These days content creators are everywhere. From make-up, cooking, housework and parenting, you can find almost anything at the touch of your phone. To my astonishment, I managed to lay a vinyl kitchen floor just from watching YouTube, and all before my family woke up. I am not usually described as practical minded, but that Sunday I delighted in some short-lived smug efficiency.
This endless access to content can be incredibly helpful but it has its downsides. There’s often a lot of very curated styling that can leave one with unrealistic expectations of life, a sense of FOMO as well as a skewed view of other people’s achievements and lifestyle. It’s easy enough to find oneself down a rabbit hole of superficial nonsense and to think the only way forward is to purchase a terrifyingly expensive LED light mask to turn back the ravages of time or buy a horse without quite thinking it through.
Norfolk-based David Pagan Butler and his son Jasper are content creators of a different, more enriching kind. Formerly a cameraman with the BBC and Inside Out, David has been creating YouTube films about how to make natural swimming pools, as well teaching courses on how to build them, since he and his partner Alison found that Jasper was unable to use ordinary swimming pools.
In 2008, the family discovered Jasper (then just six) had an allergy to chlorine after he developed eczema from a school trip to a public pool and consequently couldn't swim, even in salt-water. David decided to create the family’s first outdoor pool himself, specifically for Jasper’s needs and for him and his younger brothers to learn and enjoy swimming.
‘I’ve always been obsessed by ponds, and I wanted to make one large enough to swim in,’ says David. The information on how to build a natural pool at the time was limited to commercial companies abroad, who were reluctant to give away any of their knowledge, so David decided to reinvent the process himself. By using a system of pipes and bubbles instead of conventional pumps, he made the system low tech, low energy and environmentally and animal friendly, bypassing all the usual costly methods.
David filmed a video diary of the pool build process, including the disasters and pitfalls, over two years. Having lost interest halfway through the dig, his digger driver abandoned the job for another, rain destroyed the sandbags and the walls caved in, all narrated with David’s typically self-deprecating humour. Permaculture Magazine asked for the rights to a DVD film of another pond creation in around 2012. This prompted his YouTube channel, which has now attracted more than 100k subscribers, His courses are under £300, showing people how to create a swimming pool for £20k instead of £100k.
The family pool, now well established, is surrounded by flourishing plants and wildlife and is around 180m2 in total, with a 4 by 11-metre swimming area and 2.2 metres deep. Now, David sees a big interest in his natural pools, and has a global fanbase including the movie star Dominic West, who has appeared in cameo form in one of David’s TikToks, and Daniel Craig’s stuntman.
Using all this experience, he decided to teach people how to do it and began day courses about seven years ago. ‘I wouldn’t make a pool like that again! I teach people how to avoid the disasters and the mistakes I made, and to do it in two months rather than over two years,’ he says.
At only 21, Jasper has 188.4K followers on TikTok, and his quirky short videos often featuring his dad (as well as other friends and family) are witty captures of typically British semi-eccentric country life, featuring regular leaps into wild swimming ponds, studies on underwater insects, observations of nature and adorable CGI creatures that he bumps into in the woods.
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His most popular films are those of bemused and charming Jasper and his disgruntled, ruddy northern father (in his statement overalls and wellies) having cheerful and bizarre tiffs, mishaps, experiments and adventures around their home, or at a north Norfolk beach.
Hunting for scones in Devon, finding the bean frog (to harvest baked beans, of course) or testing the stamina of a titanium wallet with a handmade medieval contraption designed for hurling blunt objects at invading enemies, is so entertaining you almost don’t notice there’s a sponsorship included.
From his days as a cameraman, David often had equipment lying around that Jasper and his brothers began experimenting with. ‘My main passion was always visual effects, playing with stop-motion and plasticine dinosaurs,’ says Jasper.
His parents hadn’t officially allowed him to have a mobile until he was 16, but he successfully hid his filming pursuits with high school friends on a secret mobile – with his parents only suppressively aware.
‘I started making TikToks with my friend, and we had a competition over who could get to 100 followers first, then I started talking directly to the camera and trying to be funny,’ says Jasper. Instantly his new style got 1,000 views and very quickly grew, soon reaching 10,000 followers, and continued to climb, attracting a global audience with his quirky, British charm.
Jasper had an idea to include his father in a TikTok video in which he was to be repeatedly and comedically ‘killed’ and this was the launchpad for serious exposure. ‘The trend was for dads to be in videos and this one got about 400,000 views, which was exciting. The only trouble was I had to keep featuring my dad!’
Jasper is now studying film at Sussex University, so there’s less time for father and son collaborations. ‘We put a lot of planning into the films, doing re-takes and so on,’ says Jasper. TikTok, like most social media, is fickle and changing all the time, says Jasper, but his rise to fame seems undiminished.
Jasper was discovered by The Gold Studios, who wanted to represent him and was recently invited to take part in the BBC Creator Lab, where 100 UK based creators were selected across a range of topics to take part in a nature workshop, in Cardiff. Jasper was then enrolled for an opportunity to appear on Springwatch, and he made his debut during the most recent series, which aired in June.
Jasper has also been helping on a Hollywood films and working with leading names in the industry, using his knowledge and skills with visual effects.
I get the feeling Jasper has enough integrity and wisdom to make the most of these opportunities, and with his down-to-earth dad by his side, he will remain grounded and sincere despite the dazzle of Hollywood.
Follow Jasper Pagan on TikTok: jasper_pagan and David Pagan Butler on YouTube: davidpaganbutler/organicpools.co.uk
