Anyone who knows me knows that I very much want Jeremy Corbyn to be the next Prime Minister Of The U.K. At least I did, until I opened The Daily Mail and heard the tale of Malcolm Applegate, a gardener from Birmingham who decided he would rather live in the woods than listen to his wife nag him about working too much for another minute. It’s a pretty spectacular reaction, especially considering he had only been married for 3 years at the time.
‘For three years it was alright, we got on with one another and the gardening got too much for her.
‘She said, “Why don’t we have more time together?’ I said, ‘How can I? I have been recommended to people”.
‘I just upped and left, I got fed up with her because we used to get so many arguments.
‘It took me three weeks to get back to London.’
Insane. Imagine marrying someone you hate so much that you just pick up and walk to London to get away from her.
After leaving, Malcolm camped in ‘thick woodland’ near Kingston, south west London, while working on gardens at a community centre for the elderly.
He said: ‘There were three of us camping.
‘They were just camping around with me because at the time I was working in the centre and we used to go there for a wash and a shower.
‘No one knew we were there. It’s not well known – nobody would go in there.’
I’ve been with my girlfriend for over ten years, and we have the occasional fight and the really occasional massive fight that leaves both of us (but honestly mainly me) a sobbing mess completely unable to function for a few days, but never in my life have I thought “I would rather be homeless for a decade than be with this person.” Well, that’s not true, but I’d never actually do it.
Applegate has a sister who assumed he was dead and went searching all over for him.
He said: ‘It had been a decade years since I’d last seen her, and in that time she had been to all of the Salvation Army hostels in the south trying to find me.
‘I think she assumed I was dead.‘I wrote her a letter once I was settled in Greenwich and she phoned me up, in floods of tears.
‘We now have a great relationship again.’
So I guess my first question is, if you decide to leave your wife, why not go stay with your sister instead of living in the woods outside London for a decade? Clearly this guy’s nagging wife completely broke his brain to the point where his only thought was escape. It’s good to hear that he’s gotten his life back on track now, and the next time you have a fight with your wife or girlfriend, take a deep breath and remember that you can always go live in the woods.