Red Ladder Theatre Company

I guess two video blogs is probably about as much as most people can cope with, so I'm back to bashing the keyboard - which sounds horribly like some nasty euphemism for self abuse - but it's not.

Since I last blogged I have been to Buddhafield Festival in Somerset and Peace News Summer Camp near Shrewsbury. Buddhafield is - as it says on the tin - a lot of Buddhists in a field. Or is it? I'm not a Buddhist - I'm not very spiritual at all - but I went to spend five days in a tent with my family in a festival that is drugs and alcohol free. I know some people would say "Drugs and alcohol free? What's the point of that?!" Well that IS  the point to me - the festival is for people who are interested in well-being and feeling well. Above all there is a great kids' field with a huge tent of dressing up clothes and wonderful outdoor activities such as climbing nets and circus skills workshops. Once the nippers were busy - we took it in turns to go to workshops and meet a range of people. I went to an inspirational discussion led by Mac of Embercombe about the Ancient British tribes of pre-Roman Britain. The parallels between how Boudica rallied all the tribes against the Roman occupation and our need today to unite to face the tsunami of change that will hit us in the next few decades, is a fascinating topic. I've started reading a series of novels set in AD 33 by Manda Scott entitled The Boudica Series. There is something magical and yet brutal about this period of our history and I am interested to see if this could be explored as a play.

On the subject of reading - I am also reading 'Chavs: the demonization of the working class' by Owen Jones. The book is a clear examination of the deliberate dismantling of working class communities by successive Tory governments throughout the last century from Lord Salisbury to Thatcher and on to Blair and Cameron (Blair just picked up from where Maggie left off).

I'm also flicking back and forth through 'Shut Them Down!' - a collection of reflections on the movement against the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles - inspirational reading about consensus-led direct action - and a useful handbook for activists.

We have just returned from a second stint under canvas - at the Peace News Summer Camp which was held on the land of the Crabapple Community in Berrington village near Shrewsbury. For five days we lived in a camp organised democratically using consensus and amongst some of the most inspirational and experienced activists I have ever met. As well as workshops and discussions about such things as Reclaiming the Commons or how we could support the local action to defend some beautiful woodland from open cast coal mining - see defend huntingtonlane.wordpress.com/ - there was some great music by Seize The Day. Hamish from Vision On TV led a brilliant workshop on citizen video journalism which made me realise that Red Ladder could employ Chloe's brilliant film-making skills to make a series of radical documentaries for You Tube.

I was also very excited to meet two of the Ploughshare 4 - women who sabotaged war planes which had been sold to Indonesia and were to be used to bomb civilians in East Timor. The action took place 15 years ago and after six months on remand the women were found not-guilty. If the verdict had been guilty they would just be getting out of jail! Equally inspirational was Susan Clarkson who broke into Aldermaston indymedia.ie/article/97586 & is back in court this Thursday for refusing to pay the fine.

Gatherings like Peace News Summer Camp are a glimpse into how we might live once the system finally collapses. They are places where people show respect and tolerance. The land is undamaged by litter and people are open and welcoming. Driving off the site and back into 'reality' is more than a little depressing.

So - what's next? The Radical Routes gathering at the end of the month will be at Fell Edge Farm near Ilkley. We hope to meet and network with more of the radical community of the UK and discover how they live in sustainable cooperatives. Our dream is to find a community to live in - and Radical Routes are a network of housing co-ops dedicated to radical social change. Before that Ella and I will return to Treveague Campsite in Cornwall where we got married in 2007 - how romantic!