Skills we must not lose

This image turned up on my Facebook timeline this morning.  I am sure it brought a smile to a good few people, especially if they had managed to rush to the shops before the bad weather hit and stocked up of loads of bread.  However when a friend posted on Facebook that they were baking bread, he wondered how many people were also doing this and how many do not know how to bake bread.

Image from Leamington Spa Courier

Loss of basic skills is something I have been mulling over for a while triggered by something else that popped up on social media.  Maybe you have seen this, or other similar "Never have I ever" type memes, where you get one point for each item you have NOT done.  I have seen ones for gardeners, parents and then this one for DIYers/self sufficiency advocates:  Do drop  me a comment with your score!

However there is a more serious note to both the photo and the Never Have I Ever mere.  We are fast losing vital skills and by doing so we are becoming dependent on some-on else for the basics we need in our lives.  Once we lose the knowledge needed to grow or cook our own food, make or mend our clothes etc then we leave ourselves vulnerable to having to buy from large organisations whose environmental records may be far from ideal.

You might argue that you could buy from smaller companies but many of these are in fact owned by large multinationals.  Look at this page to see just how many food companies are in fact owned by Monsanto.

Do you really want to be buying food from a company that promotes and produces vast quantities of GM crops and pesticides?

And once just a few companies dominate the market then they are given an almost free hand to do what they want.  As consumers our choices will become more and more limited and our ability to control what we eat, clothe ourselves in or have in our houses will be in the hands of just a few mega companies. 

So whilst I appreciate not everyone can keep chickens, milk a goat or ride in the back of a pick up, there are a lot of basic skills in the Never Have I ever meme that we really should not be losing.  If you can grown a few vegetables you can feed yourself organically and without plastic packaging.  If you can sew or mend you don't need to be buying yet more cheap throw away clothing.  If you can mend things think how much stuff you can stop going into landfill.  If you know how to forage for blackberries you can make your own jam and if you can make bread, the next time you get snowed in you won't be running out of this basic supply.  We need to pass the skills we have onto the next generation.  We need to teach ourselves those skills we have lost and we need to get basic skills like cooking, sewing, DIY and gardening back on the school curriculum.

Oh and my score?  Two!  (So long as I am allowed milking a sheep, rather than a goat!)
But do you know which two I have never done? 

And what is your score?  Have you got skills you can pass on to others?