He has recently written a book on the subject, Hidden Valley, which gives you an insight into his life in a rural part of Spain. He has embraced the Spanish way of life but his upbringing is a long way from Extremadura. He was educated at Eton and went on to Cambridge University where he studied English. His father was in the British army and he looked set for a convention British upbringing. After university he went to work for the Evening Standard in London. But then he decided to take a different route. He boarded his Brown mini car and headed for Ibiza where he lived in a farmhouse which had no water or electricity. It was the start of his rural adventure.
Alongside his partner they started growing vegetables. In some ways it was nothing new for him, his mother had decided to start growing vegetables and kept animals during the Three Day Week in Britain. He jokes that their house was similar to the hit 1970s series The Good Life starring Felicity Kendal and Richard Briers. It was also good training to prepare him for his later life. Although he loved living in Ibiza, he admits that towards the end he found it rather claustrophobic.
“We looked around for a small farm which we could buy cheaply and we found one in Extremadura. So in 2010 we arrived in this small village which had a population of 800. Not only were we outsiders we were also a gay couple!” he says. They soon set to work on their new finca. He admits that it was very hard work. Not only were they growing their own vegetables, they had their own animals and they were even making their own alcohol.
“We are 100 percent sufficient for food and drink,” he says. Coming to terms with the rural life in Extremadura was no easy task. “We have no fantastic restaurants like you have in Mallorca. In fact, even if you do have money there is nowhere to spend it around here,” he jokes.
Paul has become an expert on Spanish farming methods from growing vegetables in the traditional way to the slaughtering of the pig or matanza as it is known in Spanish. Obviously his job takes him away from the farm as he travels across Spain as a writer but it is always back home to Extremadura. When I asked him what he missed the most in his rural life I thought he was going to say British television or Marmite, but no. What he misses the most is the sea. “You are so lucky in Mallorca that you have all those lovely coves and beaches.”
He is now a fully integrated member of the community in the small town in Extremadura which he calls home.
“During the summer months I organise a music festival which is great fun....” Paul obviously loves his life in which he combines working with farming in a country which he adores. The only problem is that it is very hard work. He says that he is not getting any younger but it is certainly a healthy lifestyle.
“The food we produce and then eat is delicious,” he says. His knowledge of Spanish rural life and farming has helped him with the articles he writes for the leading UK newspapers about Spain. As one member of the Mallorca tourist industry says about Paul: “He is not only a great writer, his knowledge of Spain and its life is second to none.”
The story of the real ‘good life’ of an off-grid existence in rural Spain
Paul Richardson fled the city to live on the land in a rough-and-tumble village on the edge of Europe. Immersing himself in the culture of his remote Spanish community, he learned the traditional arts of animal husbandry and vegetable growing, wine-making and home distilling, and made bread from the rye he sowed on the stone-walled terraces of his twelve-acre farm.
In prose that shimmers with wit and sensuality, the author charts his personal route-map along a road less travelled - from urban pressures to rural tranquility, and from insecurity to fulfilment. Along the way he pays tribute to the influences that have shaped his progress - from The Good Life to Henry David Thoreau, from the 1970s pioneers to self-sufficiency to his farming neighbours in the far-flung region of Extremadura.
In Richardson’s hands, off-grid living both becomes an act of rebellion and a heartening proof that a simpler, better life is possible, if only we can remove ourselves from the ethos in which conspicuous consumption is a duty and success/failure the wheel on which society turns. Hidden Valley is a glorious narrative of one man’s journey towards self-reliance. Original and thought-provoking, it is also hugely entertaining.
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Paul, in case you haven’t come across it, a girl called Nazaret Martin C has an excellent YouTube channel in which she describes her daily life on her farm in the Sierra de Gata, North Extremadura. She has 250.000 subscribers and many more viewers. Well worth watching.