Home Ready by Walter Coaker

Home Ready: The Complete Readiness System for British Households

Three books in one, by Walter Coaker, Dartmoor farmer

The weather doesn’t care whether you’ve been to the shops.

The government asks every household to keep three days of food and water in. That’s a good start, but day three is exactly when the trouble begins. The heating stops because the boiler needs electricity. The phone goes quiet. The card machines don’t work. The freezer starts counting down. The shelves in the shop are empty and the roads are shut.

I’ve farmed on the edge of Dartmoor all my life. When the Beast from the East came through, the lanes drifted over, the shops emptied in days and the power went soon after. Our house carried on as normal. We’re nothing special. We just kept extra food, fuel, water and feed, the way my parents did. Home Ready is that way of running a house, written down step by step for an ordinary home in town or country.

Volume I: When the Lights Go Out

• The first 24 hours, in the right order
• Water for 90 days, worked out in litres, plus frozen pipes and making water safe
• Turning one room into a warm room
• Wood burners, heating oil and gas bottles, used safely
• Light, power banks, and an honest word on generators and portable power stations

Volume II: The Store Cupboard

• Reading a label like the people who print them, from thirty years supplying the supermarkets
• Best before, use by, and which dates actually matter
• What keeps for years, what keeps for months, and what to eat first
• Own-brand or branded: where it matters and where it doesn’t
• A 90-day store built from food you already eat, a week at a time

Volume III: The Ninety Days

• Toilets, washing and bins when the services stop
• Medicines, first aid and staying ahead on prescriptions
• Spotting someone getting dangerously cold
• Neighbours, pets, hens and livestock
• Week by week from day one to day ninety: what to eat, what to check, and what goes wrong when

What it isn’t: no bunkers, no camouflage, no scare stories and no expensive gadgets. Everything can be done by one person at the kitchen table, a little at a time, on an ordinary budget.

Format: a large-type PDF you can read on a phone, tablet or computer, or print at home. It downloads the moment you pay.

30-day money-back guarantee. If it’s not for you, email me and every penny comes back.

It isn’t prepping. It’s just good housekeeping.