Maybe Ed Miliband’s green crusade hasn’t convinced you yet. Perhaps you can’t grasp all the attractions of hardcore off-grid life. But eco-evangelist Marcus will convert you.
Proudly pointing to his enamelled tub, on a wooden platform under a sheet of corrugated plastic in the woods, he declared: ‘Unless you’ve had a bath outside when it’s raining in the winter, you don’t know how great it feels.’
He’s a visionary. What better way to persuade millions of cosseted Brits to give up their selfish luxuries than to start with a good scrub outdoors in December? Just pretend the hailstones are free bath crystals and the howling gale is a hairdryer.
Even Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud, a man who despises everything conventional in architecture, couldn’t hide his scepticism as Marcus and wife Abi set about building a cabin in the Pembrokeshire woods.
The windows were rescued from other buildings, the insulation was made of recycled newspaper, and the cooker ran on gas from rotting veg.
This was supposed to be the epitome of sustainable living, but very little of it made practical sense. For a start, few people have the advantage of inheriting a patch of Welsh woodland.
Marcus’s dad, a dedicated environmentalist, bought it in the 1990s, before his early death aged 54. He’s buried there.
And not every chap has the luxury of taking a year or more off work while his wife supports the family. He and Abi, who works for a renewable trade organisation, have twin daughters at secondary school.
Kevin McCloud with Marcus and Abi who have built an eco-friendly cabin in the Pembrokeshire woods
Then there’s the added bonus of their house in Tenby, which they’re able to rent out for an extra income while they live in the woods. And when they ran out of savings and went £50,000 over budget, the couple were fortunate to be able to borrow from relatives.
More impractical still are the restrictions imposed by planning regulations. Marcus and Abi will have to produce accounts for the next five years, proving that every aspect of their lives is low-carbon and extra-green.
They have to minimise their travel, while all their purchases, including food and clothes, will be scrutinised. Fall foul of the shopping police and their right to live in the cabin will be revoked. They’ll be evicted, and the house demolished.
Even if they do follow these draconian eco-laws to the letter, they can never sell the place. No one else would be allowed to live there.
Good luck to the couple, of course. Their dream of living amid nature, surrounded by birdsong, is an appealing one, and making it come true demanded a huge amount of work.
But it’s nonsense to pretend this lifestyle is anything but fantasy for most people, or that it’s feasible on any scale beyond the individual and eccentric.
Like all eco-innovations, from wind farms to bans on petrol engines, it made as much sense as taking a bath in a snowstorm.
