Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Dancing on Ice star’s new career Allotment offer led to a life in sun
WORKMATE
The Australian choreographer said he is now living his best life restoring the balance of nature in the Portuguese countryside.
Like many of us, the pandemic hit the soon-to-be 50-year-old hard.
Vines of despair strangled all hope for his solo show and the 34-year career he worked so hard to build, bit the dust.
But in an exclusive interview with the Mirror, Jason has revealed how the kindness of a neighbour with an allotment threw open a world of possibilities.
He has now embarked on a new life beyond the screen and planted a seed of hope that outgrew his fears for the future.
He said: “I was going through it in the first lockdown and really struggled with my mental health.
“I spent four years writing my solo show which I premiered in London.
“We got rave reviews and then there was a whole tour booked for 2020 which obviously got cancelled and then all the other contracts got cancelled.”
With no help from the Government, Jason revealed he had no option but to close his business and “let go of my staff ”. He said: “It was devastating.” Then, faced with the reality nothing was coming in, he poured over his finances to see how long he could last.
Jason added: “That really forced me to evaluate lots of things where I’d been very wasteful. I had direct debits for things I didn’t even use and I was thinking, ‘This is nuts’.”
But sitting at home all day with nothing to do also took its toll.
He revealed: “I have been working since I was 16 so it was a real hard thing for me to accept I had to be at home doing nothing.
“One of my neighbours, Jennifer, came up to me and said ‘You’re not looking great, what’s happening?’.
“I was so fearful and she said, ‘What are you fearful about?’
“I told her my story and she was like, ‘You need some lovely outdoor work – I’ve got an allotment. I can’t do it on my
It took me a while to decompress. I am living an amazing experience JASON GARDINER ON HIS LIFE AFTER HIT TV SHOW
own, I could really use some help’.
“I said ‘yes’ – I don’t know why but I jumped at it.
“It’s not something I had ever done before.
“The minute she took me there something happened. I don’t know what it was but I just got the excitement back in my life.”
From that small act of friendship something even more beautiful sprouted as Jason and Jennifer grew so much food
they could give it to elderly neighbours. Not convinced the pandemic would “blow over” as pals suggested he decided he needed out of London.
For three months Jason lived in a tent while building eco houses for refugees.
He learnt everything he could about an approach to land management that means working with nature rather than bending it to your will.
Now the original Dancing On Ice judge is getting down to an altogether different tune.
He is teaching landowners across Portugal how to get the best from their lot with holistic permaculture philosHe revealed it has evolved “my love of the environment... growing things and wanting to share that”.
COMMUNITY
He has helped new parents start a kitchen garden and taught a community of young people how to live off the land sustainably in Pavia in Alentejo.
Jason is also restoring a client’s soil because “it was depressing to look out and see the destruction that he’d caused” when building his dream home in Aldeia do Meco.
Another project has seen him establishing a fully sustainable way of life on a Comporta family estate. He added: “My tenure on Dancing on Ice was always marred with controversy and lots of issues but the problem is, I didn’t realise how toxic it was until I left.
“It took me a while to decompress from it, I’ll be honest.
“Then I would wake up at 6am, do my yoga outside, go for a walk and that’s when I realised I’m living an amazing experiophies. ence right here. Slowly but surely I began to realise I was so much better because I wasn’t stressed. “That’s the other thing permaculture teaches you – what is a good use of your time and energy.
“It’s vitally important to the quality of life you are going to live. “People think with sustainability you have to go without.
“That’s not what sustainability is – it’s being able to live your life by harnessing the natural energies we have and they’re for free.”
With all this newfound knowledge, Jason revealed his views on the climate crisis.
He said: “If people don’t stop and do something now then we will have to deal with the consequences as the human race.
“This planet has prevailed for a very long time [and] it will continue to prevail.
“Civilisations have come and gone and we will be just another civilisation in history if we don’t do something.”