Former chief reporter and prepper Mike Laycock 10-step plan

I have something to admit… Errm, I am a prepper. Gosh, why was that so difficult? Perhaps it’s because it makes me sound like one of those swivel-eyed guys you can see on reality TV, building fortified underground bunkers to protect against imminent apocalypse.

But really, in my mind, it just means being prepared for the worst - while still hoping for the best, of course.

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I think it comes from my time, many moons ago, in the Scouts, when a very sensible motto was repeatedly drilled into me: Be Prepared.

And let’s face it, there’s plenty we all need to prepare for, as the war in Iran increasingly threatens not only fuel supplies but also foods and medicines.

There’s also an evil dictator who really doesn’t like Britain because of its support for Ukraine and an old ally which can no longer be relied upon to defend us if we’re attacked.

Not to mention the criminal gangs who have already launched audacious cyber attacks to extort and blackmail some of our biggest institutions and companies, from M & S and Jaguar Land Rover to the British Library. Are our utilities and banks completely safe from being hacked, with all the chaos that this could cause?

The EU commission has for some time been urging residents across Europe to stockpile goods to ensure they would be self-sufficient for at least 72 hours in an emergency but there seems to have been very little preparation advice so far from the UK Government.

So I think it’s time for us each, individually, to assess what we need to do to help us cope if bad things happen and we lose any of the things we take for granted in 21st century Britain, from food, water and electricity to gas, sewerage and the internet.

In case this might assist, I thought I’d share a 10-step plan I’ve drawn up to try to ensure I’m not caught out:

CASH. OK, like many people, I pay for pretty well everything nowadays with my contactless debit card or by bank transfer. But how would I buy food and other essentials if a cyber attack on my building society left me unable to access my account for a few days or weeks? Cash would suddenly be king again. So I went to an ATM and took out £100 to pop in my wallet. If I ever need it, it’s there.

TORCHES. Let there be light, it says in the Bible. But if my electricity supplier were hacked and I suffered a prolonged power cut, how would I have light? Torches! But I checked my old camping torch, stored in the shed, and of course the batteries had leaked and it wasn’t working. Time to buy two good new ones. And while I was at it, I bought a big bag of tea lights, plus matches to light them.

BATTERIES. There’s no point in having torches without plenty of batteries. Nor a radio, or a dvd or cd player, if there’s no mains power to plug them into. A search through my cupboards revealed only two spare batteries. So I went out and bought three multiple packs.

WATER. If my water supplier was hacked and nothing was being pumped through the mains, it would rapidly turn into a crisis. How could you make a cuppa to help you keep calm and carry on without water? Or brush your teeth, boil food or wash your hands for that matter?  So I bought ten bottles of water during my weekly shop, to store safely in the shed. I could probably do with ten more, just to be on the safe side.

Mike Laycock at the entrance to the Second World War air raid shelter in his garden (Image: Michael P Laycock)

BUTT. But what about flushing the loo? The bottles wouldn’t last long if I tried using them to fill up the cistern. Well, I’ve got a half-full water butt in the garden of my home in Fishergate. I need to fill that up to the brim and I’d then have 240 litres available, which could flush the loo many times over.

FOOD. If the supermarket shelves start going empty, what do you do? My prep is to buy extra supplies of all the non- perishables I can think of during the weekly shop. So that’s lots of tins and jars and cartons and packs of baked beans, tomatoes, tuna, milk, cereals, tea, crisps, coffee and sugar to stack away in the cupboard.

STOVE. There’s not much point in having lots of tins of baked beans if the electric oven has no power and you can’t at least heat them up. I happen to have a camping stove I could use but a quick check in the shed revealed i had only one spare gas cylinder. So I went to a camping shop and bought ten.

HEAT: My home has gas central heating. But what if the gas supply is cut off or rationed? I’ve already got three oil - filled radiators and a powerful fan radiator which I could use if I still have electricity. But what if that goes off as well? Well, I still still have an open fire in the sitting room which I haven’t used for years. I reckoned I could quickly put that back into use. But a quick check in the shed revealed precious little fuel to burn. Time to go and buy several bags of logs, plus kindling and fire lighters to get it going.

MEDICINES. I had agonizing tooth ache last summer, which paracetamols and ibuprofen made just about bearable. Pain without painkillers is unthinkable. But supplies of paracetamol ran very low in the pandemic…Time to buy a couple of packets of painkillers with each weekly shop. Oh yes, and antihistamines for the hay fever season.

LOO ROLLS. Who could ever forget the panic- buying of these ‘essentials’ during the pandemic? So in my weekly shop I bought two multi-packs of nine rolls, and I’ll ensure I’ve always got a spare unopened pack so I needn’t panic if the supermarkets run out.
I hope Scouting founder Baden-Powell would be proud of me and my plan.

But there’s one more thing to mention. Without going too swivel-eyed, I do actually have an air raid shelter in my back garden. It was regularly used during Luftwaffe raids in the Second World War and it’s in quite good condition and could prove handy if an angry Ayatollah, a poisonous Putin or a full-on rogue Trump ever sent a swarm of drones over York.

Admittedly, it would not be much use if hostilities went nuclear and York was targeted. That’s when even I’d have to admit that prepping really had been a waste of time.