Naomi bio photo

Naomi

Naomi has been experimenting with alternative ways of living. She is a trained therapeutic horticulturalist and currently calls Trill farm home.

I met Naomi when I was living at Trill Farm in Devon. When I first arrived I would often see her wandering through the farm with her baby daughther, Elma strapped to her back. I knew nothing about her but I felt very compelled to speak to her about her life. Both she & Elma always looked so incredibly happy. I felt certain that what she was doing was special.

Where are you from?

I grew up in London, in the suburbs. It wasn’t high-rise but it meant that my experience of the world was primarily through arts and culture. I always knew that I wanted to do something that made a difference.

I was always very conscious of suffering in the world. My grandparents were all Jewish holocaust survivors so we were very aware of what humans can do, both for the good and the bad. My way of dealing with that was by wanting to make good.

I initially thought ‘Okay - I can write about the world’ but I found journalism very cut-throat. I’m not very cut throat myself so I decided instead of broadsheet journalism, I would write for alternative magazines.

How did you become interested in nature?

I went to York university to study literature and journalism. Thinking I would find myself through poetry, I discovered people who liked walking and the outdoors. We used to go walking in the dales. That was really when I first discovered nature.

I saw that there is a whole world beyone the human world and realised that when I was in it I felt like a more connected human being.

Through that I became passionate about the fact that we need to protect this world for ourselves and all other living beings. I realized that there is a lot that is destructive. Around that time my friends and I started to become politicized around climate change and the environment.

What did you do after university?

I decided to get work in environmental education. At the time I was living in the countryside. I got a lot of joy from being in nature but I felt that I wasn’t doing what I needed to be doing. I wanted to work with children who, like I did, were growing up not knowing where things came from and are therefore unable to make informed choices. I wanted to be part of that change. Very luckily I got a job on Spitafields City Farm so I decided to move back to London. I spent five years there and discovered an entire world.



During that time the farm supported me to study horticulture. I started doing work that combined gardening and helping people with special needs; young people with learning difficulties and mental health problems. I also did an apprenticeship with an urban market garden near Epping forest so I became much more knowledgeable about food production. There I met Pip who was doing similar work (Naomi’s partner) and we lived on a narrow boat for a few years. That really extended the amount of time that we felt we could stay in London. But ultimately we felt like we couldn’t stay forever.

What was it about London that made you feel like you couldn’t stay there?

Although I had found work and a community that I loved, I still struggled with the consumerism. It was so loud, I couldn’t turn it off. I watched people be able to read a book and stuff headphones in their ears and be able to turn off to London but from a tiny child I found it really painful.

I felt upset everytime I saw someone who was homeless. I felt upset by the advertising. It was a constant monologue. I just always felt exhausted.

For a long time I felt that if I want to do this work then I need to do it here because this is where it is most needed. But gradually a kind of shift happened and I began to see that actually it is really important that I’m well and healthy. And that there are people everywhere who have needs! I think it was then that I realized that I was allowed to live in a place that I found more peaceful.

So what did you do?

Pip and I left London on our bicycles. We cycled to the south east of england and went WWOOFing at fifteen different places in total.



During that time I did a distance-learning course in social & therapeutic horticulture. That year of exploration has given us a really amazing overview of how we would eventually like to live on our own piece of land. We would definitely like to draw from many of the low impact principles that we saw whilst living at Tinkers Bubble . We ended up staying there for a year and a half. You are living as close to nature there as I have seen anywhere in the UK. Though we did learn that that although we love community, we also really value our own family space. We can function and give a lot more when we have a bit more autonomy.

What was life like at Tinkers Bubble. ?

It’s governing ethos is to live sustainably on the land and to be commited to living without the use of combustion engines on site. Everything is done with hand tools, food is cooked and houses are warmed with wood. They went to the highcourt and got planning permisson for temporary dwelling for up to 18 adults. In theory eveyone works roughly 2 days a week; growing food, looking after the land and cooking for the community. But in reality it worked out as a lot more time. There’s 40 acres of land there, and when you use only hand tools, it needs a lot of work. There is always stuff to do.

Photo by Eleri Griffiths. View more at http://www.elerigriffithsphotography.co.uk/

The rest of the time you are free to go into the local community and earn money or work on personal projects. I worked with an organization offsite, running nature and craft activities with women from a refuge. I loved the work onsite but I also really valued being part of the local community.

I like being an ambassador for what is seen as quite an extreme way of living, whilst hopefully coming across as someone who is quite normal and approachable.

Why are the people at Tinkers motivated to live in a low impact way?

I can’t speak for everyone but..

Photo by Eleri Griffiths. View more at http://www.elerigriffithsphotography.co.uk/

It sounds like hard work.

It is hard work. It is definitely hard work, but a lot of the time the connectedness that comes from that outweighs that. I think what you also realize is that you are dealing with alternative economies.

When I first moved there I really resented spending 3 hours of my week washing my clothes by hand. But then I realized, in a more conventional setting I might not be actually physically using my hands to light a fire and wash my clothes, but I would be working in an office to pay my gas bill in order to ultimately get the same result.

So actually it is no different - I was earning my living but in a different way, paying my way by hand. That was a big realization and vastly different from what I had grown up with.

What were the best parts of living there?

Most of the time that I was there I was either pregnant or had a very small baby. Shortly afer we arrived at Tinkers I became pregnant. Elma spend the first 5 months of her life there. I really appreciated having the other mothers and others who were experienced in living in that way and so knew how to make it possible with a small child.

We had a ritual of getting up every morning to light our little rocket stove and warm water so that we could wash the nappies and make breakfast. We had a little garden that we grew vegetables in. We lived in the woods so we were able to step out of our door and be in the most utterly beautiful place.

Photo by Eleri Griffiths. View more at http://www.elerigriffithsphotography.co.uk/

Where there ever moments when you doubted that way of living? Became frustrated perhaps?

Sharing communal spaces is hard, like it always is with shared houses. I found the mess difficult. Especially because the more pregnant I got, the more I was up in the settlement zone and not doing any of the heavy work so I spent a lot of time in that space. Also having a child and being committed to using reusable nappies meant that my life was transformed. Trying to wash nappies could take 4 hours, heating enough water etc.

Coming from a liberated female position and then finding myself in a very stereotypical domestic role was quite a shock.

At the time I was very accepting of it. But now having left and thinking about it, and speaking to other friends who’ve said

“Well yeah - the invention of the washing machine was a big step in feminism”.

[Trill Farm - where Naomi lives now has electricity a washing machine] I still very much believe in limiting the use of fossil fuels, saving them for things that we really need (like hospitals) but I am now benefiting from using them in moderation, in terms of having more time to spend with my child.

You must have changed a lot from the day that you set out on your bicycle.

On a personal level, I was still very much caught up in the definitions of ambition and success that I had been brought up with. Leaving London to the unknown, I had to deal with questions around identity that bubbled up with that.

So what is success to you now?

It’s still a work in progress. I think I would say .. it’s being able to live by our morals, as holistically as possible and to be a showcase of that. I would like to share the revelations that we have had with others. Once we have got ourselves set up with our own project I think I will feel a lot more like I’m where I would like to be.

Is the emphasis of that going to be education?

I think number one will be a home where we continue to experiment with subsistence living. And number two would be sharing that with others. Whether that be through volunteering, therapeutic horticulture or an education/ forest school type project.

Money is often seen to buy security. Even if a life closer to nature does tempt people, most don’t have the courage to turn their back on their jobs. What would you say to them?

We both inherited a small amount of money so I don’t feel that I can whole-heartedly say that you can do it with nothing. Knowing that we have this bit of money to buy land has helped me to be brave. But I have met others who have done it with nothing.

And when you start making change in your life, really facing the unknown, once you have done that you start to realise that fortune really does favour the brave. And although it can be frightening, and there are all these logical reasons why you shouldn’t be doing it, special things start happening.

I genuinely believe that.