There are no guns, but there are crossbows. And Katherine, 31, is the proud owner of one.
“It’s for when the rioters start pillaging people’s houses,” she explains.
Petite and with a disability that sometimes leaves her in a wheelchair, Katherine knows she would be vulnerable in such a scenario. “While you’d probably be arrested if you shot someone with a crossbow, it’s slightly reassuring to have the option,” she adds.
Katherine, an admin assistant at a residential care home, has travelled five hours from her home in Oxford to a dew-damp field on the Cornish coast. She has come for a gathering of people like her: people who are preparing for the end of the world.
Preppers, sometimes known as survivalists, are a varied bunch, united by a belief in the looming collapse of society and the necessity of self-sufficiency when it comes. Some, like Katherine, believe it will be caused by riots and civil unrest. Others cite financial crashes, pandemics, solar flares and nuclear Armageddon.
This weekend’s haven is a farm outside of Newlyn, near Penzance, where Katherine will camp alongside 30-or-so concerned citizens — mostly, though not exclusively, middle-aged men in camo and combat boots. It is one of a loose network of prepper meet-ups taking place across Britain this summer, from Pembrokeshire to the Midlands to Dumfries and Galloway.
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