Deep Country: Five Years in the Welsh Hills [Paperback]

Neil Ansell had the opportunity to rent a dilapidated cottage deep in the hills of Mid-Wales, in countryside so remote that you could walk twenty miles in one direction without encountering another dwelling. What started as short-term let, turned out to be a five-year period of solitary living, far removed from the services we expect to find today - hot water from a tap, central heating and plumbing. The rent of £100 a year reflected the lack of services but failed to take account of the incredible beauty of the location and the land available to the tenant.

Neil has a great affinity with nature and things which would phase other people were causes of delight. I am not sure how I would feel about sharing my home with twenty of thirty bats for example. Even Neil however baulked at the spring-invasions of mice - fortunately the pretty field mouse variety rather than the disease carrying house mouse. The mice reduced Neil to hanging food in carrier bags from ham hooks embedded in the ceiling. The only way Neil could reduce the population of mice was to trap them and carry them across a river where he released them. No doubt killing them would have had no effect other than to make space for others.

Neil found that his life settled down into natural rhythms. He even developed his own rituals, such as seeing in the New Year from the summit of his hill or walking overnight into the hills at the Summer Solstice so he could watch the dawn from a mountain top. Five years of solitude was broken up by visits from friends, but Neil became accustomed to his way of life and found that he welcomed the return to quietness when they departed.

While it is interesting to read how Neil looked after himself, the major part of the book is a sort of extended nature diary - fascinating for anyone who loves the ebb and flow of the seasons and the changing wildlife that accompanies them. The hills of Wales are remarkable rich in wild-life of every description and Neil went out of his way to cultivate a relationship with it - maintaining a large number of nest boxes for example, which he patrolled regularly to check on the progress of his many bird families.

Neil already had an interest in "food for free" having lived in Sweden where "foraging in the wood in autumn is practically a national pastime". He gathered chanterelles, parasols and ceps, preserving them in olive oil with dill and coriander seeds. He made thirty jars of jam each year from berries found in the woods, and he gathered wild strawberries.

The solitary life was a phase which could not last forever. Neil is now a successful BBC journalist and lives with his family in the city of Brighton. He still returns to his Welsh cottage but things are not quite the same - in his epilogue he gives the impression of returning to the location of an earlier part of his life, now long gone.

Neil has recorded a video for Penguin Books with some footage of the cottage which lets us get a good idea of where he spent his five years with nature and self-sufficiency.

This reminds me of observational books about nature written by Denys Watkins-Pitchford [aka 'BB'] in the 1960s. Very evocative, poetic writing about wildlife and the environment that takes you to another place. Personally, though, I'd have preferred more information about exactly what the author did during his five years in the wilds and the challenges of day-to-day life in such extraordinary circumstances. He gives very little away about himself or his background - other than the two sentences on the very first page. [A 3-minute video on YouTube reveals more]. But perhaps I'm missing the point ...

an excellent read describing life in the remote hills over a five year period of time,great descriptive details about this type of life and the surroundings etc the story almost make you feel you are there yourself.