The Daily Telegraph - Features
Our energy bills are so high we have to steal firewood by night
Faced with soaring heating costs, one writer (who wishes to be anonymous) has found help in a forest
This week, a reader wrote to The Daily Telegraph decrying the cost of wood, noting that burning the stuff “can leave a hole in your pocket”. Fireplaces are an expensive business – not least during a cost of living crisis. Which is why my partner and I have found a new solution: heading to our local woodland each evening, chopping up the fallen trees, and loading our rucksacks with enough logs to burn for several days.
This wasn’t how I planned to spend my October evenings. But the idea took root when we stepped off the plane a fortnight ago. After a sunny Spanish holiday, we returned to the beginnings of a grim British winter – a feeling intensified all the more when we walked through our front door in north London, where a chill had set in during our absence.
We were desperate to put the heating on, but with a projected energy bill of £6,000 for the next year, restrained ourselves, thinking setting a fire in the living room would be a compromise. Then we realised we had no wood, and that acquiring some at short notice given current financial constraints would be as damaging as if we’d succumbed to switching on the radiators. So I grabbed a saw from my toolbox, walked to the nearby forest, and got hacking.
My boyfriend duly joined with his own 65-litre rucksack. There was only one real requirement – to find somewhere off a path, to ensure we wouldn’t bump into anyone. I sawed for the first 20 minutes, him for the final 10, and off we went with two huge rucksacks of wood. We didn’t see anyone while in the act, but the risk of being caught definitely heightened the appeal. The second we got home, we bought a second saw online, and now can double our hit rate in half the time.
I understand, of course, that taking wood that’s not your own is not exactly legal. And nor is burning non-approved fuel in our non-exempt fireplace, since the 1956 Clean Air Act banned doing so in urban homes. I know that means I’m responsible for what is a major middle-class crime double whammy, but in truth, the sheer thrill of what this will mean for our bills outweighs the guilt.
We do discuss the implications, of course: that we’re further polluting London’s smoggy air, and obliterating the habitats of small animals. Frankly, though, it seems stupid not to take the wood we see lying around when we need it, as it will just be left to rot; if nobody else wants it, we may as well help ourselves.
So we have, most nights for the past two weeks, typically leaving at 6pm when it’s dark enough not to be easily spotted, but with enough light left that we can see what we’re doing. My boyfriend does worry about our being caught, but I don’t – mostly because I don’t think we will be. And if we are, what’s the worst that will happen? Perhaps we’ll be told off, and told not to do it again, and if that happens, so be it.
I do wonder if our neighbours have cottoned on to what we’re doing. They’ve never mentioned it if they have, however – and my parents brought me up burning the same illicit stuff, so they could well be used to it. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that they’re doing the same thing.
As well as being a money-saver, this evening activity is doing wonders for our relationship. It serves as something to take the edge off after a day at work, and makes us feel like giggly co-conspirators – not a word I’d ever used to describe my 40-yearold partner until two weeks ago.
I appreciate that if everyone did what we’re doing, things would be in a pretty bad state, and if I really thought about the implications of it, perhaps I’d feel less gung-ho. When it starts getting colder and wetter, we’ll stop. But at the moment, in front of the fire each night, it feels pretty good.