If you’re gonna live in a tent, you have to get the proper tents
None of this weekend stuff
You have to know where you can pitch a tent to make it safe
‘Cause even the most robust tents, won’t put up with the storms
They have to be in certain positions
to put up with it
There’s no telephone
signal down here. There’s nobody passing
so if you did have something wrong,
you’re stuck. You’re on your own,
there’s nothing else you can do. Even although it’s a
ten mile round trip walking, and a fifty mile
train journey. That’s quite easy
to get supplies in. It wouldn’t be for
the normal person, but that to me is easy.
It’s the easiest I’ve found.
You know I’ve
chosen to do that. There’s other places I could
go to which would be easier to me to get help
You know but I just chose to be down here and I’m happy with that
I’ve got it down to a tee. I know exactly what to do
I know what to survive and I know what to do
I’ve suffered. I’ve suffered hypothermia
and I know what to do if I get that.
You must keep yourself
spotlessly clean. No shirking on washing
That means cleaning your teeth every day
Washing your hands. Having a bath every day
Not washing your hands and face every day
Wading into the water, every day
You must keep yourself clean, every day
and then you won’t get any infections
As I said I’d normally be naked doing this
but you’re not getting to see that
Two years ago, where I had snow down here
It was, nobody would have got down
Not even the stalkers got down in their vehicles
There was nothing that would have got down here
not even the snow cats. You couldn’t walk
in it in snow shoes. It was three/four feet
deep around the tent. I was stuck down
here for three weeks. “Visibility is down to
about 100 yards now”. I dug paths so far just to
give me some walking space, and I dug a path down
to the loch to get water, so I could still wash
and get water for cooking.
Just the end of 2007,
I started getting problems with my breathing,
and I went. One day I woke up
and found I was pretty ill. Went to the doctors
They thought I’d had a heart attack
So I was treated for a heart attack
But I was pretty ill. Got a heart scan
and they came up with I had dilated
cardiomyopathy. Which is a life
threatening condition. And I was told I
needed a heart transplant. So I told them I didn’t
want a heart transplant, I wasn’t wanting
considered for that. And I thought right well
if I’ve got only a short life
expectancy, I’m just gonna come
out and live in the wild. Which is what I was
gonna do when I retired. And now that I’m 65,
and been out for 12 years. That’s what I would’ve
been doing now anyway, I would have sold up
I got a heart scan two years ago
And my heart scan showed that my heart wasn’t dilated anymore
So I came off of medication
And all of a sudden I became as fit as a fiddle again
But, unfortunately, in the last four weeks
I’ve had another heart scan. And it’s come back again
So there’s been a relapse. And it’s quite serious
at the moment. So I’m on to a different
medicine, but. The heart’s relapsed again
But fortunately I still feel pretty fit
But, I know it’s quite a life threatening thing I’ve got
I don’t know what will happen to me
I might not wake up one day like
Which would be the ideal situation I suppose
But I’m happy as larry I’m really contented
with what I’m doing