He chose to live in solitude. As far away from everyone as possible. Almost 40 years ago you took that path, and you would like it to continue to the end. “It’s a good life. Everyone wishes they could, but nobody does,” he says.

The man’s name is Ken Smith, he is 74 years old. and lives in a small log cabin he built himself on the shores of a remote loch in the Scottish Highlands. No electricity, gas or drinking water. Completely alone.

To survive, Ken, originally from Derbyshire, England, fish and harvest and harvest your food. She also collects firewood and washes her clothes in an old-fashioned outdoor toilet.

His log cabin is two hours away by the nearest road on the edge of Rannoch Moor, close to the lake treg. “IS known as the lonely lake. There’s no road to get here, but people used to live here before the dam was built,” he says.

“All its ruins are there. The census is now one and that’s mehe says looking at the lake from the hill.

the blows of life

Director Lizzie McKenzie first connected with Smith nine years ago and has been filming him for the documentary for the past two years BBC Scotland L’ermita di Treig (“The Hermit of Treig”).

Ken, originally from Derbyshire, recounts how he started working at the age of 15, building fire stations. But his life changed at 26 when he was beaten up by a gang of thugs after a night out.

immediately a cerebral hemorrhage and lost consciousness for 23 days.

“They said I’d never heal. They said I’d never talk again. They said I’d never walk again, But I did. That’s when I decided I was never going to live on anyone’s terms but my own,” she says.

Thus it was that Ken’s life took a turn. He started traveling and getting in touch with nature. Y how the forest gump started walking. And she has been doing it for a long time.

ensures that traveled about 35,000 km before returning home, where devastating news awaited him: both of his parents were dead.

“I didn’t feel a thing. It took a long time for it to hit me,” she says, continuing, “I was in Rannoch a few months later when I suddenly thought about my parents and started crying. I cried the whole way as I walked“.

And that was the moment the man made the decision to get away from it all: “I thought where is the most isolated place in Britain?“he adds in the documentary.

“I went around and followed every cove and every peak where there wasn’t a house built. Hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of nothing. I looked across the lake and saw this forest,” he recalls.

He knew he’d found the place he wanted to be. Ken says that was the moment when he stopped crying and put an end to his constant wandering.

He built his own log cabin and began living as a hermit. Grow vegetables and look for berriesbut its main source of nourishment comes from the lake, from fishing.

A stroke and a lonely life to the end

The dangers of life that the man he finally chose would play a trick on him. He knows. And so it happened a few days after the documentary team left.

It was when I was out in the snow. He had gone out to collect firewood and a blow left him stranded. With great difficulty he managed to reach a GPS that had been left to him and thus activate an SOS.

Rescuers found him and airlifted him to the hospital fort Williamwhere is it he spent seven weeks recovering.

But although the doctors tried to convince him otherwise, once he recovered, Ken has returned to his cabin and his solitary life.

However, the aftermath of the stroke forced the man to accept more help than he had ever received. So, the head of the area, who looks after the forest where Ken lives, she brings him food every two weeks, which he pays for with his pension.

“People have been very good to me these days,” says Ken, who had an accident a year after that and had to be flown again. He was after being injured when a pile of logs collapsed on him.

However, Ken doesn’t expect to live forever: “We didn’t come to earth forever. I will stay here until my last days come, decidedly. I’ve had many crashes, but I seem to have survived them all,” she says.

“I will definitely get sick again at some point. Something will happen to me that will take a day like any other. But I hope to reach 102 years“indicate.

Source: BBC