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Wild Harvest
Hope Bourne is probably the best-known chronicler of Exmoor. Through her many books and television appearances she established herself as a champion of the Moor - its people, its customs, its landscape and its wildlife - expressed in a language both poetic and direct.
There are few other writers who can encapsulate so memorably the virtues of rural life. First published in 1978, Wild Harvest was described by the author as 'The distillation of many years' practical experience of living comfortably and happily on an incredibly small cash income,' tucked in a corner 'of one of the last remaining patches of wilderness county in this South West region of Britain. I love the wilderness. I love its space, its defiant freedom, its proud unconquered spirit, its wild and primal beauty, its challenge to the human soul.'
Wild Harvest is a remarkable book by a remarkable woman.
Hope Bourne was born in Oxford in 1918 but brought up at Hartland in North Devon. She lived on Exmoor for some 60 years, for two decades in a caravan at Ferny Ball near Withypool. Growing or shooting her own food, she earned her living as a writer, publishing four books in her lifetime as well as pamphlets and a regular newspaper column. In later life three television documentaries about her life brought her to the attention of an even wider public. Hope Bourne died in August 2010 a few days short of her 92nd birthday.
There are few other writers who can encapsulate so memorably the virtues of rural life. First published in 1978, Wild Harvest was described by the author as 'The distillation of many years' practical experience of living comfortably and happily on an incredibly small cash income,' tucked in a corner 'of one of the last remaining patches of wilderness county in this South West region of Britain. I love the wilderness. I love its space, its defiant freedom, its proud unconquered spirit, its wild and primal beauty, its challenge to the human soul.'
Wild Harvest is a remarkable book by a remarkable woman.
Hope Bourne was born in Oxford in 1918 but brought up at Hartland in North Devon. She lived on Exmoor for some 60 years, for two decades in a caravan at Ferny Ball near Withypool. Growing or shooting her own food, she earned her living as a writer, publishing four books in her lifetime as well as pamphlets and a regular newspaper column. In later life three television documentaries about her life brought her to the attention of an even wider public. Hope Bourne died in August 2010 a few days short of her 92nd birthday.
- GenresNature
136 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 22, 2022
Beautifully written with so much love for the land she lives on. I have read this twice and still feel it is not enough.
August 27, 2024
Miss Bourne aimed to live as self-sufficiently as possible. She decided that humans need only five things: food, water, shelter, clothing and fire; everything else is a luxury which can be dispensed with if it is unaffordable!
This book is a fascinating account of her life in a tiny caravan in a remote part of Exmoor. It describes her caravan and her daily routine, how she provided for the necessities of life and how she also made time for hobbies and amusements. Her ideas for make-do-and-mend are inspiring - she produced a bird-bath from a discarded hub cap and a cracked flower-pot, while an old tin and a table leg were turned into a sundial!
I loved the descriptions of her daily tasks, her cosy evenings in the caravan and of the scenery and wildlife around her home, although these last are often somewhat overblown. She was passionate about the need for simple, sustainable, home-produced food and regular physical exercise, and also ahead of her time when it came to organic gardening, producing plentiful crops on land that was only fed by her compost heap and the wood ash from her fire. "I go on the principle that if everything goes into the soil via the compost heap, then everything is there - all minerals etc - and the plants will find what they want."
Those who are vegetarian and/or squeamish should be aware that Miss Bourne was an enthusiastic carnivore, killing, skinning and preparing most of the meat herself. As she says, "living with Nature one perceives that death is a part of life...The trouble with being sentimental about Nature is that Nature is not sentimental about you." She also tans the skins of the animals she kills, to provide insulation and warmth in her caravan, so if this is the kind of thing you find off-putting, avoid reading chapter 7.
Her life and her philosophy makes this a very interesting book. However, I did become frustrated at her blithe ignorance of reality from time to time, allied with her fixed belief that if something is true in her experience then it is true for everyone. Therefore, because she has never met a vegetarian who is as energetic as she is, vegetarians can never be as strong as meat-eaters. Because she is physically active and has no heart or lung trouble, all heart and lung conditions are caused by lack of exercise. "Don't take pills and don't worry about health - the harder you use your body the healthier it will become," she exhorts, "just eat well and sleep well." (The tragic irony is that, according to her obituary, she was eventually forced to leave her caravan and move into a village due to severe asthma.)
She also can't understand why everyone doesn't live the same way that she does, claiming that we could all be mostly self-sufficient and start little cottage craft industries to earn money to pay for things we can't make, such as postage stamps, gun cartridges and chocolate. And she rails against taxes, claiming that they are unnecessary as they only pay for lazy people to have benefits, since government provides nothing else worthwhile for its citizens - this, shortly after she has written about her weekly visits to the mobile library! It obviously hasn't occurred to her that if we all lived in this way, there would be nobody to buy our cottage industry crafts, no post office to deliver our mail, no taxes to pay for library books, no roads for the mobile library to deliver them, no magazines to publish her articles (which were how she earned her money) no doctors or teachers or...
These factors prevented this book being a 5 star read, but I still highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in rural life or alternative lifestyles. And in spite of her extreme views, we could all learn a lot from Miss Bourne on how to live more lightly on the earth and appreciate the world around us more.
This book is a fascinating account of her life in a tiny caravan in a remote part of Exmoor. It describes her caravan and her daily routine, how she provided for the necessities of life and how she also made time for hobbies and amusements. Her ideas for make-do-and-mend are inspiring - she produced a bird-bath from a discarded hub cap and a cracked flower-pot, while an old tin and a table leg were turned into a sundial!
I loved the descriptions of her daily tasks, her cosy evenings in the caravan and of the scenery and wildlife around her home, although these last are often somewhat overblown. She was passionate about the need for simple, sustainable, home-produced food and regular physical exercise, and also ahead of her time when it came to organic gardening, producing plentiful crops on land that was only fed by her compost heap and the wood ash from her fire. "I go on the principle that if everything goes into the soil via the compost heap, then everything is there - all minerals etc - and the plants will find what they want."
Those who are vegetarian and/or squeamish should be aware that Miss Bourne was an enthusiastic carnivore, killing, skinning and preparing most of the meat herself. As she says, "living with Nature one perceives that death is a part of life...The trouble with being sentimental about Nature is that Nature is not sentimental about you." She also tans the skins of the animals she kills, to provide insulation and warmth in her caravan, so if this is the kind of thing you find off-putting, avoid reading chapter 7.
Her life and her philosophy makes this a very interesting book. However, I did become frustrated at her blithe ignorance of reality from time to time, allied with her fixed belief that if something is true in her experience then it is true for everyone. Therefore, because she has never met a vegetarian who is as energetic as she is, vegetarians can never be as strong as meat-eaters. Because she is physically active and has no heart or lung trouble, all heart and lung conditions are caused by lack of exercise. "Don't take pills and don't worry about health - the harder you use your body the healthier it will become," she exhorts, "just eat well and sleep well." (The tragic irony is that, according to her obituary, she was eventually forced to leave her caravan and move into a village due to severe asthma.)
She also can't understand why everyone doesn't live the same way that she does, claiming that we could all be mostly self-sufficient and start little cottage craft industries to earn money to pay for things we can't make, such as postage stamps, gun cartridges and chocolate. And she rails against taxes, claiming that they are unnecessary as they only pay for lazy people to have benefits, since government provides nothing else worthwhile for its citizens - this, shortly after she has written about her weekly visits to the mobile library! It obviously hasn't occurred to her that if we all lived in this way, there would be nobody to buy our cottage industry crafts, no post office to deliver our mail, no taxes to pay for library books, no roads for the mobile library to deliver them, no magazines to publish her articles (which were how she earned her money) no doctors or teachers or...
These factors prevented this book being a 5 star read, but I still highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in rural life or alternative lifestyles. And in spite of her extreme views, we could all learn a lot from Miss Bourne on how to live more lightly on the earth and appreciate the world around us more.
April 9, 2026
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews