Self-Sufficiency: The Science and Art of Producing and Preserving Your Own Food

by John Seymour

The Science and Art of Producing and Preserving Your Own Food

250 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

John Seymour was an idealist - he had a vision of a better world where people aren't alienated from their labours. As a young man, he travelled all over Africa and fought in Burma in World War II. Returning penniless to England, he lived in a trolley bus and on a Dutch sailing barge before settling on a five-acre smallholding in Suffolk to lead a self-sufficient life. He continued this lifestyle with his companion Angela Ashe on the banks of the River Barrow in County Wexford, Ireland. The two had built up the smallholding from scratch over 19 years. In his last years John, Angela and William Sutherland had been running courses in self-sufficiency from their home at Killowen, New Ross. The courses were taken by students from all over the world, who come to Killowen to learn about his lifestyle and philosophies at first hand.

He was the author of over 40 books, including the best-selling The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency, and he had made numerous films and radio programmes. Most of his later writing and public campaigning had been devoted to country matters, self-sufficiency and the environment.

In the last 18 months, he was back on his beloved Pembrokeshire farm with his daughter Ann, telling stories to his grandchildren and writing rhyming poetry, with an acerbic wit that was his last weapon against what he saw as our destructive era.

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a classic, but it's difficult to know what place it has on the bookshelves of today. If you are looking for a practical guide on self-sufficiency, you'd be better off reading a more up to date book. And if you're interested in finding out 'how it all started' then I recommend reading the author's other book 'The Fat of the Land' instead.

This book provides an interesting insight into the early days of the 'self sufficiency movement' by one of its greatest pioneers, so will always be of some academic interest to those researching the topic, but for practical purposes, it is now obsolete.

[Graham Sessions · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant and very useful. I just love the suffolk cure for bacon.