BUILDING ME WEE HOUSE

In January of 1985, I visited nearby Speyside Cooperage to collect some free firewood in the form of old barrel staves. I was also shown six large ‘marrying vessels’ they had recently removed from a distillery in Fife and they asked if I had any interest in them. I initially declined, but then discovered that the vessels began ‘speaking’ to me in the form of suggesting possible applications at the community.

Roger Doudna at the first whisky barrel house.

As we were then contemplating a Community Centre extension and starting a Steiner School, I reckoned these beautiful vessels could come in handy. All my suggestions were nixed, mainly because the wood was suffused with alcoholic spirits. It became apparent that if anyone was going to use these vessels, it would be me.

I broke ground in March 1985 and was accorded the assistance of both Keith Wilcox (community gardener and architect) and Andy Shorrock (resident builder) for three months by the Foundation. After that, I was largely on my own, though I did have help from guests. I also consulted community builders on the countless challenges encountered along the way. It took a year to complete the barrel itself, and another three months to do the conservatory extension. I remember the building process as long and exhausting, but also continually inspiring as well. I would never have made it without the assistance the community provided, including access to its tools, facilities, guests and expertise. It cost about £10,000 both to build and furnish with bits and bobs that I mostly bought at local auctions.

Though the project elicited lots of media interest throughout, that was crowned by a feature Christmas piece which appeared in virtually every newspaper in the land. I returned from my Christmas holiday in the USA to see my house in everything from the tabloids to the broadsheets with memorable headings such as, Daffy Doc Lives in a Vat, Vat’s Life! and Life’s a Dram, etc. Even the TV crowd was after me. So, I had my 15 minutes of fame.

What did I learn from this experience? For one thing, ideas and visions are a dime a dozen; putting them into action can easily take all you’ve got on all levels. But what else are we here for? Peter Caddy managed to reduce his community lessons to nice wee sayings like work is love in action. One of his favourite recipes for creating the community was the three Ps — patience, persistence and perseverance. I certainly learned that one. I built this house because I knew I could, and I wanted to do it for and with the community I love. My greatest ordeal was securing its consensual support, but once I had it, the rest flowed beautifully, if demandingly. I really did love the building bit, because I proved to myself I could do something of consequence that I had never done before. Hence the experience qualifies in my mind as a bona fide initiation into the wonders of what’s possible when you put your mind, heart and will into it. Not unlike Findhorn itself in that respect.

Most of all, I love what’s happened since. Me wee house seems to have helped unblock the logjam of doubt and fear around what we can do with this place and opened the floodgates to the possibility of building a sustainable ecovillage right here and now. And now that sustainability itself is widely perceived as humanity’s final frontier, it seems we’re ahead of the game in terms of pioneering a more viable and harmonious lifestyle for others as well.

Roger Doudna