In 2000 Simon Dawson and his wife, Debbie, took a major risk – they sold their London flat and moved with a horse and Great Dane to the heart of the countryside. Scraping together every penny, they bought 8 hectares (20 acres) of land on Exmoor and built a smallholding, where they now enjoy a self-sustaining, virtually self-sufficient life, rearing, growing and foraging for most of their food. They have a huge extended family of pigs, chickens, geese, quail, ducks and turkeys, two horses, hand-milking goats, farm cats, an OAP collie and a couple of Great Danes for good measure.

In his time Simon has been ‘Self-Sufficiency Simon’ on BBC Radio Devon, had a monthly ‘Down on the farm’ spot on Talk Radio Europe and currently presents his own radio show every Monday night on The Voice FM. As a journalist he has written for just about every newspaper and magazine on the shelves, has cooked on TV with Gary Rhodes and Michael Caines, becoming champions for the South West on the show ‘Local Food Hero’, appeared on BBC’s Countryfile, Sky’s The Nation’s Pets and countless features on local news. But it was when he, his wife Debbie and their smallholding appeared on Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild that things really went bonkers. He is the author of five bestselling books including Pigs in Clover and The Boy Without Love. Simon and Debbie teach courses on self-sufficiency, smallholding, butchery and processing.