The Master of Puppets

It was in 1995 when Clive left home in England for good together with his wife Jackie and the kids Ned and Noah in an old Bedford Bus. It’s one of those giant colorful hippie vehicles you would rather expect to hit the roads in the 1960s. “In the 90s there was probably about 30,000 to 40,000 people in Great Britain being nomadic. We were used to moving all year round from one place to another with our bus just staying for a short period of time at one place. The Bedford was both at the same time, vehicle and home. New very strict laws on free camping made it more and more difficult to live the nomadic life though. So we decided to leave with our kids and a few hundred British Pounds in our purse to travel Europe. We didn’t really know what was awaiting us.” The next couple of years the family travelled a lot: France, Spain and Portugal, the Atlantic Coast as well as the Mediterranean.

Jackie did home-teaching Noah and Ned together with other nomadic families. At the beginning Clive used to play the flute in the streets to earn the necessary money to keep them going. Later he was given a Marionette and he learned how to play it. He was so excited about Marionettes so Clive started to perform complete shows. He still keeps working for his wooden little friends making people in streets, ill children in hospitals or visitors of big street art festivals happy. “You know, everybody is so much into all this computer and internet stuff today. So I think what I do is pretty different. People like that”.

Calling Rodiles Home

After traveling for several years through France, Spain and Portugal the couple decided to stay at one place to grow up the kids: “Jackie and me figured that it would probably be better for the kids to stay some years at one place, so we ended up buying this piece of land close to the surf break of Rodiles. Every time we went through Asturias we stayed for a while in Rodiles. Mainly for surfing. I love the wave and its surroundings. One year – when Jackie went to England with the kids to stay there for six months – I spent the whole time at the car park in front of the rivermouth point break with our Bedford. It was amazing.”

Clive told us that the local community was very curious about the big bus and even more interested in his street art puppet show. But people still were quite reserved and it wasn’t too easy to have them accepting their gipsy lifestyle at the beginning. Visiting the family we found a beautiful bus parked in the middle of an abundant and amazing permaculture garden. Wooden shacks with solar panels on the roof and a rain water cisterne make for a perfect low impact housing. They try to keep things simple, living a simple life. It’s not a bad life.

Clive with his son Ned