Di Hammil's life has been a lesson in the unconventional - and in self-reliance. If you're looking to jump off-grid, she's got just the place to escape to
Imagine sitting round a camp fire with your closest friends, wine in hand, smoke from a wood fired oven drifting lazily towards the setting sun. No stress. No pressure. No pinging phones or 24/7 bland TV. Just the uncluttered simplicity of a Yorkshire wilderness and a backdrop of fading birdsong.
For those who want to escape the rat-race and get back to nature, Di Hammill’s Wild Harvest and Tipi Glamping business is the place to be. From a beautiful rural location near York, Di offers an idyllic lifestyle few of us experience in the world of fast-forward consumerism and ever tightening deadlines.
On the doorstep of a period farmhouse she has created a business which is the antithesis of 21st Century living, and those who experience a flavour of her lifestyle return to the consumerist world with a slightly different take on what is important in life and what can be discarded.
‘A lot of people are so caught up in consumerism that they become stuff managers,’ she says. ‘I have grown up realising that I just don’t need stuff. What is the point in buying more and more things so that you need a bigger house to make space for even more things? Getting rid of stuff is actually incredibly cathartic and simplifies everything.’
Di, for instance, has never owned a television. She calls them ‘sappers of time’ which can be better used learning and enriching life with new skills and experiences. She turns to nature for fuel, food and fitness and will just as happily sleep under the stars as in her bed.
Such self-reliance, it seems, is in her DNA.
She was raised by a hippy father and grandfather following a bitter custody battle. Their philosophy in life was to live simply, freely and as naturally as possible. It was an unconventional upbringing but one which opened her eyes and heart to an alternative lifestyle which has influenced her ever since.
‘My Dad, who was a scientist, was also a hippy who wore wooden clogs and green flares, which was very embarrassing to me as a child,’ says Di. ‘He ate mung beans which grew on top of the fridge and homemade yoghurt in a thermos flask. It was unusual for a father and grandfather to have custody of a child in those days, and they didn’t really know what to do with me, so for a lot of the time I was left to my own devices.’
When she left her unconventional home, she took a university post-graduate education in criminal psychology and teaching at college, before giving up academia to raise three children single handedly, spending several years living off-grid in the North York Moors. They had no heating, toilet or running hot water and lived in a green painted caravan in a five-acre field. Their days were spent collecting firewood and foraging for wild food. Di used fur from rabbits killed on the roads to line her children’s boots in winter and they occasionally bathed in a nearby river.
She managed to save enough money by selling home made beeswax candles, hedgerow teas and cordials through local tourist shops, then running wild food walks for the National Parks Centres and for the Forestry Commission, to eventually send her children to Steiner school, which focuses on experiential learning; making, doing, creating and producing.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she says. ‘It was really hard at times and often very lonely.’
Today her life is a little more conventional. She lives in a rented farmhouse on the outskirts of East Cottingwith near York, where she runs Wild Harvest Tipis and
Activities as part of the Wild Harvest School of Self-Reliance. She has a two-acre site here and a further field containing the tipis just up the road.
Visitors enter the site through a small gate and follow a winding mulch path – scattered with Silkie hens strutting ahead - which leads to raised beds of organic vegetables and herbs. Colourful Bo-Ho sheds containing an off-grid eco-shower, a small kitchen and a workshop/meeting room, lead to two wooden sleeping pods with log fires. A hand built open fire-pit is surrounded by cushioned log seats and two pizza ovens – one hand built by Di. There is an area for archery, shaded by willow trees which are used for basket making; facilities for candle making, rag-rugging and soap making, and areas for processing foraged plants for medicines and body products.
The site is also surrounded by flat, open countryside which is a rich source of natural ingredients for Di’s wild foraging courses. The environment oozes self-sufficiency and a pared down lifestyle, which appeals to people from all over the UK who are keen to cut the clutter and get back to basics.
The school is increasingly popular as a venue for hen and stag party glamping weekends, team building days, birthday parties, children’s parties, family glamping and day courses – the difference being that instead of going on a pub crawl they will be learning new skills, and the expensive restaurant meal out will be replaced by home-made suppers around a fire pit. They might arrive in sequins, but they leave in their scruffs – happy and content to have stepped off the treadmill long enough to appreciate what life has been missing. The under-lying message is downshift and upskill.
‘Being self-reliant is incredibly challenging but enormous fun,’ says Di. ‘When people come here they will be saying goodbye to many of their consumer comforts but it’s amazing how quickly they immerse themselves into this different way of life. The wonderful thing is that you never stop learning. I learn a new skill every year to keep broadening my knowledge. Last year I took my motor bike test. This year I’m doing locksmithing.’ She is also a qualified Adult Education tutor, Permaculture Designer, Natural beekeeper, Archery GB instructor, Blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do, Survival Medic trained, NNAS Navigation Tutor plus Natural navigation tutor, and a Member of the Association of Foragers. Unsurprisingly Di is now seen as one of the country’s leading experts in simple, natural lifestyle and self-reliance.
As such, she has been gaining prominence as an influential speaker and is in demand as a specialist in her field at events throughout the UK, as well as hosting workshops at the annual Country Living Fairs in Harrogate and London. She has also taught her skills to Countryfile presenters and featured in Escape to the Country.
Self-reliance, it seems, is not just for the country people – it’s for those who live in towns and cities as well.
‘It is definitely an urban concept too, not just a rural way of life,’ says Di. ‘I regularly lead wild food walks in the centre of York. You don’t have to live off-grid to become more self-reliant and self-sufficient.’
For more information about courses and retreats at the Wild Harvest School of Self-Reliance, visit wildharvest.org
