Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
COULD YOU DROP OUT OF THE RAT RACE?
ABOLDTVEXPERIMENTSENT24 PEOPLETOLIVEOFFTHELANDWITH NOMODERNTRAPPINGS–BUTDID ITMAKETHEMANYHAPPIER?
The Western world has more wealth and more choice than ever before. Yet, with higher rates of depression and suicide, it’s also more miserable. So it’s no surprise many of us hanker after a simpler life – no traffic jams or technology – and the pandemic seemed to strengthen that feeling.
But how would we really fare? A fascinating new show on Channel 4 aims to find out. Called The Simpler Life, it sees 24 modern Brits try to live like an Amish community – the Christian group who live a modest life of self-sufficiency, mostly in the American Midwest – over a six-month period.
Over the course of the project, the community – which includes a rapper, a former soldier and a social media content creator – live without mains electricity, gas or any form of technology on a 40-acre farm in Devon complete with a lake and a wood. They have to harvest more than three acres of hay – without mechanisation –aswellasbuildabarnanda shelter for pigs and wash their clothes and dishes without modern appliances. Luckily, Amish farmer Lloyd Miller came to the UK with his wife Edna and three of their six children to show them how it’s done.
The six-episode series is hugely entertaining – a sort of Big Brother but with campfires – but less so for some of the guinea pigs. While the majority were happier by the end, some weren’t.
Londoner Penny, 44, aformerpafor professional footballers, was one who struggled. She decided to take part with her two daughters
Dilara, 15, and Azara, nine, after being caught in an earthquake in Turkey in 2020, and then catching Covid, which left her seriously ill in hospital. ‘Things needed to change,’ she says. ‘The kids and I spent too much time on our devices and I was looking for something completely different.’
Althoughshegrewtolove aspects of the experiment, like the peace and quiet of the countryside, she hated the clothes she had to wear and living with other people.
‘During rows, I kept finding myself in the middle of them,’ she recalls. ‘I didn’t think I’d have trouble with anyone, but I have set ways of doing things.
The washing up wasn’t done properly, so I started doing ours separately and kept it in our room. I would secretly cry most days; I was a nervous wreck.’
In contrast, it was a lifechanging experience for 23-yearold barman Kevin from Wigan. ‘Before I went in, I was in a lot of pain with colitis [an inflammation of the colon]. I was underweight and had a real lack of confidence,’ he says. ‘Being in this farmhouse, working hard and eating healthily totally turned my life around.’
He became close to the Miller family and is going to see them in Ohio for a wedding. Since leaving, he’s got his first girlfriend and is hoping to get a job in radio. The only blight was Penny. ‘She was so negative,’ he says, ‘that I struggled to be around her.’
For farmer Lloyd, the project proved rewarding. ‘In this age, everything is “me, me, me”,’ he says. ‘It’s hard to put other people first. Our hope is that we were sowing seeds for them to take back to their lives. What we have is priceless.’
The Simpler Life starts Tuesday, 9.15pm, Channel 4.