A SYLVAN lifestyle for an industrial chemist turned professional woodsman is as secure as the old bus he calls home.

For Sherwood Keogh who lives deep in Trilloes Court Wood, Little Dewchurch, was yesterday (Wednesday) told he can keep his comfy old banger, a classic 1954 Bedford, by a Herefordshire Council planning committee.

It has been his home in the ancient broadleaf forest since 1996 and is the headquarters of his business, Goods From The Woods.

Sherwood, 43, who spent 18 years as a chemist working in the rubber industry, would never swap his idyllic and unconventional lifestyle for his old one.

"I sit here sometimes and think this is paradise. I have done things for people with homes worth a million pounds and I think, I don't envy you in the slightest. I would not swap your mansion for my life in the woods. I don't have any yearning to be like them."

His business is supported by the Forestry Commission, which encourages the good management of the county's woodlands. His traditional management style is in the process of being renewed under the commission's Woodland Grant Scheme.

"In the long term, the surest way to safeguard any woodland is to make it pay its own way. Mr Keogh has amply demonstrated that he has the ability and commitment to do this in Trilloes Court Wood by turning the various raw materials available into a wide range of saleable products," the commission told the council.

Sherwood is returning the old forest, neglected from the 1920s until 1978 when it was clear-felled by the Forestry Commission to its former coppiced glory.

His first big job came from English Heritage when he bought the wood, an order for thousands of hand-cleft sweet chestnut roofing battens. His son, Ruben, spent his summer holiday making 20,000 oak pegs for roof tiles.

His income is hard-earned, much of it through the laborious process of making charcoal, a 30-hour weekly operation from early February until mid October and a forgotten industry for the forest.

"Trilloes Court Wood used to use coppice for charcoal to smelt ore, but now it's used to fuel barbecues. The aim is to thin the trees to favour the best ones. There are defined areas of hazel and ash and these are cut on a regular cycle, so the coppice stem keeps sprouting and the life of the tree is prolonged," explained Sherwood.

He also uses the wood and reclaimed timber to make garden furniture, oak fencing and cherry kitchen utensils. He is currently making deer park fencing for the National Trust. Everything is hand cut and polished.

"Some people say you can't make a living out of a woodland this size, but it depends what you do with it," said Sherwood who picked up his skills after meeting the founder of the Greenwood Trust.

That meeting and a course in woodland management and craft skills kindled the dream. But he is, literally, a chip off the old block too.

He grew up at nearby Ballingham Station for which his dad had requisitioned an unwanted maple gym floor.

"He got into making things with reclaimed timber, so it was engendered in me," said Sherwood.

He is planning to run a course this autumn teaching others some of his traditional crafts, including how to make and use a pole lathe.