[sandy]

Thanks, there is something so nice about this programme...Sandy

[rustyme]

hello NFD,
            the plant Ruth Goodman refers to sounds like Alconet ? I have tried all sorts of different  spellings but can't seem to find any plant of this name.  Maybe she says something else or it is an old name maybe? I found this site on natural dyes though :

 http://www.wildcolours.co.uk/html/red_natural_dyes.html

Sorry I couldn't be any more help than that ....hope the link helps a bit though ....

cheers 


Russ

[rustyme]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcanna_tinctoria

just found the right one ...the link says it all really .....got there in the end...lol.

cheers 

Russ

[northfifeduckling]

It doesn't seem to grow locally then, but I'll see if I can source the dried through a herbalist. Alternatively - Fresh St. John's Wort also dies oil red when steeped in it over a few weeks, no heating necessary for this. Not sure if the colour is strong enough for a lip balm. It also makes skin sensitive to the sun, maybe that's not such a good idea with lips being so exposed...Just thinking aloud here

[lordlonk]

hello-quite a newbie on here

Im sure my ex partner saw somewhere that the lady that does all the cooking and washing is only on site 4 days a month?? when they made the programmes. My ex watches all these programmes - ive watched the programmes so far and very impressed. Theres a lovely little tea room in trawden in lancashire in the middle of the  village  where they have a absolutly brilliant victorian range like they have . pie  and pies and cabbage for the walkers

[rustyme]

yes that would seem about right.... In the other similar series 'Tales from the Green Valley' Alex Langlands Peter Ginn plus Chloe Spencer and Stuart Peachey along with Ruth Goodman, appeared in the program . All lived the parts they played in the sereis Except Ruth Goodman . She only appeared a few days a month to do her bit to camera, the rest of the time another woman lived the life (as it were). The woman in question was quite happy about this as she didn't want to appear on tv. But it is a bit of a con in some ways as we are led to believe that RG was living the life . But!!!!! it is TV .....where nothing is what it seems , so what can you expect ?. I read Stuart Peacheys' book about Tales from the Green Valley , and although it did take a bit of the shine off of it , I still thoroughly  enjoyed it and I am also enjoying the Victorian Farm . There is only one thing similar to these programs that was done in the late 70's , and that was 'Living in the Past'.
 Where a number of people actually did live for a year as iron age people had done, in an iron age replica village. Here it is on youtube:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2e7ZLWz3UMw&hl=un

I thought it was as good as Victorian Farm and Tales from the Green Valley, maybe even better as they really did live the life . None of it being made pretty for tv . Here is another  youtube link to a short clip of Tales from the Green Valley:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RxtbCufq58U&hl=un

cheers


Russ

[ballingall]

You have all just prompted me to look up an old friend. She moved to Denmark a few years ago, and now works doing Viking demonstrations- mostly with falconary. But she has lived effectively in the same set up as the Vikings did. Anyway, I've found her on facebook now, and will have to email her!

Beth

[sunnyjohn]

Hi All,

I love the programmes, as I mentioned elsewhere. Thanks for finding the I-Player link, doganjo. When I tried to find it, it seemed to be unavailable, but I'll try again. It's too good to see just once. Yes, I hope they bring them out on DVD....

Russ & Guy, your bleak analysis looks daily more likely. It's gruesome to think about it, but my other half, Linda, is convinced, like you, that the world's going to pot, and this country's at the sharp end. I'd like to think she's wrong, but my optimism fades daily. I wish we were in a position to emulate your six acres, Russ; it's something we aspire to but we're tied to where we live, and land around here is scarce and expensive. We'll just keep looking.... We're also trying to get the family into it, gardening, growing food, self-sufficiency, etc. It never hurts to be able to do these things, and praying we never have to, to eek out survival, may not be enough. Add global warming to the credit crunch, and everything we take for granted may be about to change. I do think that being self-sufficient not only equips us to harvest all we can; wild plants, sun and wind energy, as well as grown and reared food. It also makes us better at the kind of problem solving that those activities need; mending, recycling, finding a way to do something. Just like the Victorians did, without the technology we've come to rely on. And in changing times, those skills will become paramount. It feeels cruel to be smug, but confidence does no harm. And pooling resources, including knowledge, will be better for all of us. Thanks for sharing.

Chin up! John

[rustyme]

            I hope I am completely wrong about what could be heading our way . That whatever the future holds for us all , it will be more or less what we have lived over the last 50 or so years. I know that there would have to be some changes due to oil shortages and the like , but I don't really think that we can continue for much longer on the road we have become used to traveling.  There are so many things that can now send us off down some unknown side turning , things such as global warming , which won't just effect the weather for holidays , but will effect the whole worlds food production . In the UK we have ended up getting so much food from overseas , and the government seem set to kill farming , why . It is now cheaper to by pork from abroad than produce it here. 50% of commercial pig farmers have now gone out of business and many more are on the way . This at a time when food miles are meant to be so important ? Many people have no idea where their food comes from . Many don't care , but that is changing . I just wonder though what would happen if the present economy crisis were to get much MUCH worse , and it can !!!, and it became hugely expensive to move food around the world. Also would the countries that grow all this food, sell food to us and let their own people starve ?. Some countries are already cutting back the amount of food they sell to the west . The government has now put the UK into so much debt that it will take years to get out ! , even if the economy crisis were to ease now. They have now changed the law , so that the Bank of England can print millions of extra £ to pump into the system . They can now do this without anyone knowing , before you could find out each month how much was being pumped in . This puts us on a similar road to the Weimar pre ww2 , or to Zimabwe !! will it get as bad as those ....who knows ?   There are many things that can send us into a world we left many years ago . Will any of these things happen ? I don't know . I do know that I personally  prefer to live a simple life ( very simple person so it fits !!) . It just so happens that if things do go t*ts up , it won't effect me too much . That is unless there is some terrible pandemic , or nuclear war or such like . I seem to have taken this way off of the subject of the Victorian Farm......but I think it is very much related , and hope others think so too . Anyway , untill armageddon or the apocalypse , I will just keep doing what I do because I like it .... and it doesn't harm others or do harm to the planet . Must go and make a cup of Brazilian coffee now and have a few chunks of Dutch cheese with bread made from Canadian wheat. Might stick on some pickle with Spanish onions in too.....Food miles ? what food miles ? they are only in the fridge....

cheers

Russ

[lordlonk]

i share  very much russ your comments. Just  stripping back how things were twenty years ago make me smile a lot more than i do now. I have decided  for 18 months now that i need to make lots of changes and make a new life. Ive become very tired doing the day job  ( which is working f for myself ) the isolation of that is not to bad most of the time  but the existance relying on  everybody to supply me with my daily needs tells me that we dont know what we are eating half the time and we dont know how its going to last. The need to grow your own and rear your own has to be common sense  not just for satisfaction levels  but reassurance that you know where your food has come from and the very fact that you know that is there and at  little cost in the way of vegtables. I bought my ex a 1940's hardback in a wonderful secondhand book shop in  inverness in november .The bookshop in question for the scotland people on here is known as the largest secondhand book shop in scotland. The book was the story of a family setting up a derelict farm with plans and mapsand photographs of them  starting a business in the 40's after the war - i must find this and have a good read of it from her.I think the victorians had a good life and  i think our elders despite the hardships they encountered and they must have been hard with rations and everything also hard a calmer more chilled lifestyle than ours and i do hope that by the end of this year i will  have taken  the big step of a new life based on many traditional  values. 

[Rosemary]

I don't think child chimney sweeps would agree, if they lived beyond their fifth birthday. Let's not romanticise too much about times past - there are awful lot of great things about the 21st century too.

[rustyme]

although I do wear glasses ( blind as a bat without ) there is no rose coloured tint in them at all ..... I prefer the simple life yes , but with as many of the good things that we have now days too. As for the young chimney sweeps ...well they are long gone now days in the UK , but sadly still many many people around the world in conditions just as bad  , as was experienced in Victorian times. The program on tv can only show a very clean, sanitized view of life back then , and can only really hint at the way things were. No matter how good or nice it may look on tv. All the people in the program get paid very well to appear in it , they can have a nice hot bath when they want , none of them look as though they have gone too long without food and due to health and safety ( ye gods !!!!! ) they probably all go and sleep in rooms with electricity etc etc.... if anything went wrong ie illness injury etc ,  would they get treated as in victorian times ..? no of course not. The programs are lovely and show how things can be done , without all the stuff we have to have these days . I noticed on the Acton Scott estate site , you can rent the cottage in the program , and live the life similar to the program ..... I wonder if it costs 5/6d a week to stay there...? (oh and thats 27.5p)
cheers

Russ

[Guy]

actually , ive got some chimneys that need sweeping ( only joking!!!!! )

[rustyme]

I would offer to climb up and sweep them for you mate ....but I would get stuck in an inglenook these days....( and I wish I WAS joking... )

[sandy]

I love all the modern technology so I am not a Victorian but I do like a simple life, in a way the credit crunch has given people a reality check, do we really need to..keep changing to the latest model of, phone, car, Television, kitchen, shoes, etc etc. If we were less reliant on car's we would cycle or walk more, I don't suppose people walk to school so much as when my three were little, and I bet not so many young people or children play out in parks or walk to their friends due to worried parents and the strange folk about. I know that we should not waste so much, mend things instead of getting new stuff and I wounder how many people have gadgets they hardly use, I love gadgets. I imagine it is difficult for children and young people if they have old style or mended things, how can we change that one? One thing I would like, a Mangal, I remember regularly t rapping my fingers in one of them but they certainly got a lot of water from your cloths, I think a squeeze in the mangle and a good blow on the line (weather permitting) would help save some electric, anyway, let's all mix and match, I would be lost without, computer, phones, Camera, music players and the internet.....and of course central heating, the car, a microwave and maybe the television