Hugh Sawyer – Ditch Monkey
By all accounts, Hugh Sawyer would seem like your typical young London urbanite. The 32-year-old Oxford law grad works at the swanky Sotheby’s, where you’re apt to find him decked out in the finest attire. He goes to gym, has a girlfriend, likes to have drinks with his mates in downtown London. Yet, instead of having a stylish pad in Shoreditch or Notting Hill, Hugh heads home every evening to a ditch in the woods near Oxford.
Hugh has taken downsizing to the extreme. He has given up every home-related comfort to spend a year living outdoors. From an article in The Observer…
‘I want to make people think about how much they consume that is not necessary,’ said Sawyer, who has been living in the woods near the village of Lewknor, Oxfordshire, since June. ‘I am trying to prove it is possible to do everything you normally do, maintaining a full existence, while cutting back. I have realised I can lead my life without television, carpets, sofa, electricity, chairs, tables, a fridge and a freezer.’
His friends gave him the nickname, Ditch Monkey. What began as a six-week experiment last June has turned into a goal of one-year and he’s still going, despite the trials of a British winter. Hugh has got a blog going to chronicle his adventures and in the process, he’s raising money for the Woodland Trust – the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity – and has generated over £2,500 in donations thus far.
Here’s Hugh’s blog at ditchmonkey.blogspot.com and here’s that article from the The Observer.
[via Treehugger]
