How Not To Make Millions: but Still Enjoy a Rich Rural Life

HOW NOT TO MAKE MILLIONS

– But still enjoy a rich rural life

By

Alan McDonald

Copyright Alan McDonald 2011

Smashwords Edition

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www.launchwindow.co.uk

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Most people I have known during my life have contributed something to it, and consequently to the contents of this book. Obviously some have contributed things to my benefit, and some the opposite. Thanks to both groups, because those who gave me trouble taught me how to deal with the same problems when they occurred again in the future. Those who have particularly influenced my farming and gardening, or who have been especially helpful, are included somewhere in the book rather than being acknowledged by the normal method of being named here, whilst the problem people have largely been ignored and certainly not mentioned by name. I have done this because I consider that incorporating the helpful people in the book is more meaningful and gives a better illustration of their contribution. I will not give the others the satisfaction of seeing their name in a book.

If it had been a fictional story everyone in it would have a name, so I have also sometimes named people who are mentioned only briefly if it makes easier reading. Obviously there are people who have been friends or colleagues but who are not included because their part in my life did not concern my farming and gardening, and if they expect to find themselves named but fail to do so, then I apologise.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PART ONE

Chapter 1 – In the Beginning

Chapter 2 – Our Own Place

Chapter 3 – Australia

Chapter 4 – The Black Isle

Chapter 5 - Portugal

Chapter 6 - ….And again

PART TWO

Chapter 7 – The Property & Business

Chapter 8 – Use or Abuse of Soil

Chapter 9 – Feeding and Cultivating Soil

Chapter 10 – Grain, Energy and Water

Chapter 11 – The future?

Chapter 12 – Livestock

Chapter 13 – Machinery & Equipment

PART THREE

Chapter 14 – Preparing to Eat and Drink

Chapter 15 – Fruit and Vegetable Production

Chapter 16 – Eating

APPENDIX

PREFACE

Once upon a time I thought I needed to have a lot of money. All I had ever wanted to do was to be a farmer. Not easy if Daddy is not one already. Father was a pitman - who always wanted to be a farmer. Grandfather was a blacksmith - who always wanted to be a farmer. Great-grandfather was a farmer at a place called Crossfields near Turriff, Scotland, and he always wanted to be something else so he took a job on the railways. To become a farmer I knew I had to have lots of money to buy and stock my farm. There was perhaps a small chance of obtaining a tenancy of a farm but I did not want a tenancy, I wanted my own land.

Contrary to my expectations, because I had always been told it was impossible, I managed to buy a small farm when I still had very little money, so the need to be wealthy was no longer essential. I did acquire a large mortgage at the same time. Soon afterwards I totally gave up the idea of continually striving to make money, and concentrated instead on a better lifestyle for my wife and myself without spending any more than absolutely necessary. By better lifestyle, I mean a fairly straightforward rural life enjoying first and foremost good food and drink, followed by such of the rural pursuits as were available in the locality where we lived at the time. Achieving this meant that I felt I was rich, even if in monetary terms I was not.

When I was very young father gave me the opportunity of having a few square yards of my own land to do with whatever I wanted. I decided to grow vegetables to sell to anyone I could and began an ongoing system of keeping records of my experiences of gardening and later farming, with notes of what and what not to do in the future. I began transferring all my information on to a computer in 1989 so that I could access it easier, and I knew my son would be able to access it too. From some other notes I then decided to record things from my past, and updated the information as time went on so that he had this too, or perhaps a future generation might want to know. How interesting it would be to have had an ancestor leave you a record of when and how he managed to survive all the pitfalls that befell him.

About this time some people we had known for many years, and who received occasional news from us with a Christmas card, suggested that I should make a book out of our experiences of the different places we had lived in. So the notes, going back to about 1951 or 2, were gradually changed over a period of more than 20 years into their present form – with the addition of more places. This had not been my original intention. The notes were to be for my own use and later for my son, but for better or worse I was cajoled into it.

Perhaps it would be as well at this stage to inform anyone thinking of reading the book a little of what it is and is not about. It is actually three separate books, but they are so interlinked that I describe them as one book in three parts, and they need to be read in the correct order. I am not making an attempt to persuade anyone that I have the magical answer as to how acquiring a few acres of land can then lead to making a lot of money by following my foolproof methods of using that land. I hope nobody believes that such information exists. Nor is it to be considered a textbook on farming or gardening, or an instruction manual. I have purposely avoided repeating information which is readily available in specialised books and other sources of information, so it is not about the methodical details of raising livestock or growing crops, whether for sale, feeding animals, or for your own consumption. There are more than enough sources of this information already, and having lived and farmed in places as diverse as the Scottish Highlands, inland Portugal and the Australian outback, I know that some animal species and crops (and breeds and varieties within these) that are well suited to one place frequently fail to survive in another. Also having worked three properties within about a 20 miles radius in Northumberland, where I found there was so much variation in the soil types, and to a lesser extent even climate, I realised every field is sufficiently different to make it impossible to give definitive advice that can be applied to all land.

My original aim had been to show my son that through his own efforts and on minimal income, he could make a farm out of any land irrespective of where it might be or its condition when purchased, and then enjoy a lifestyle that many people think would require a considerable income to support. In changing these notes to book form this intention then became an effort to persuade other people likewise. As I moved around the world the book came to have a second aim, and that is to have all landholders think long and hard about how successive generations of future farmers can do the same thing by leaving their land in a more fertile state than when it was acquired. Perhaps this second aim is more important than the first. Based upon my experiences I have endeavoured to give suggestions that are generally useful to anyone interested in attempting to do these things, even if the amount of land available is very small. I prefer my ideas to be thought of as suggestions or possibilities because I do not believe in telling anyone that they must treat their own land in a particular manner. Instead I encourage the reader to reach their own informed decision to fit their particular property.

To use the book effectively it is necessary to have or aspire to have, an absolute minimum of a decent sized vegetable plot, and to be fully effective it is necessary to be operating some sort of a business activity at sufficient level to allow certain expenses to be claimed as business costs, thereby greatly reducing the cost of a better lifestyle. Without a business another source of income will be needed to pay for those things that, by necessity or desire, will be purchased.

The people I would anticipate to gain most from what I have written are people with only a few acres and with limited agricultural experience, and I believe it will particularly help people considering buying land for the first time. First timers will find quite a number of useful warnings of pitfalls to be avoided, even if they ignore all the other information and suggestions. I hope too that experienced smallholders and farmers will find it interesting, and that in places it also stimulates their minds. I generally refer to all landholders in the rest of the book as farmers, and their land as farms. I do not set a lower limit on the size of a property to permit it to be called a farm, although when I refer to a smallholding the reader will be aware that this is a property of just a few acres.

I am not so sure that those committed to an urban life will understand and appreciate all I have written, but a lot of the general population would benefit from reading anything that a practical farmer writes instead of believing things relating to agriculture that is written by people who are opposed to farming as we know it, particularly livestock farming and modern crop production methods. Being certain that some farming systems and lifestyles should not be attempted on a global scale if our descendants are to be able to feed themselves, I comment on these in some detail. When considering how the ever-increasing world population can feed itself in the future it is just as necessary to give information on what should not or cannot be done (and why not) as it is to give information on what could be done. At the same time I accept that people should have the right to live the lifestyle they prefer, and operate their own land however they think fit. As part of this view, and despite being a committed meat eater and livestock farmer, in Chapter 9 I set out a system of how a vegan farm might be operated.

I am assuming that the reader is genuinely interested in living well, and in particular eating well for as little cost as possible, because it is a natural consequence of the way of life my wife and I follow, and a portion of the book is devoted to this end. Even if your dream is to undertake some other pursuit rather than things agricultural, it is still necessary to produce as much of your own food as possible if you want to eat really well at minimum cost, so you must have a vegetable garden, preferably some fruit and nuts too, and space for some meat production if you eat meat.

I am a great believer in the old saying that you are what you eat. If you are farming in the manner described in the book you are going to be doing a lot of hard physical work. To maintain your health and bodily strength you need to take in a lot more food than if you were in a sedentary job, and many manual ones too. To be able to consume a lot of food means the food has to be of good eating quality so that you enjoy it, and good nutritionally if you are to have a long and healthy life. High salt, high sugar content processed foods fail to meet these criteria. At times the work you do is likely to be of sufficient intensity and duration as to equal that of many athletes or sportsmen in training so you need a high intake of protein as well as carbohydrate. People tend to ignore protein intake and concentrate on other aspects of diet such as fibre or avoiding fat. I have spent a fair amount of time on the track and sports fields, as well as pumped a bit of iron and had it drummed into me that a high protein intake is necessary when undertaking lots of strenuous physical exercise, and I believe it. Governmental guidelines around the world for the daily recommended protein intake is aimed at the majority of the population in modern societies and these people lead, on the whole, inactive lives. If you are working hard enough you will use this extra food and not convert it into body fat.

You will produce most of the food yourself, possibly all of it, and that is extremely important, because you thereby control the quality and variability of your diet. I am well aware of the hungry people in the world. I remain conscious of the present and future undernourished people throughout the book, but if you are producing the food yourself then you can eat whatever you have without causing anyone else any problems. You actually help others, because you avoid all but a minute portion of the energy and water consumption necessary to get the food from where it is grown onto your plate, even in comparison with purchasing food locally grown by someone else. By growing your own you are doing a great service to the rest of humanity, and will automatically take an interest in ensuring that future generations can also produce their own food. I am also very much aware of climate change predictions and greenhouse gases – shortened to GHG from hereon.

Book or Part One is a short chronology of the first sixty-odd years of my life. It is not to be confused with the numerous books that have been written by people moving to a rural life for the first time. It is included to show that I have a lot of personal experience of farming my own land on several properties over a wide geographical area and for several decades, giving me the knowledge and experience to write the contents of parts two and three. It also includes many snippets of useful information. The second part contains some suggestions on what you can do with your property and running a business on it, my thoughts on improving and maintaining the land, and some suggestions relating to livestock and equipment. The third part is concerned with food – growing, cooking and eating it.

I give my own views on methods of stock, crop and food production where these differ from what I understand to be generally accepted principles, or if I have found something that may be quite common in one part of the world, but appears to be unknown to people elsewhere, and I believe in striving for self-sufficiency in food production so far as this is reasonably practicable. Indeed that is my attitude to all things in life, do what is reasonably practicable (a cut-off point each individual has to decide) but do not continue with something that becomes an extreme burden for you to accomplish. In writing about crops and livestock there are many words that make sense to those with the relevant knowledge but are meaningless to the uninformed. Where I think it might help the novice farmer I have given a brief description.

There have been times when I had a substantial income, but for much of my life it has been very small, and frequently I have operated with trading losses. Setting up a new property can be expensive so such trading losses are sometimes inevitable. At all times my family has eaten extremely well. Our lifestyle means that holidays have been rare, and frankly we have not missed them because instead we have moved around the world and gained first-hand experience of life in several countries. This residential, and particularly farming, experience has allowed us a much greater insight into the countries than we could possibly have obtained by any other means – especially two weeks in a tourist area.

Subject to climatic restrictions, all the suggestions in the book can be used by people who do not move, although they will obviously miss the experience of living in different places. I recommend moving if it is at all possible. Do not be put off by the effect on the education of your children. If they have the ability then they will succeed academically no matter how often they move. Our son had been a pupil in seven schools in both hemispheres by the time he was 11 years old. Within the next 11 years he had obtained two Masters degrees and had commenced his Ph.D.

Whether their academic achievements are great or small, children will obtain a far better grounding for the rest of their life by growing up in several different places and in different cultures than they would by remaining in one school. I am opposed to the notion of home schooling for this reason. Neither do I see the need to send your children to a fee-paying school. If you consider the local schools are not of a satisfactory standard, or a threat to your children’s well being, then move. Rearing the next generation is the most important job in the world, and if you have bred children then it is your responsibility to ensure they are properly reared and educated. What you want to do and where you want to be must take second place to this responsibility and my wife and I practiced what we preach. Moving will be especially beneficial if your children follow your footsteps and produce their own food too, because they will learn from your experiences of growing different crops in different climates.

You should be warned that if you decide to follow a similar course through life that we have done, you are unlikely to become immensely wealthy, but there is no reason why you should not be happy most of the time and you will certainly be fit, which probably brings its own good health. Some of your acquaintances may find you a little odd and not understand how you can possibly live in such a manner when you have the intelligence and ability to do so much better for yourself – at least what they think is better for you. Neither will these people understand that, by absolute necessity for survival, and in racing parlance, you come first (because without you all else fails) your livestock and land come second, and the rest of the world, including them, is an extremely bad third, probably even failing to complete the race in most cases.

Where it fits the text I address the reader as the male of the species as the original form of notes to my son did, and whilst in adding to this information I have made allowance for others to read it, I am still basically addressing him. To do otherwise would have involved a change of style, perhaps even to the extent that the book would no longer be me writing it, but even so the principles, if not the fine details, apply equally as well to women who want to do their own thing, and in the food recipes I address the ladies because that part was intended for the woman in my son’s life, and I am certain women are better cooks. I know most internationally famous chefs have been men, but I think that is a European continent tradition, and in times past the great houses of Britain always had females not only heading the kitchen, but also as housekeepers. It is a fact of life that one gender is better at some jobs than the other is, and my view is that women are better at cooking.

I think in British Imperial Measurements most of the time, although I can think metric if I am dealing with a product or material that is itself measured in metric terms. This really is easy because they are only numbers that relate to each other. There is not usually a problem with using either of them unless people want to be difficult and do exact conversions between the two systems, or even some other measurement like converting weight to bushels. Most of the time it is immaterial, but to help anyone who is familiar with only Imperial or only metric I have given approximate alternatives where I think it is important. At other times I have given only one measurement and rely on the reader to have a reasonable idea of what it means. The reason for approximation is because the original measurement is normally approximate. For example discussing the cultivation of land at 8 inches deep would convert to 20 centimetres or 200 millimetres, when in fact 8 inches is 203 millimetres – to the nearest millimetre. It is impossible to maintain an exact depth across a field so 8 inches is 20cms.

I occasionally refer to land as being in a neglected state. This is not necessarily a condemnation of the farming ability of the vendors of properties. Some of the previous owners of properties we have bought were not actively using the land, but if it is producing at much less than its ability I still consider it neglected from an agricultural perspective.

I can support all statements I make in the book. If I do not have definite personal proof of something, I use expressions such as I believe, or I think. I regret that of the many books I have read on farming, gardening, rural life, and suggested lifestyles, quite a number do not follow this rule, and many of these books are held as being essential reading for would be rural dwellers. In his book Comfrey, Past Present and Future Lawrence Hills warns about the fact that once something is published there are those who copy other men’s references from the ends of their papers. In other words some people write with supposed authority on matters they have merely read about elsewhere without even the knowledge of the origin of their statements and proof of them. I agree with him.

Where I have given a book title and author I have not always used the academic system of also giving the publisher and year of publication. In many cases I do not have the information and took the notes long ago. In other cases I have read different editions of the same book at different times in my life, and in others I have accessed electronic copies of the books. Nevertheless I have acknowledged the author of information I have used because it is right and proper to do so.

I would also caution the reader that anyone who claims to have crops and livestock in perfect health, or production at levels that would regularly approach qualifying for the Guinness Book of Records is simply not being honest. Additionally, some of the sources of information I have accessed over the years include very glaring factual errors and quote myths as truth. These falsehoods lead me to believe the writer not only does not have the practical experience but also lacks basic knowledge of the subject in which they claim to be an expert. Where I have the knowledge and experience, and it fits the subject matter at hand, I have drawn attention to a small number of them.

PART ONE

Chapter 1 - In the Beginning

13 Sycamore Street, Ashington, Northumberland, 4th May 1944. I made my entrance, apparently without too much fuss, the third child in the family. The house has since been demolished so there is no point in me attempting to become extremely famous so that a brass plaque can be attached to the wall. When I was just turned one year old my father and a friend, Albert Hudson, bought a pair of semi-detached houses north of Morpeth a few miles to the west of Ashington, with four and a half acres of land that had formerly been used for soft fruit production and was almost totally overgrown with raspberries. My younger brother was born soon afterwards. Father and Albert worked in the coal pits on permanent nightshift, 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., at a time when pitmen were paid on production, not a set wage, and they ran the smallholding during the day. I am certain it severely shortened the life of them both. I do not believe the old saying that hard work never killed anyone. A reasonable amount will not, but to excess I think it will.

The houses were in good order, being quite modern, so the men were able to concentrate on clearing the land, growing crops and keeping pigs. Both of them had previous experience, having worked on farms before becoming pitmen. Albert’s father was a shepherd, and father had known him since they were schoolboys. Father also kept poultry on rented ground prior to buying the holding. Some of their earlier ventures were to grow crops to supply the wholesale markets in Newcastle upon Tyne. I remember lettuce and cut flowers in particular. In summer time the flowers or vegetables would be cut and boxed in the evenings by my mother and Albert’s wife; and I have recollections of helping to pack these boxes as well as hoeing lettuce against weeds. On their return from the pit one of the men would make perhaps two or three journeys to Newcastle (some fifteen miles distant) with the produce whilst the other slept. The lucky one would then make an early start the following morning to give the driver a chance of some sleep – but not a lot.

I grew up on this smallholding, learning what I could, and there nurtured my dream of becoming a farmer someday. My mother told me that as soon as I could walk I would wander around the place to see the animals and crops until I fell asleep. She said this regularly occurred in amongst Brussels sprouts, after I had munched a few, and to this day I enjoy eating them raw. We had a horse, but no tractor, so two local men Dick Young and Eddie Young (not related) did tractor work for us when speed of land preparation was required. Horses are good, but very slow compared with a tractor. Both men remained lifelong friends, although Eddie is now long gone. We also kept one and sometimes two house cows. As a consequence I drank only milk as a child, preferably still warm from the cow, and we frequently had our own butter and cream. I have no recollection of ever drinking skimmed milk, always full fat.

Buildings for a pig breeding and fattening herd were set up, various uncles lending a hand with the buildings and generally helping out at weekends. My Aunt Violet was a real countrywoman and could work wonders with any kind of meat you cared to put in front of her. She was the chief black pudding maker at pig killing time. She would bleed the pig as soon as it had been dropped. Father had a special pig-killing hammer. I guess it was about 7 lbs and made specifically for killing animals. It would easily have killed sheep and maybe even cattle as well, but we killed neither so I do not know. The head had a heavy side and a piece on the other rather like a long, thick finger. A big man readily drove this finger-sized piece into the pig’s brain. I suppose death would be instantaneous when the pig was hit with sufficient force in the right place. Violet would then stick the pig in the neck and collect the blood. Stirring with her hand she would remove pieces of vein or whatever, and I remember her licking the blood off her arm when she had finished. It may sound rather gross, but there is raw blood in many sausages that are made around the world and eaten uncooked, and I think fresh blood is probably as palatable as stuff that has been dried in a sausage for a few months.

I am unsure about the details of meat rationing regulations in those immediate post-war years, but since the protagonists of the event are dead the story can be told. Because the smallholding was an agriculturally registered one, the purchase of cereal-based feeds and the sale of pigs were permitted. Other people who were not on such holdings still kept pigs, but there was some restriction on them breeding the animals, and a tight limit on how many they could have and sell in addition to the problem they had of being allowed to buy feeding stuffs – except on the Black Market, of course. A man by the name of Bill White had a very extensive garden, barely into the town of Morpeth and he raised a large number of plants for sale and his own use. He had heated greenhouses so was able to start seeds early in the year, and father and Albert bought a lot of their vegetable plants from him. Anyway Bill liked pigs and he had housing for some, so we supplied him with a few weaners straight off their mother. I was very young, but remember taking them in the back of a small van. A while later father and I went back again with some more little pigs and returned home with the original ones, which by this time had become a lot bigger. This went on for quite some time, and apparently the reason was that Bill could not take all these pigs to the local livestock mart because of the rationing regulations, and what father and he did was apparently illegal. It seems daft, but it just goes to show that even way back then there were regulations that stopped people from living a reasonable rural lifestyle if they wanted to. Years later I discovered that my Mother-in-Law was Bill’s niece, so it is quite possible I have known my wife literally all her life without realising it. I was 23 when we think we first met.

When I was about seven years old (I am not certain of the age) father let me use a plot of ground for growing my own vegetables, and I would sell these to relatives. I particularly remember my Aunt Jean buying my first crop of Dobie’s Scarlet Runner Beans. I am sure the crop did not weigh as heavy as she said. Later she taught me to type. I also grew pigeon beans for my elder brother’s pigeons. Everything always made a good profit. Albert Hudson gave me an apple tree as a Christmas present about then too. A strange present to give a kid one might think, but I learned how to prune the tree and produced quite a few apples.

Father and Albert separated the smallholding into two units when meat rationing ended. 1954 I think. Albert continued with pigs, the majority of the buildings being on his half of the property, but father concentrated on growing market garden type crops, with a variety of poultry kept too. Albert gave my younger brother and me a little pig each a couple of years later, and we raised and sold them at a nice profit too. I still have the paperwork for that sale. All extremely good experience and encouragement for me.

I passed the examination to go to the local Grammar School at eleven years old, and hated every minute of it. I was not destined to be inside all day, I needed to be out. I suppose I must have learned something, because I had reasonable leaving results. When I told my school Careers' Master that I wanted to be a farmer his response was short and to the point You can't. Your father is not a farmer so it is impossible. I did not ask him to elaborate. I merely determined that I would make a million and buy my farm. The short discussion also had a side effect. I noticed he said the abbreviated can’t and not cannot. I have never used the abbreviated form since for I decided that there was no such word. Unfortunately I have found that cannot is a word that is frequently correctly applied to my aspirations to achieve something.

How to make a million? If you are thinking you might like being wealthy too then you might learn a little from this phase of my life. I realised that short of inventing something everyone in the world wanted to buy, like the Hula Hoop a short while previously, I was unlikely to suddenly become rich, so I would have to work at it. This was 1960 and jobs were easy to come by. I managed to have the offer of two - both in offices. Farm labourers were too badly paid for me to try that route. I accepted one, agreed to start on Monday, 1st August 1960 (the school year finishing the Friday before) at the princely salary of £240 a year, started on the Tuesday because the first was a Bank Holiday, was paid for the Monday, and began to claw my way to the first million.

By this time father wanted to have pigs again. Once you have had stock, it is extremely difficult to live without them. So between us we bought a pig. A Large White in-pig gilt. For those lacking the necessary knowledge of pig-speak, this is a young pregnant female of the breed Large White. We have all heard the story of the fantastically rich, big landowner who started with one pig. I do not believe it. Buying half a pig is not the answer to making a million.

As time went on the number of pigs increased, and we reared a few calves, we also built sheds for them and for hens - for egg production. The word we included anyone we could find to help, and my two brothers and brother-in-law put a lot of time in, as uncles had previously assisted father and Albert. The smallholding was on the old A1 – in those days officially known as the London-Edinburgh-Thurso Trunk Road, or the main artery for the whole of the British mainland. Put out a sign EGGS, and in come the customers. Easy. Expand. More hens, more eggs, more customers. Expand, etc. With all the manure available we were able to grow prodigious crops of potatoes and most of the land went down to that crop each year. Father and I used to dig them by hand. Good exercise for a young bloke like I was then.

Foreign holidays were beginning to become fashionable for urbanites so the customers go to the Costa Plenty or Paradis sur Mer for a holiday. When they come back they do not want bacon and eggs for breakfast. The hens still lay eggs every day, but the several hundred customers begin eating silly little pastries, or nothing, for breakfast. Egg consumption in the so-called developed world has continued to decrease ever since, putting pressure on profit margins. Even before the days of unfounded cholesterol and salmonella scares, keeping hens and selling eggs was not the way to make a million. Always profitable, but not to excess. Bear in mind, however, that both of us were in full-time employment and therefore were not reliant on the pigs and hens for a living, but we ceased increasing hen numbers.

I had continued studying after leaving school and obtained a few qualifications with the (successful) intention that these would increase my salary. Time well spent I think because I moved jobs a couple of times and made fairly rapid progress upwards. I am reasonably sure that when I became a Deputy Town Clerk I was the youngest in England. I read everything I could lay my hands on regarding farming, and still do. Books, magazines, rural newspapers, which in those days always carried full reports of all auction sales, and I drank in pubs where farmers and farm-workers gathered. Nowadays the Internet is such a tremendous source of information from around the world, and I have made good use of that, but I have also seen some total nonsense put out, so be careful of acting on advice acquired from unknown sources. For example I had one person contacting me direct for information when buying his first property. Six months or so later I saw something he had posted saying he had always done a certain thing with his poultry. I think he had bought five hens.

Rabbits. Everybody knows they breed like rabbits. Not quite everyone. A friend of mine, John Nicholson - affectionately known as Nickers (without a K at the beginning), beat me to this idea. Everything was fine for a while, and then apparently the rabbits decided not to continue breeding like rabbits. He convinced me that breeding rabbits is not the way to make a million.

There is another way. Marry a million, or at least a farm. Father often told me to find a rich farmer's ugly, and hopefully only, daughter. The old boy would be so pleased to get her off his hands, and a free slave for use around the farm that I would end up with the farm after he snuffed it. Trouble is, rich farmers tend to have other rich farmers' sons hanging around for any daughters, ugly or otherwise. Try another tack. Find a wife who is cheap to keep. You might not make a million this way, but at least you will not spend one trying to keep her happy. For preference, find one whilst she is still at school, and has not learnt too many bad habits by going out with misguided young men that shower her in expensive drinks and presents. Of course, if you are already 35 years old, you are liable to have the long arm of the law making a few enquiries as to your ulterior motives with young girls. Do not despair and read on. The next step is to ensure that your chosen one is going to a college to study home economics. If you are too old for school-leavers, find a mature student from the same college. There has to be some physical attraction of course, on both sides, because you are going to spend a lot of time together.

Sure, you could pick someone who is going to become a lawyer or merchant banker or nuclear physicist, but who is going to make the dinner at nights? You - plus help with the housework. Or, since you could probably afford it with all the money she is making, you could employ a maid/cook. Now the little woman will have meetings, business trips, late nights at the office. You and the maid are on your own. She might as well eat with you. Share a bottle of wine? Have another glass? Then.... a nasty, costly divorce. You might get to keep the maid, but your plans for making a million have received a severe setback. Avoid career women. Stick to the homely cookery/needlework teacher. It helps if her decrepit parents are loaded, of course. It took me a few years to pick mine, her mother is not too much older than me, and she keeps threatening to outlive me. I suspect she might succeed, but, although she refers to herself as The Old Dragon, she has been more than generous in our times of need. A cheap-to-keep wife is a tremendous asset, and forms part of the overall plan.

Having found the other half, introduce her to your ideas. If she laughs in your face you have a problem, but with a bit of luck she will be sympathetic, organise a homemade something or other for you to eat, and if you are really lucky, a drink (alcoholic) she has also made. Since she has some brains, which you know because she is going to college, she should be able to help your plans along - and come up with some ideas of her own. But there will be times when she desperately tries to prove that she does not have any brains at all. Ignore this. When confronted with such an experience father would merely shake his head and say Wives, marra!! It took me many years to realise that this is the only effective response. It confuses them, and they usually return to normal behaviour in a short space of time. Wives in this context merely means any female, not necessarily your wife, so you can use the expression with other women too.

Do not become overly smug, my boy, because they think exactly the same about us, and they are right. Male and female thought processes operate so differently that we are bound to clash with each other. I am surprised it does not happen more frequently. Perhaps it is a throwback to the time when we lived very different lives – the men out chasing woolly mammoths or some other creature for meat and the women staying in the cave with the kids, hoping that a few meals might come back with the men. I am sure our minds have been on diverging paths ever since, but we need