Ditchmonkey – next week

Ditchmonkey, the Sotheby’s employee who is living in a ditch in order to raise money for the Woodland Trust, is to begin writing for Off-Grid.

Ditchmonkey, real name Hugh Sawyer, shot to fame last Sunday when the Observer newspaper profiled his one-year rough sleeping project. Since then he has been featured on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 5, and in The Mirror, Mail, Standard, and German TV.

He has touched a nerve in the national and international psyche because he is living off-grid at the same time as holding down a full-time job – a trick we would all like to pull off. “The company has been really good about it” he said when he met the team for a drink on friday night. Well, we had drinks, and Ditchmonkey stuck to tea which he drank from a tiny glass, pausing frequently to refill.

Small Woodland Creatures (Natural History Pocket Guides) – buy it from Amazon UK

Ditchmonkey will pen a weekly column reflecting on life with nothing. This is in addition to his blog diary which updates readers on the practical realities of life without a roof over his head.

Sawyer, who was brought around woodland in Somerset arrived wearing the rucksack in which he keeps all his possessions.