National Trust Working Holiday

Catherine on a working holiday with National Trust at Sissinghurst, KentThere is something reassuring about a ‘what to bring’ list when you book a holiday. It is reminiscent of school field trips and, indeed, my recent National Trust Working Holiday experience was a bit like taking a tardis trip back to the land of geography teachers and sensible sweaters. Or so I thought. 

Volunteering projects
The National Trust is a British institution and conservation charity, not only of magnificent historic buildings but also of important natural landscapes. Every year, you can sign up for over 400 volunteering projects, such as dry stone walling, goat herding, hedge laying and building boardwalks and help them do what they do best. 

A working holiday is not completely free, of course, as you pay on average £100 for food and accommodation for a week, plus travel expenses (although they pick you up at the nearest railway or bus station, which helps the purse strings on a budget holiday). 

Which is what brings me to Sissinghurst in Kent, an internationally renowned garden, developed in 1930’s by poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West and her husband Sir Harold Nicolson.  I am joining a group of twelve volunteers for a bi-annual task force here, coppicing corners of the estate’s 180 acres of woodland, clearing just a few of its 26kms of pathways and hedge laying. 

Our working team for the week consists of an antiques restorer, two civil servants, a student, a couple of engineers and a teacher, aged from 26 to seventies, four men and nine women, and mostly English. Although, two women travelled from Austria and Germany to take part. Most of them are regulars, doing at least one working holiday every year. 

Volunteers
As a volunteering virgin, I make a few mistakes – firstly, I tried to be organised and book my train ticket well in advance, to Sissinghurst’s nearest station. When my instructions arrive I realise that we aren’t staying at Sissinghurst, of course, but at a basecamp half an hour’s drive away. Me and my notions. Second, I didn’t get there early enough to ‘bagsie’ a bottom bunk, or bring a sheet to put under my sleeping bag, so I felt like I was slipping into an abyss every night. And bring a reading light. Lights were out in my dorm at 10pm sharp, something that is dictated by dorm personalities, however, not rules and Lunch break on National Trust Working Holidayregulations. 

Be warned, the accommodation is basic, so if you hate bunk beds, bathroom sharing and rotas for cooking and cleaning, this isn’t for you. You can, however, opt for a ‘Premium’ working holiday, where you get a twin bedded (ensuite) room. But it is the conservation work that brings people here, as well as the opportunity to meet people from all sorts of backgrounds. And the work is fantastic.  

As we are given our helmets, visors, ear protectors, saws, and blade proof gloves, I can see that this is going to be a bit more ‘raunchy’ than a field trip. Our dynamic National Trust warden, Peter Dear, is everything you would have wanted in a geography teacher. He carries a chainsaw not a clipboard, his commitment to conservation is impressive, and his energy for getting things done infectious. He whips us into a focussed frenzy of cutting down trees, dragging branches onto bonfires, ripping out bindweed and throwing trunks into monstrous looking chippers. Yet, he stops work to inspect insects with us, spot a kingfisher with binoculars, and identify birdsong, before lashing back into the forest floor. 

By the end of each day we’re filthy, scratched, aching, smelly and totally in love with the land we had just worked to restore.  And to finish it all, Peter throws an old kettle on the bonfire, toasts our sandwiches, makes fresh (real) coffee and reassures us that we don’t have to feel guilty about the fact that most of us ‘conservationists’ actually loved the feeling of cutting down trees, because it’s all sustainable and vital for keeping the woodland alive. And pushing fifty, with the usual stresses and strains of family and working life, this is pretty much what this working holiday made me feel too. Alive again. 

More information
The National Trust's brochure comes out in January every year (tel. 0844 800 3099), or browse the National Trust Working Holiday website (you can only  search by region and date on their website, so it can be a little tricky to find all the holidays, but their brochure is beautifully done, so well worth ordering). Note, these voluntary holidays are in great demand, so book early if you can. For a an insider's view, watch my video below, which has interviews with fellow volunteers at Sissinghurst:

An edited version of this article, by Catherine Mack, was first published in The Irish Times.