothschild), wife of Peter.

Warwickshire College of Agriculture was at that time a small institution, far less formal than it is today, and then more flexible in its approach to student learning. There I enjoyed an unusual mix of practical and academic, and could be learning how to sew leatherwork in the morning, and sitting in a laboratory in a biochemistry lecture in the afternoon (smelling slightly of horses).

Self employment

We had to undertake another period of practical work in the middle year, and I had decided to set up my own business buying, training and selling horses. I did this in partnership with an old friend, and part of the process involved having to build my own stables. Her husband, a builder, equipped me with the basic skills that I would come to rely on later. Another key event in my time at college was a study trip to Ireland, where we toured the country, and I fell in love with the Irish countryside. At that time I said I would come to live there some day.

On leaving college I returned to self employment, buying,training and selling horses, without the partner, and came to build a second stable yard nearer to home. The next few years were incredibly challenging as I basically worked through an array of mistakes in the process of running a business, culminating in what would probably be best described as a total mental breakdown.  Following a couple of hard years I realised that I would need something to supplement my income, and an interest in home computers came to the fore. I hired a part time assistant to help me in the stables, and began to expand my work in computers, mainly building, fixing and selling them.

A second career

This in turn led me to work for a company providing print and design services, where at some point while installing a computer, I was asked if I had any knowledge of layout software? I presumably answered yes, as I managed to find a copy of Quark Xpress, and spent several weeks learning how to use it, before becoming their resident designer. Another career had begun.  At this time, the internet became more easily available and for a while I was the only person I knew connected to the world ‘out there’.

In the late 1990’s I met someone from Northern Ireland and decided that it would be a great idea to sell the piece of valuable Buckinghamshire pasture that I called home at the bottom of a housing crash, and move to NI. For the next decade I worked as a newspaper designer and production manager, until a combination of exhaustion and a realisation that this was a deeply unhappy situation led me to make some radical changes.

I had begun to grow some veg, developed an interest in green woodworking, and had just seen an article on the internet about someone called Simon Dale, who had built his own hobbity looking home for only £3000. At this point I was working to pay the usual credit card bills, mortgage, etc and it was truly my ‘light bulb’ moment. I knew something had to change but had no real idea how.

Salvation and a new life

Salvation came in the form of Joan and Tina. I was making my first gas bottle stoves, and having put a request out on freecycle, they responded by bringing me a bottle. They also mentioned a community project they were working on that I might be interested in – Growing Connections. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was but was called to go along and join in.

My then partner wasn’t happy with my new found interests, and so at some point I walked away entirely from my old life and found myself sleeping on an attic floor at the Quarries Farm. This was an exciting yet traumatic period, but I knew very profoundly that it was the right path to choose.

Permaculture

It was here at the Quarries social farming project that I first encountered permaculture in the form of a 2 day introduction course led by Philip Allen, a veteran of permaculture design. I then had the opportunity to put theory into practice on the farm as we designed growing spaces, and together with volunteers and clients referred by the health services, we built compost loos, polytunnels, a roundhouse, planted woodlands, and many more amazing projects.

Off grid marriage

It was during this time that I met a fellow volunteer, Claire, and we were married on the farm, where we lived in a converted horsebox, as we experimented with off grid life, living in our tiny home, making solar and wind power, harvesting rainwater, and growing our own food. Our time on the farm was an opportunity to envision what kind of life we wanted to live, and how we might live it. At that stage we didn’t know where, and looked as far afield as Wales, where I volunteered at Lammas Ecovillage on their community hub building, and Tipperary, here in Ireland. After 18 months of searching we came across the farm here in Co.Down quite by chance, and were fortunate enough to be able to afford to buy it.

Lackan Cottage Farm

In May 2012 we became owners of Lackan Cottage Farm, and moved onto the land in our horsebox as we began the task of restoring the existing cottage in order to be able to move in before the birth of our child. Four frantic months later we moved in and Lyra was born on September 15th.

To some extent our design was driven by the need to establish a home, and to make use of existing structures, but we were able to observe the land through a full cycle before having created an initial plan for the land. Over the next six years we established vegetable gardens, an orchard and forest garden; planted edible hedgerows; planted over 1200 native trees; put up 2 polytunnels; built 2 compost loos; installed 4.5kw of (mostly reclaimed and free) solar pv; put up a (reclaimed) 3.5kw wind turbine; installed systems and battery storage; crowdfunded and built a timber frame, strawbale insulated classroom; rebuilt a guest cottage that is super insulated and heated using only the sun and a small woodstove; planted a basket willow plantation; refurbished the truck for guests; dug ponds; created gardens for the cottages; built a barn and workshop; established a woodland work area; built greywater reedbeds; built a load bearing strawbale roundhouse; added 6000 litres of rainwater harvesting and storage.

Over this period we have also been host to many, many volunteers, some local, some worldwide, mainly from the WWOOF scheme. We have also run over 50 courses on site in subjects such as permaculture, off grid living, woodwork, basket making, wine making and NVC (non violent communication). Additionally Steve has led an external course in building a rocket mass heater, and taught renewable energy on a PDC course. Over the last two years we have also been able to earn an income from letting the second refurbished cottage (Birch Cottage) and the truck to self catering guests.

We also keep horses, and over the last year have learned about and trained our horse Rain to work in draft, pulling implements around the farm. We also keep a small flock of hens for eggs, and each year raise a number of chickens for meat. Our horses and hens are all rescues, though our meat birds are not.

We introduce the public to our work here in a variety of ways. On a local level we have a good relationship with our local newspaper, and we also use social media very widely, having a following of nearly 3500. We can reach some 40,000 people in a week if necessary. In addition we maintain a website and blog which has a regular following, and have appeared in a number of related blogs, and in publications such as Permaculture Magazine. To date we have made four television appearances, on BBC1, Channel 4 and RTE, covering topics such as low impact living, food and lifestyle.

Having established our own smallholding, where I have completed literally everything, up to and including plumbing, heating and electrical systems, as well as traditional building, crafts and horticultural skills, I have a very broad range of skills and knowledge to offer.

Reflecting on the PDC

I knew that spending two weeks on the PDC course would be fascinating and challenging, but it had a more profound effect than I had anticipated. After six years working continuously at Lackan, I was feeling a bit jaded, cynical even, and the PDC gave me the push I needed to move on from that. The learning opportunity was wonderful, but I found the social aspect incredibly challenging.

“If you feel like you need to leave, you’re the person that needs to stay, because you’re feeling things that are out of balance…you’re the one who’ll be the change-maker.”
Warren Brush

By day ten I had settled in more, and thoroughly enjoyed the final design project. I have recorded my immediate thoughts in this blog post.

The PDC has provided a point at which to take stock of the work completed so far, to survey and analyse what we have available here at Lackan, and produce an overall design for the Lackan Cottage Farm project, as well as a range of small designs that form part of that whole. There are a number of specific land based designs that I would like to address, as well as several non land based. One of the great discoveries I made during my PDC was that in fact non land based design was something I find incredibly rewarding, and my PDC design is one that I will maybe draw upon and expand in the diploma. So now I wish to move on to talk about my learning pathway….

If I am largely speaking a very practical person then Affirmations are one are where I indulge something else completely. I have always had a strong sense that if I really knew that I wanted to do something, it happened, and that the feeling that sometimes a particular path is easier to follow. All the pieces fall into place. In 1997 I came across the idea of Affirmations quite by chance, through author Scott Adams (of Dilbert cartoon fame). Scott put forward the idea that at a very basic, quantum level, there is no distinction between what we visualise in our minds and what happens at the level of our day to day lives. Chaos theory says that a very small change can cause a ripple effect, and feedback loops that ultimately lead to enormous effects, the classic example being the air movement displaced by a butterfly’s wings leading to a hurricane somewhere else on earth.

Anyhow the idea of affirmations is that of writing down, or focusing on a ‘thing’. One makes a very specific, clearly identified goal, framed in terms of it being a fact, not a ‘want’. For instance ‘ I Steven Byrne will do this thing’. This could be a small thing or a large thing – only our imaginations limit the results. Scott’s experience was that eventually the process became part of his everyday life, and that it made him appear ‘lucky’. Certainly like any other behaviour, the more he practised, the more ‘lucky’ he became.

I’ve been doing this now for over 20 years and I’m still surprised at the results. From little things to really quite significant ones. Sure, believing firmly that something will happen is likely to lead you to behave in ways that make that thing more likely, but there have been numerous occasions where my own influence has been less likely to have this happen.

My living in Ireland, being able to work at home doing what I love with no fixed hours from the age of 40, sharing my life with someone who holds the same values – all of these I attribute to this process, often at times when they seemed utterly unlikely.  On a more immediate material level, I needed solar panels – I was offered them used and free. Wind turbine? Sure. Car broken down? Here you go. Learning to turn wooden bowls? Here, meet the only professional pole lathe bowl turner in Europe. I have literally hundreds of stories of luck, or coincidence that go far beyond what I see generally. I am also conscious to ‘pay it forward’, and gift materials, advice or my own assistance to others that need it.

As Bill Mollison said “The yield of a system is theoretically unlimited”. Bill really knew what he was talking about.

I include this information because affirmation forms a real part of the way I approach any project.