Keith Gooden
Welcome back to the Motorhome Matt podcast. I’m Keith Gooden and with me, our resident expert, it’s motorhome Matt Sims! Welcome along again, Matt.
Matt Sims
Hi Keith, how are you?
Keith Gooden
I’m fine, thanks very much. And you?
Matt Sims
Good! Yes, very well. It’s good to see you. It’s good to be back.
Keith Gooden
Excellent.
That Leisure Shop
Keith Gooden
Today’s podcast is brought to you with www.thatleisureshop.com, which happens to be your business.
Matt Sims
It does.
Keith Gooden
Tell us a little bit more about it.
Matt Sims
It’s a fantastic shop in-store and online. It started post-COVID. We thought it’d be a good idea to open a shop on the high street – why not? Just as they’re all closing. And its primary products are camping, motorhome and caravan accessories and essentials that you need. Stuff that you would use when you go away in your leisure vehicle.
It is a shop based in North Somerset. We have all our businesses based there. And it’s online as well. So our customer base is extraordinary. It’s literally UK-wide. We’ve got customers in Ireland and we’ve got customers appearing on the continent as well in France, Switzerland and Germany. It’s been magnificent. Yes, it’s a journey, I tell you. It’s been very exciting.
Keith Gooden
I was having a poke around the shop just a few minutes ago, actually, and it’s rammed full of all those things that you need for your motorhome or caravan. Lightweight things and things that fold up and you think, ‘Oh, I could use this and the garden at home.’ It’s not just for your motorhoming, is it, or caravanning?
I was sitting on a stool when we were just having our fish and chips, which is all fold it up and pack it away and flat pack it. And that’s the thing, isn’t it, when we’ve discussed this in the past, with motorhoming and caravanning – it’s all about weight and space, isn’t it?
Matt Sims
It is and lots of the new products – we’ve majored in new things to market. So we’ve got some fantastic ranges of chairs, tables and stools, as you say. Some really innovative products that are incredibly light.
And weight is a big issue when you’re heading off in a motorhome or caravan. And so having lightweight chairs and lightweight tables is really important, but they don’t have to be weak. They have to be strong. Especially if you’re sat on them, or me, I’ll be honest!
Keith Gooden
Very true, especially after some fish and chips!
Matt Sims
Yes, I know! It was lovely, that, wasn’t it? It was a nice treat. Anyway, the products are really innovative. They’re really great. It’s not the products you see in every shop and we’ve spoken about this before, haven’t we, about products that are appearing in our shop and in other shops. They are far more John Lewis than you might expect them to be in a camping accessory shop.
Some really innovative products – lots of stuff that you can use in the garden too, as you say. Windbreaks, outdoor furniture and some great ranges of gadgets as well. Some super Father’s Day presents. I’m biased as a bloke. Some brilliant torches – torches that will blind you. They’re incredible. Aircraft-grade titanium – amazing.
Go and have a look at www.thatleisureshop.com. It’s a really, really, really lovely website. It’s built by the team here. It’s been a massive amount of work, I have to say, and we are definitely on a journey with it. It’s growing at a heck of a rate. It’s very exciting. So join us on that journey.
Join us at The Motorhome and Caravan Show in October
Keith Gooden
Talking of growing at a heck of a rate – this podcast! Motorhome Matt is taking over the NEC show, the National Exhibition Centre, the big motorhoming and caravanning show – and your fizzog is going to be everywhere.
Matt Sims
My what?
Keith Gooden
Your fizzog! Your face.
Matt Sims
I’m not even sure what that is. Well, thank you. Well, we have – we’ve got a stand. It’s very exciting. It’s the first time a podcast has featured at the Motorhome and Caravan Show. We’re honoured to carry that title.
We’ve taken over lots of sponsorship at the show as well, so you won’t miss it when you arrive. If you’re heading near Wetherspoons or any of the coffee outlets, you’ll see advertising for the podcast. And we’re going to build a studio on the stand.
So we’re going to record some episodes there. Hopefully, if you’re passing, you’ll come and contribute. Come and say hi. I and the team will be there. And we’re hoping to engage lots of people to get their view on the show and find out a bit more about their motorhome or caravan and where they’ve been in it.
Keith Gooden
Absolutely. So if you can get tickets at this late stage, have a go. Get onto the website and see if you can book them. But the February show sold out very quickly, and this one’s expected to do the same. So if you’re disappointed, I’m sorry about that. But have a go anyway.
Matt Sims
Yes, definitely book early. That’s the key.
Barrie and JoJo from Feasts and Fables
Keith Gooden
The theme of this particular podcast is Feasts and Fables. What does that mean, though, Matt?
Matt Sims
Yes. So these are some friends of mine who have full-time jobs. And we’ll find out a bit more about that in a minute. But they quit their jobs, retired and set up a deli – a beautiful deli in South Wales.
But they had the campervan bug and decided rather fortuitously in January 2020 to close the deli and head off in their campervan. And I caught up with Barrie and JoJo who go under the title of Feasts and Fables. JoJo is the cook and Barrie is the storyteller. And Barrie and I started talking about his career in the military.
Barrie Thomson
I was in the Air Force for 30 years – man and boy.
Matt Sims
Man and boy. Tell us a bit about that. What were you doing for the Air Force?
Barrie Thomson
So I was a logistics specialist. So back in the early ’80s, they wanted everybody to fly aeroplanes, and I just didn’t want to fly aeroplanes. I wanted to get out there and kick boxes. And so they taught me how to load aircraft, transport aircraft.
But then the further I went through, the less of that stuff I did, and the more I ran logistics, arrangements, buying equipment, providing the stuff that people needed in the right place at the right time, that sort of thing.
Matt Sims
And you were in Afghanistan for a time, weren’t you, you said?
Barrie Thomson
Twice. Yes, when you add it up it comes to about 13 months altogether. Being in the logistics side, it was more backroom stuff, of course, but yes. 2002, security was relaxed, and we were driving around between Kabul and Bagram. I was up on an American base there.
And then the next time I went back, it was a little more feisty. And I was in Kandahar for 6 or 7 months. And poor JoJo was waiting back at base, and the Zoom calls we did then – Skype, I guess it was – were often interrupted by sirens. And I was like, ‘Nothing to worry about. Just got to go now.’
Matt Sims
So what were you doing, JoJo, during this chapter in Barrie’s life?
JoJo Thomson
Oh, I spent about 17 or 18 years in the civil service in the UK, in a previous life. We all have previous lives. And I fell into the civil service. It just happened to be. And I was in the Ministry of Defence for the majority of it. Yes, in the East of England and then London.
Our paths crossed a few times along the way. And anyway, then we got together a while later. And yes, so pretty much just had interesting jobs. It was mostly policy work, but I was looking after certain regions of the world. So I got to do quite a lot of travelling with that. It was quite fun.
Barrie Thomson
Part of which Matt, coincidently, put JoJo and I in Afghanistan on the 16th of May 2009, which was slated to be our wedding day. We brought that forward because the Air Force in its wisdom had come up with this cunning plan to send me to Afghanistan.
So as serendipity – back into it straight away – would have it, JoJo was travelling with a senior boss and passed through Kandahar air base on the day that we were due to get married. So there are plenty of tales there. So when we start talking Feasts and Fables, there are many, many stories too, under the hood.
Matt Sims
So we come to Feasts and Fables, which is the brand that you’re living under. And that kind of sums you both up, doesn’t it? Because you gave up that corporate life and just launched a deli in South Wales.
Barrie Thomson
Yes. One followed the other. We gave up the corporate life to just kick back a little bit. I thought I was really going to kick back and then JoJo just came back one day and said, ‘There’s this brilliant empty shop premises. Do you fancy running a deli?’ So I thought that I would temporarily help JoJo out with her dream.
And then 5 years later, I’m pretty much stood behind the cheese counter the whole time. And JoJo is cooking up a storm. So Jojo is the Feast. She’s Mrs Feast, and she cooks amazingly. And we really need to get her a kitchen again. And I’m the storyteller, as you can tell. I’m burbling on.
JoJo Thomson
I was just going to say, the ‘Feast’ bit came out of going back to when I was in the civil service when I decided to leave. After we came back from Cyprus in 2012, I was doing my final 6 months of the civil service in Bristol.
And as part of leaving, I was given some time to go off and do some resettlement training, effectively. And I thought, ‘Gosh, what am I going to do with my month?’ And I thought, ‘Oh…’, so I booked a course at Ashburton Cookery School down in Devon. And I did an intermediate cookery level course. And it was incredible.
It was a complete whole month immersed in a kitchen. It was amazing. I have loved food all my life, that’s the thing, but this really got me to think of this bug for cooking. ‘Gosh, you could do this for people,’ and whatever. So I guess then a few years later, when the deli came along, coincident with the last 2 years at the deli, we had a supper club at home. We ran it out of our chapel. And that was just incredible for me.
There were just 10 people. And I did the whole menu from start to finish. It was a tasting menu, a set tasting menu. And after testing for people if they had any allergies or issues, then I set the menu and we just had such fun. So for me, that’s where the whole feasting part came out. So yes, amazing.
Matt Sims
Amazing. But then there’s another chapter, isn’t there, which is where you are now, where you fortuitously again sold the deli business in January 2020.
Barrie Thomson
Yes. So we decided in the middle of 2019 that we wanted to create some space for ourselves. As you say, we’d rolled from this busy corporate life into this incredibly busy, self-starting small local business that just grew and grew and grew. And we realised we just had no time. We had no time for ourselves, we had no time for family and friends, we had no time to put other ideas into practice. And we’re full of ideas.
And so we told everyone that we were going to close in January, and as you say, it was providential because all of a sudden news was starting to emerge of the impending pandemic. And so we probably got off the high street at a good time. But what it did do was compromise the other element of us pulling the rug out from under ourselves, which was our house sale.
So we had decided, ‘Well, look, how are we going to live a little more lightly? We only have this amount of money coming in from an Air Force pension. Let’s downsize everything to fit that. So take out the big elements, take out the mortgage, take out all the costs of running a house that was way too big for us.’
And then we freed ourselves up from the things which were stopping us having the ability to put new ideas into practice. Because you’ve got to live somewhere. And so that’s how we got into what is loosely called ‘van life’. And that’s always a weird reflection of people in their 20s showing their abs and having beautiful lake views. And so we’re not the epitome of that. But we are definitely the epitome of people who have created a little bit of freedom by drawing everything down to the size of the place that we are now.
We’re sat in a van, we’re still wired up, we’re still connected to people. We’ve got everything we need here – probably too much, still. There are 40 books in the library here. But creating the space to think clearly and to explore – and exploring the world is a metaphor for exploring ourselves, I suppose. And we’ve learned quite a lot through that. And it’s given us a new direction for the way we want to be.
Matt Sims
I’m fascinated because you’re right, you refer to the imagery of van life on Instagram. We joked about that earlier, didn’t we? Those youngsters diving into that crystal clear plunge pool. In fact, JoJo, when Ben and I were chatting yesterday, you were in the sea having a swim.
JoJo Thomson
I was! Sorry. I had to go with the tide. I was waiting for it.
Matt Sims
But it’s interesting that you’re doing this in this chapter of your lives, where for many people, they’ve built all this stuff around them, these securities – we believe them to be securities. And how do you break away from that?
If someone’s listening to this thinking or looking at the next chapter of their life, which might be that ‘retirement’ word. They’ve got an opportunity to take a break from conventional life as we know it in the Western world. What would you say to those that are in that place and thinking, ‘I would love to just declutter my life, scale down, get a van, a Vauxhall Movano like yours, and just be free.’ How do people do that?
Barrie Thomson
Well, literally, you’ve just got to do it. I know it sounds idyllic. It was quite a big push. And I’m remembering back to February 2020 when we downsized. And there’s quite a big part of emotionally untying from those things. But we are in a society that seems to put a value on stuff, but stuff weighs heavily on you.
What we’ve done is we’ve thought really carefully about where our memories lie. So we’ve got memory boxes in store. Of course, we have. We’ve got bits of furniture – we anticipated that at some point we would have a future base camp, and so we’ve kept the bits that mean something to us.
Generally speaking, it’s art. It’s handmade bits of furniture, it’s stuff which has got a value beyond the financial. They mean something to us, they’re in our hearts. But you can pay for storage, and so we put it in storage. Every time we go there, we look at it and go, ‘God, we’ve got a lot of stuff. We must have had a hell of a lot of stuff before.’
And so we just took that out of our eyeline, we created a pot of money. Because we had some equity in the house. We were very lucky. That’s the situation we’ve created by working hard over a good many years. And we had a pension. So all we’ve done is we’ve tuned our life around something smaller. And we’ve set our sights and our ambitions, on giving ourselves time. Time takes up no space. Time is a modest thing. It doesn’t cost anything, but we’re only going to get a certain amount of it.
And so what we’ve done is we’ve put a far higher value on time. And then we’ve made a judgement against all those other elements of the conventional life you talked about, Matt. And we’ve down-selected the bits that were stopping us from having the capacity. By doing that, we’ve created freedom to make different choices, the choices that suited us.
They may not be the choices that suit everybody. But we looked at buying a van. We bought ourselves an asset. It’s a home, but we were able to afford to buy it. Camping, parking wild, a combination of things – living more lightly doesn’t cost as much. And so all the barriers that people put in the way, they fall down as you go through the process of consideration. But it suits us.
JoJo Thomson
When we first were musing on the idea of doing this, everybody would look at us because we were still in the deli. We were still telling people we were going to get rid of the deli and sell our house. So people went, ‘My gosh, you’re so brave.’ And ‘brave’ was the word that just stuck. In fact, there was a lady yesterday in the shop and I was talking about it to her.
And she said – an older lady – ‘God, you’re so brave.’ It’s that word again. I’m not sure it’s brave. Just do it, honestly. I’m just stealing somebody else’s phrase, I know. But you’ve just got to do it. And quite literally the phrase, ‘pulling the rug out from under yourself,’ is it. And it’s cathartic, decluttering and getting rid of stuff. That’s actually really hard as well, but you do it, you get through it.
And then there’s a moment of, ‘Wow, I can breathe.’ And we learned you really need very little. We really need very little. And we’re very much into the circular economy as well and reusing, repurposing and mending things. Don’t buy new. It just opens up something different from what we’re used to – a different way of being.
And it’s really light. And we want to even embrace more of that as we go into the near future. There’s another part coming. So yes, we want to have a much lighter footprint. There’s a story. There’s another story unfurling as well, I think, now.
Matt Sims
Are you going to share it?
JoJo Thomson
It’s a big story. All being well, in the last 18 months, we’ve been in a van effectively or house sitting or doing various things without our own home base. And I need a kitchen. I miss my kitchen. Oh, my gorgeous things in my kitchen. So we decided, long story short, that we’re going to put a base and put roots down.
We’ll get a little base somewhere. And Barrie mentioned, we have a little pot of money. It’s not very big. It won’t go very far in this country, unfortunately. So we’re going to move across the waters to France. We’re in the process of buying just shy of a 2-acre farm in France, in the middle somewhere, the middle west. And yes, hopefully, we’ll have that before the early autumn.
Barrie Thomson
Yes. And it’s an illustration that things don’t stand still and the decisions that people might make, as we were discussing, Matt, those so-called ‘brave’ decisions, they’re not immutable. Things can evolve. And all we ever set out to do was to give ourselves the capacity to think hard about how we wanted to live.
Being in the van has created that sense of freedom, that sense of experiencing other things, other countries, meeting other people, talking to people, deciding how we were going to use our time, deciding how we were maybe able to use that time to give something to other people as well as ourselves.
Of course, we want to live the very best life we can. But as we’ve gone along, there’s been a chance to think about how we help other people live their best life. And so the farm – we’re probably going to call it Encouragement Farm – is going to be a really strong feature of that chance that we’ve given ourselves and those opportunities which might emerge for other people.
So we will apply all the lessons. We will live with less. We’ll live more seasonally. We will grow more of our own stuff. We’ve got a water source, we’ve got fruit trees and we are going to have a kitchen garden. We will be able to put a long table out into the courtyard and we’ll be able to feed people.
So if people are passing by, we will have solar power and a plug in point for vans that are passing. We will have bell tents in the orchard for people who are cycling past. I shall have a little cycling hut. JoJo shall have a kitchen. But yes, it will all be very light touch. And all of it is within the bounds of what we actually have. We’re not going to borrow.
So some of those conventional bits that we’ve fallen into the trap of having before, we’re not falling into that trap. So we’ve bought what we’ve been able to buy from money that we’ve saved. So again, it removes a burden. In a sense, it’d be like having a permanent base where we live as if we’re in a van. We’ll have far less stuff and we’ll be able to project ourselves out because we’re unburdened.
Matt Sims
So will you continue in the van as well?
Barrie Thomson
Yes. I don’t think Travis is going anywhere. Travis is the van. And we’re like driftwood. And so Travis is the name of the van. Yes, we think so, because France is a big place to explore. We rather fell for the north of Spain and the Picos de Europa.
And so there are more places to go. And who’s to say? We might rent the house out for a couple of months and go scooting off. The farm will suit itself to people coming in and doing a writer’s retreat. Or they might want to dig some vegetables and just cook their own food. So I think we’ve still got the wonder lust.
Matt Sims
It sounds amazing. Well, I love that you’re still on your adventure and as you said, living your best life. It’s inspirational. I love it. Thank you both. So how do we follow you? How do we follow your adventures? And how do people follow you on your journey as you unpack this next chapter for you both?
Barrie Thomson
So we are sprawled all over social media. We don’t make anything of it. It’s not a business practice. When we didn’t have a base camp, we created one which was a website – so www.feastsandfables.co.uk. And then there are links out to social media from there.
What’s been really interesting is we’ve developed a thing called the Encouragement Manifesto. And it was just a set of values that when we looked back on the deli life, it turned out those were the values we lived by. And that manifesto has become a means by which we’ve encouraged other people to live their best life. There’s no surprise to the sorts of things that are included. It’s about positivity and optimism. It’s about celebrating other people’s stuff.
So all of that is captured within the website. And a lot of people, when we’ve asked them to, have written pieces about those values. And so now there’s a really interesting and quite inspiring collection of words on there from other people who have just realised that those values are what counts. And it’s time. It is the amount of giving you can do rather than the amount of taking.
And so if people are at all minded to, there are some amazing words from some amazing people – voices that you wouldn’t normally hear. And we’ve just been able to give them a little platform. And so anyone who drifts into our social media will see us celebrating a whole bunch of other people and talking very little about us. It is quite unusual and a little uncomfortable for us to be front and centre.
Matt Sims
Well, I appreciate you sharing your story. I’ve said it already, but I’ll say it again. You’re an inspiration. I talk to so many people who have these ‘conventional’ lives, as we refer to them in the Western world that are just full of clutter. And my own is the same. It’s just how we live, isn’t it?
And the idea of just opting out of that and taking that plunge would appear to be a brave move, as the lady in the post office said to you yesterday. It just would seem brave and you are brave. Going out and doing anything new or unconventional takes bravery, and I take my hat off to you both. And I wish you every success with this next chapter in France. It sounds amazing.
Barrie Thomson
There might be a studio where you can record a future podcast. You’re very welcome to come out, Matt.
Matt Sims
I only ask because I’m putting it in my diary. I’m coming. I want to sit around that long table. If JoJo’s got the kitchen, I’m there. Well – www.feastsandfables.co.uk, that’s where you can find out more. Do go and check Barry and JoJo. You’re in South Wales at the moment, aren’t you, for an event.
JoJo Thomson
Yes, we’re going to do the Love Trails running festival from Thursday, hysterically because we don’t really run. And it’s full of runners. I don’t quite know what we’re doing. But there are other things. There’s music and other stuff and yes, it’ll be good.
Matt Sims
More bravery. Wow, what a story. And what a journey they’re on as well. The next chapter is going to be very exciting. Barry was kind enough to drop me an email last night after we recorded that and has given us the address of where Encouragement Farm is with an open invitation. So we will definitely be visiting in our campervan.
And I cannot wait to sit around that table in the courtyard enjoying JoJo’s cooking and Barrie’s storytelling. Go and follow them on Instagram. If you’re ever near the area, I’m sure they would love to welcome you with open arms. Thank you both again, Barry and JoJo, for sharing your story. I know that was very much out of your comfort zone. But it was absolutely wonderful to hear.
Keith Gooden
Feasts and Fables. That’s what they’re called. It’s the Motorhome Matt podcast, brought to you this week with www.thatleisureshop.com. I’m Keith Gooden. I ask the stupid questions. Matt Sims is Motorhome Matt, and he gives absolutely 100% accurate fabulous answers.
Matt Sims
Cor, we hope so.
Ask Motorhome Matt your questions
Keith Gooden
Now, we’ve been asking you over the past weeks to get in touch with us. And you’ve been sending us questions, audio questions, and also via email. But we want to go a step further this week, don’t we, Matt?
Matt Sims
We do. We’d love to hear from you if you’ve got an interesting story that you think others might enjoy listening to and sharing. So if you have one, do get in touch with us. You can go to www.motorhomematt.co.uk/askmatt. And you can just give us a little tempter of your story. You can record it on the microphone on your phone and send it to us, or just send us a message on the form that’s on that page.
Keith Gooden
Yes, your triumphs, your disasters, or maybe just somewhere that you want to recommend or you’ve been a lot or maybe has some sort of fabulous family memory connected with it.
Matt Sims
Funny stories as well. They always make us laugh.
Keith Gooden
Yes. We want to hear from you. How do people do that?
Matt Sims
So go to www.motorhomematt.co.uk/askmatt.
Keith Gooden
So we hope you’ve enjoyed the podcast this week with me, Keith Gooden and Matt Sims. We’ll see you for another Motorhome Matt podcast very soon, but in the meantime, you can engage with us in many ways.
Matt Sims
You can. You can find us on Instagram – @motorhomematt.co.uk. Go and give us a like. And we’re on YouTube – so head to Motorhome Matt on YouTube. Make sure you subscribe and tick the bell and then the gods of YouTube can tell you when we have a new episode out.
