[Closed] Is this someone off here? A video for you wood chopping types.

That right there ^ would do me just fine..... 🙂

Over romanticised poppycock. It's easy to not need much money if you've been working in the city for 10 yrs, got bored of it, semi retired and bought a massive house in west Dorset for cash and fancy pi£&ing around in the woods with an old kiln.

I'm all for woodland management and positively evangelise about it but there is limited sustainability to the old coppice workers way of life in modern society. That's why there are hardly any old coppice workers left. They all work in supermarkets stacking shelves or drive timber harvesters. Woods have to be relevant to today's society to survive and what we want out of them and as a result how we work them has to evolve and change to reflect the contemporary.

I've been involved in working with a coppice project for the last ten yrs where a local guy who coppiced a wood 25 yrs ago came up with a new plan to renew the coppice coupes and get the process going again. The long and short of it being nobody wanted the produce 25 yrs ago so nobody bothered to carry on cutting the coppice. 25 yrs later, rubbish quality coppice, Lots of European funding, money from the govt, support from me and my team and a lot of volunteer time which could be being used elsewhere and it still doesn't fund his salary. It's a way of life rather than a job and that's what attracts people like your man in the video but you need some cash generally to keep your life going alongside it. Lovely way of life though but like I said, difficult for it to pay the bills in Southern England with rents at £1k/ month for a modest family home. We've just got a trust to take on the coppice. They might be able to get it cut with some volunteers, more funding from a different pot and a half decent market for the charcoal.

There are more efficient ways of producing charcoal now where you don't need to camp in the woods overnight on a one legged stool with your dog. More sustainable as you use less fuel to get the kiln going, takes less time and you get better charcoal and a higher rate of return. If you really need to make a living out of firewood you need a splitter/ processor and something more efficient to run than an old landrover.

Lovely, but generally a bit unrealistic to expect to make a sustainable career out of it unless you have other interests or don't expect to earn consistently.

Agreed, that's fairly up your own jacksie that one.

"Money's not that important, once you've bought a small wood and a large house for three million pounds, you don't need that much to live on"

Ha ha, I never even gave it much thought. I only posted it up because the bloke had an axe, a chainsaw and whatnot.

Ah, I'm guessing that'll be the Artisan charcoal that they sell for about £3 per kilo in knitted tofu shops, rather than the £1 per kilo at the garage...

In the next episode we probably see his Yurt!

Proper "woody" job that. He was creative director in a PR company so he should now how to make the thing look right. What was the purpose of the film anyway?

Purpose of film....?

Satisfy need for attention. It's a solitary life in the woods. No film = nobody knows how "real" and earthy he has become....!

I thought it was inspired by this...

d45yth - Member
Ha ha, I never even gave it much thought. I only posted it up because the bloke had an axe, a chainsaw and whatnot.
POSTED 9 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

No chainsaw gloves though. A very shiny helmet. And lighting from his chainsaw fuel not the petrol tank?

Meh. Grump. Giggle.

[i]I thought it was inspired by this...[/i]

I've certainly got workshop envy now, and a little bit of manlove.

That barbershop/dead animal bloke was on Dragon's Den wasn't he?

I give it 3 months before he has to eat his dog.

He doesn't look very happy on it............Maybe he needs a friend and a saw pit to cheer him up.

This stuff pisses me off. Lovely, well done. Have a wood and nice retirement hobby. Work in London for a bit, "move to the country" as a clueless tw*t and buy up the places that those of us that [i][b]do[/b][/i] have the skills and that wanted to continue our local traditions, can no longer afford.

Bitter at being priced out of my own village by [s]w[/s]bankers and city workers? You bet.

Lovely little hobby he has there. Not sure it makes him a woodsman though.