WASHING his clothes in plastic buckets, braving freezing cold showers and waiting six days for food deliveries, Roc Sandford lives a very different life from most millionaires.

The off-grid single dad-of-four, 63, from London, lives on the remote Hebridean island of Gometra, which he bought for £600,000 in 1992.

And the climate campaigner, who appears on tonight's episode of Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over, is on a mission not to use any fossil fuels – living without a car, hot water or central heating.

His kids Cato, the eldest, Savannah, Lazer, 20, and Blue, 18, were all educated in London but spent their school holidays on the remote island. Now adults, none of them are currently living on Gometra but they regularly visit their dad.

Roc tells Fabulous: "My house was built about 160 years ago and it’s got five bedrooms, one for me and one for each of the children.

"It doesn’t have central heating so it can get very cold in the winter and my tea froze the other day, so I was very excited about that. Typically it's about 2C in my bedroom.

"But it’s a lovely place, I love it, I’m very happy here. I can see that by normal people’s standards my house might look derelict, but by my standards it's not.

"I haven’t painted, it’s very damp here because we’re in the middle of the Atlantic and so the wallpaper tends to fall down.

"We put it back up but we haven’t always caught up with it. So it probably looks worse than it actually is."

I can see that by normal people’s standards my house might look derelict, but by my standards it's not

Roc generates his own electricity via a solar panel, admitting "you have to be quite frugal" with the usage.

He says: "It's enough for me to power my computer, my telephones, my power tools and my torches.

"What I don’t have are things like an electric kettle, washing machine, electric fire, the things which use a huge amount of electricity.

"A washing machine is maybe one of the biggest things I miss. But it's a luxury, I can easily wash my clothes by hand.

"I’ve got these gardening trunks, they’re like big plastic buckets. I fill them with cold water, we don’t have hot water, that’s another thing I’ve learned to do without.

"We soak the clothes for a bit with a bit of soap and then tread them like grapes. As I like to say, I end up with very clean feet. Then I rinse them and hang them up on the fence."

Sheep farmer Roc, who rears 300 sheep on the island, follows a vegan diet and grows much of his own food.

He says: "We grow our own vegetables – salad, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes and squashes.

"There’s a lovely shop on the Isle of Mull that send us stuff. If I order it on Sunday, it would tend to get to me by the next Saturday.

I'm vegan but at the moment I'm eating eggs. Some of my children are freegan, which is when you just eat what comes out of dustbins

"We order all our lentils, dried beans, rice and peanut butter – the things one would maybe go to a supermarket for.

"I'm vegan but at the moment I'm eating eggs. Some of my children are freegan, which is when you just eat what comes out of dustbins.

"I’m very happy to go freegan if something’s chucked out after someone’s closing their shop or something. A lot of lovely stuff is chucked out, like peppers or bananas.

"I draw the line at eating people’s leftovers, which is something my dad used to do and I think some of my children do."

To cook, Roc boils his food on the stove and then transfers it to a big thermos, to continue cooking without using energy.

He says: "You can make bread and all sorts of things that way.

"From the age of about 10, my kids had the responsibility for cooking one meal. They've learned domestic duties, rather than just being waited on.

"We had a rota but they'd choose what to cook, they could do beans on toast if they wanted or pasta, or it could be something quite elaborate.

There are costs and benefits of the upbringing they had. They've had freedom and they’re quite tough physically because they’ve had to cope with no hot water and things like that

"They spent most of their holidays here, then they would have to go away to school.

"There are costs and benefits of the upbringing they had. It’s really up to them to say if I got it right, and I’m not sure if any parents do anyway.

"From a very young age, as soon as they could walk, they’ve been able to go out and play as much as they wanted – which in places there are cars you can’t do.

"So they’ve been able to have that freedom and they’re quite tough physically because they’ve had to cope with no hot water and things like that.

"But what they haven’t had is being able to go see their friend next door for tea and that’s a big loss, it’s definitely a cost of living here."

Only two other families currently live on Gometra, which Roc admits "gets pretty wild" during storms.

He says: "It gets a bit scary sometimes, you think ‘this is too much’. Even though my house is a stone house, I can really feel it shaking.

"I remember once not just my window blew in, but the whole frame around it and the shutters, it just fell flat on the kitchen table. So it does get scary here, it is a wild place."

In the past, Roc has even given his kids rubbish wrapped in newspaper for their Christmas presents.

It’s possible people think I’ve indoctrinated them but I haven’t. I've bene very careful not to force protesting on them

He says: "I thought ‘there’s a lot of really nice rubbish lying around, why don’t I collect it and wrap it up in old newspaper and give it to my children as Christmas presents?’

"I think they’re the best Christmas presents I’ve ever given them because they were just delighted. I gave my mum one too.

"I was just trying to say ‘we don’t need all these nic nacs, the nic nacs are rubbish and the rubbish is just as good’.

"I know I sound crazy but often there are these beautiful bits of cardboard which might come with a bottle of wine and it’s really quite romantic."

Roc regularly makes the 17-hour trip from Gometra down to London to protest with Extinction Rebellion, Ocean Rebellion and against HS2.

His children join him, with his youngest Blue and Lazer recently making headlines by setting up camp in a network of tunnels under Euston Station to protest against the rail plans.

Blue was underground for 30 days, despite fears the tunnels would collapse around her after water came in, something her dad describes as "terrifying, really stressful", although he's also "proud" of her.

He says of his journey south: "It’s an eight-mile walk across a mountain, which takes me two and a quarter hours, then either a row or in the summer on weekdays there’s a little ferry, to another island called the Isle of Mull.

"Then there’s two busses, a ferry,two trains and I’m in London. I campaign because we're in a mess and we need to say 'no' if we love our children.

"The kids were quite young when they started protesting, Blue was about 11 when she started protesting the salmon farming.

"I didn’t deliberately involve them, it’s just that they picked up on what I was doing and saw it my way. I've been very careful not to force anything on them, it’s very much up to them.

"When Extinction Rebellion started, I started going to those protests. They would come with me and quickly completely outclassed me in terms of their achievements.

"It’s possible people think I’ve indoctrinated them but I haven’t, and I think part of the proof of that is that they’re better than me at it all. If anything it’s the other way around."

Roc says meeting Stacey on the show was "really wonderful".

He adds: "It was fun. The way it’s filmed, you don’t know what she thinks, because they film you cooking and washing clothes together, then she goes away and says what she thinks about it and that bit you don’t actually see.

"I got the feeling she changed, I think when she arrived she found it a bit disorientating and then as time went on, she really saw the point and also really understood what we were saying. That’s the impression I got.

"She stayed in my house, on the top floor in Lazer's bedroom, but she wasn't allowed to eat with us sadly because of the regulations."

Last week, Stacey met a mum whose daughter has modelled since she was five & wants to be the next face of Dior, and says "I don’t care if people think she’s too young".

Roc is urging readers to ask their MPs to sign the Climate & Ecological Emergency Bill. You can find out more here.

Roc’s episode of Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over airs at 10pm tonight on W Channel.

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