5^th May.  Speaker, Kevin Alviti “Our Homestead & How We Got Here”.



Many aspired to ‘the good life’ inspired by River Cottage and self-sufficiency guru John Seymour, but we rarely hear first-hand, lived-experience relayed with such energy and humour as our speaker Kevin Alviti was able to conjure. His account of growing-up on a hard-pressed tenant farm within a mantra of self-reliance, coupled with being a ‘useful child’ with early live-stock farming responsibilities, proved formative. Post-school our speaker found his vocation in a carpentry course considered then an inferior option to a university degree. Undaunted Kevin became a carpenter by trade, working with traditional and medieval skills. Combining woodwork with those farming foundations from childhood, Kevin, wife and family have created their Homestead: a small holding with big ambitions. Adept at adapting to change, recycling, rebuilding and repurposing land and buildings, the family created orchards and fruit and veg beds beyond the quotidian: variety evidently is key to self-sufficiency. Mixing child-care and woodworking with the Homestead’s hard-graft of planting, foraging and preserving, cooking is a combined family enterprise. If this sounds against the grain of contemporary life, the reality is anything but an isolated rural idyll. At the core of Kevin’s life and work is a commitment to family and to the wider communities beyond the Homestead’s self-reliance perspective.  From contributing to play-groups, being a scout leader, mentoring and schools, Kevin and family are also integrated into the wider-community. A blogger, lecturer and writer for woodworking magazines, Kevin arrived with beautifully carved and well-designed wooden tools and harvest boxes for sale. An entertaining and uplifting evening. We look forward to hearing more about the unusual fruit and veg that Kevin grows in our programme next year.  

Pam Meecham