ONCE upon a time, your daily round might have begun with milking the family's cow and sweeping the doorstep with a besom broom you made yourself.

You might have had a few jobs to catch up with around the place, such as finishing those wattle hurdles, laying a hedge or repairing your pole lathe.

It would have been thirsty work and so, come lunchtime, you'd deserve your mug of cider with your cheese, butter and pickles, all home-made, of course.

In the afternoon, you might need to see the thatcher about the state of your roof, or the clay-pipe maker – with a visit to the local inn for a pint of ale brewed on the premises and kept in a cask made by the cooper nearby.

For dinner, you'd be thankful for that trout you tickled earlier, that rabbit you skinned, or that fowl you plucked, to supplement produce from your kitchen garden. And so to bed and your patchwork quilt, the way lit by your home-made candle.

A fascinating new book, Lost Crafts, by Devon author Una McGovern, who lives near Newton Abbott, is a treasury of almost 100 skills and traditions from yesteryear, some of which may yet become relevant again with the rising costs of fuel and food and changes of lifestyle. Back before the industrial revolution, daily life was founded on such skills and a simple, practical knowledge. During the last 200 years, most of these basic crafts have all but vanished, displaced by mass production and the "throwaway" society.

Could you light a fire without a match, build a shelter from wattle and daub, or exist without the supermarket?

Only within the last few decades, says Una, have people begun seriously to think about preserving or reviving practical crafts before they are lost to us forever.

Some, such as thatching, still exist, although carried out on a much smaller scale and by a much smaller number of craftspeople than in the past, while others, such as smocking and corn dolly making, have been revived as hobbies or decorative crafts.

In times of wind-farm debates, biofuels and plastic-wrapped organic foods, once-threatened crafts can teach us a great deal about sustainable living.

"But the book isn't about preaching a particular message," Una, a freelance editor and writer, was anxious to point out. "It's not realistic to think that everyone has the time, inclination and the resources to, say, create their own coppice for fuel, or to smoke and pickle their own food for the winter, but it's realistic to me that people think about including some more sustainable practices in their way of life."

Una isn't suggesting we should try to live as people did before the industrial revolution. That was neither practicable nor desirable. But with the cost of living nowadays, we could have something to learn from our ancestors' ways of subsistence and "making do" which we had forgotten.

"You can browse in this book, you can daydream, and you might be inspired to have a go yourself," she said.

"People could think about seasonal local food and preserving food for the winter rather than relying on food which is flown from the other side of the world."

I wondered if Una was adept at any of the old skills herself.

"Some I had already turned my hand to, so I wrote from experience, such as plucking a fowl, pickling food and making butter, but I admit I have never laid a maze or built a coracle. I have milked a cow, though!"

■ Lost Crafts: rediscovering traditional skills is published by Chambers at £19.99.