Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Back cover: David Bramley as Parson Platt in Winstanley. See page 24.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Eddies
MAKE THE ELECTRICITY BOARD YOUR BATTERY
The national grid system could be the best electrical ·storage system·yet
devised, and may be ideal for storing energy from windmills. This notion,
which the CEGB will regard as high treason, has developed from a new
·inverter·which is used to turn DC power from windmills to AC. The
device·a "synchronous inverter" made by Windworks of the USA, allows
independent energy producers to feed power into the electricity grid·and
even run their electricity meters backwards when production exceeds
consumption.
It·s true, of course. that even in Britain large companies with their own
private generating equipment have been running synchronous generators
and feeding their surplus power into the national grid for years.
But Windworks·synchronous inverter, christened the ·Gemini·, is the first
we·ve heard of that·s specifically designed for smallscale use in
conjunction with intermittent energy sources like wind generators.
Gemini works by taking the varying, direct·current output of a typical
wind power plant, smoothing out its fluctuations, and using
the resulting power to drive
a high·power transistor oscillator which produces up to 8kW of
alternating current at exactly the voltage and frequency of the normal
electricity system.
As Windworks put it: "In operation, all available DC power is converted
to AC. If more power is available from the DC source than is required by
the load, the excess flows into the power grid. If less power is available
than is required by the load, the difference is provided by the power grid
in the normal fashion."
The beauty of such a system to the windmill builder is that you don·t
need any energy storage. The electricity grid provides instantaneous back
up power, to whatever degree is required, whenever the output of your
wind generator falls below that needed to supply your needs at any given
time.
Conversely, if you happen to be producing more power than you need,
you can ·sell it back to the electricity board by getting Gemini to run your
meter backwards.
But what does the electricity board have to say about such practices? In
America, Wind works have not apparently encountered any problems so
far. Ben Wolff
says the group are "working with our Utility company to try and establish
a rate structure for this type of system. It has worked well with no
technical problems since February. The Utility agrees there are no
technical problems...;.. only economic ones ...
To the wind generator owner the economics of
a Gemini inverter appear very attractive. Windworks say
that "for wind systems with capacities up to 20 kilowatts, synchronous
inverters are approximately one sixth the cost of conventional inverters,
per kilowatt capacity."
The main obstacle to the introduction of such devices in the UK will
probably be the unwillingness of the Central Electricity Generating Board
to accept the concept of a decentralised network of independent
small·scale electricity producers.
At present in Britain, the relatively few private concerns that produce
their own power find that backup energy from their electricity board is
charged at a higher rate than normal, and that the rate at which the CEGB
buys their surplus power is very low. If faced with the prospect of
a much larger number of smaller power producers, the reaction of the
CEGB would probably be to make the differential between its buying and
selling prices much larger ·or else refuse to buy any privately·generated
electricity at all and modify all electricity meters to prevent them from
running backwards.
The arrogant zeal of our nationalised monopolies in suppressing any
innovations which might upset their technocratic assumptions IS
depressingly predictable.
More information:Windworks, Box 329, Route 3, Mukwonago, Wisconsin
53/49 USA
A Lovely Network
There·s a new game to be played on the phones in Paris. But, courtesy of
the automatic international telephone system, anyone can play.
The game is Le Reseau (the Network). There are a large number of lines in
Paris which are disconnected or where, for one reason or another, the
line is connected to a recorded announcement only. Fortunately, because
of the way the telephone system works in France, the engineers cannot
prevent two people who call the same (disconnected) number at the same
time hearing each other. So one can have a conversation with random
callers who also know the Reseau
number. According to Undercurrents·Paris correspondent, now a regular
listener to Le Reseau, all kinds of weird and wonderful names are used,
and people arrange meetings. A lot of gay (and straight) contacts are
apparently fixed up on the network. And its
a forum too ·you can have a conference about anything.
You can try it from Britain, or indeed anywhere else. One number, which
was working recently is Paris (code from Britain 010331) 272 5428. Have
some fun.
The same does not happen in Britain. Only very occasionally when a
fault arises in some part of the phone system does a ·conference
circuit·come about. British phone phreaks occasionally find one.
Perhaps the most famous was the Case of the Exploding Exchange. A few
years ago the I RA blew up Strabane telephone exchange, putting
it out of action. Lines to Strabane from Londonderry, used for STD calls to
Strabane were converted by the blast into a conference circuit. Phreaks
and even people could have a free conference merely by dialling the STD
code for Strabane.
ECO·HOUSEWORK
Construction work on Granada Television·s almost·autonomous house is
well advanced and most of the insulation and exterior effort has now
been completed. The production team have been tripping around the
country collecting film footage of people, places, and bits of gubbins, and
they are beginning to assemble the components of their programmes.
Up till now, most of the effort has been directed to coming to terms with
the coach·house·s transformation to ecohouse.
They seem to have stuck fairly closely to their desire to keep the exercise
at an almost DIY level. It was always thought that a good part of the work
would be done by Geoff Grant, the wood·and metal·work teacher whose
family are to live in the ecohouse, and it has been good to see that
contractors have been brought in only for major work like strength·ening
the roof.
The problem of course, is that the situation is a little unreal. Building a
house to go with a tv programme means that manufacturers will be much
more helpful and will embarrass .. you by offering cavity insulation and
the like for the house (which has no cavities anyway), for the house of
anyone on the programme and for anyone who happens to be related to
anyone on the programme.
In terms of hard construction work, nearly all the
insulation has been installed-underneath the floors, and beneath the new
timber clad walls. The solar roof, which
is the BRAD model, arrived
in beautifully machined sections which nearly refused to go on because
of the irregularity of the roof. A good deal of bodging was required. Brian
Trueman tells us
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Nuclear Noose
Latest body to join the burgeoning nuclear protest movement in the US is
the American Civil Liberties
Union which has provided
an attorney for the hearings into the licensing of the Wolf Creek plant
near Burlington, Kansas. The ACLU will link up with several
environmentalist groups including the Mid·America Coalition for Energy
Alternatives, a Kansas City based group, co·ordinating anti·nuclear
activities in five states, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma
Oklahoma.
The ACLU is involving
itself on the basis that nuclear power is a threat to civil liberties in the
future because of the strict protective measures necessary to safeguard the
material throughout the fuel cycle. Coalition tactics include lobbying for
moratorium bills in the various various state legislatures. Political support
in the midwest is reckoned to be strongest in Kansas where the farmer·s
union has come out strongly on the anti·nuclear side. Opposition has
been aroused by both safety fears and the rather tactless business antics of
the utilities. At
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MANSON
Already reeling under the combined pressures of inflation and
environmentalist opposition, the nuclear lobby has received a body blow
(literally) from another,
rather less expected quarter ·Charles Manson.
"Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the people who are building nuclear
power plants, the people that are polluting the air, the people that are
poisoning the water, the people who are killing the wildlife, the people
who are
falsely advertising to the public ·all of them will be butchered in their
bedrooms because they are living off the blood of the little people ...
So said Sandra Good, disciple of Manson and roommate of Lynette
·Squeaky·Fromme, recently indicted for the attempted assassination of
President Ford_ In
a radio interview in New Orleans Good named six businessmen on the
assassination list of the
·International People·s Court of Retribution·, who she described as
"several thousand people throughout the world who love the earth, the
children and their lives". In
a later interview the list was enlarged to 72 people.
NUCLEAR PATTERSON
Friend of the Earth and certain FOE of the nuclear industry·Walt Patterson
recently mingled with the electro nuclear industry
in Switzerland. A
believer, if in nothing else, of
bearding the nucleon in his den, Walt was in Basle for Nuclex 75, the big
European nuclear exhibition, billed as the event where nuclear power
would demonstrate its ·maturity·(sic).
Patterson·s contribution to Nuclex, where the predominant mood was far
from the confidence one would expect from a mature industry, was a
lecture given to about 400 people, industry figures as well as critics. His
main target was not safety, which has had a fair airing in Switzerland as
elsewhere, but a topic which was much less familiar to his listeners, the
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But the estimated cost was revealed at a Solar Energy Society meeting to
be over £50,000 per unit. The mind boggles at the thought of men on the
autarkic house production line monotonously tightening nuts on the same
solar collector panel day in, day out ·while bosses and academics tell
them about ·widespread application·.
Astoundingly, the design
for ·customary patterns of living·with ·generally acceptable standards·is
based on material from the Reader·s Digest. This middle·c1ass dream
home includes a dishwasher as well as TVs, toaster and electric
can·opener. Why bother with an ·alternative·house in order to reproduce
current consumerist living patterns? The group accept that ·complexity
will be unavoidable·, and the house may be very difficult to live in. Their
application does not both·er to discuss basic issues of energy and
resources.
The house still has several likely design problems. A windmill on the roof
is likely to cause noise and vibration, while the house only has one door.
What the design does not lack, however, arc computer models,
simulations,
and wind tunnel tests. But it probably doesn·t have enough ambient
energy systems to make it self·sufficient in energy all year round.
Better financial support for alternative technology may generally be a
good thing, but not here. Perhaps the Autarkic House will eventual!
eventually go into production ·with its £400,000 and 14 researchers ·but
to us it is likely to be useless. A misbegotten daughter of high technology,
created on an alienating production line, it will be financially
inaccessible to most people. Th is type of ·alternative·technology is
an academic toy which may one day be used by the trendy and wealthy
·but has little relevance to people·s technology.
Unnatural Habitat
For students of UN conferences the idea of yet another major conference
on mankind·s predicament must come as no surprise. Identify a problem
·give it a title and organise a conference is by now the all too familiar
response of the UN. So was born the Stockholm Con·ference on the
human environment, the Bucharest conference on population, the Rome
conference on food ,the Mexico conference on the status of women ·and
now the Vancouver Conference on human settlements. It all conjures up
an idea of permanent in·transit diplomats waltzing from one cocktail
session to the next to the strains of the world·s problems. But perhaps
TRANSCENDENTAL MYSTIFICATION?
ONE FEA TURE of today·s mystical and ·enlightened·cults is a certain
secrecy about the inner processes of the
cult. Once initiates are admitted, on payment of a
a not insubstantial fee, they are instructed not to reveal the ceremonies of
the inner sanctum. Spiritual processes must retain their mystique.
Some will accept this as legitimate behaviour; others, cynical like Froth,
suggest this is an important element in the cult marketing strategy. New
initiates must reinforce their beliefs in the cult and be enticed into further
costly courses to higher levels of consciousness. For outsiders, the secrecy
may likely encourage beliefs that there is something worthwhile to hide.
Either way, some dissidents have come away unsatisfied, ready to blow
the gaff. Dave Jackson of Manchester recently took the initiation course in
Transcendental Meditation (TM), and decided it wasn·t worth his £25.
TM consists essentially of repeating a simple word ·the Mantra ·in your
mind. Your own personal, totally secret Mantra is given at a quasi-
religious ceremony involving you and your personal teacher
only. You must swear to secrecy over what takes place. Dave thinks this is
probably to keep the £25s rolling in, and he didn·t take it too seriously.
So what happened? First, he took his shoes off.
He entered a darkened room sweetly smelling of joss with his teacher. An
altar like table covered with a white bed sheet displayed the Maharishi·s
portrait eerily lit by two candles. The teacher started chanting in an
"obscure Indian dialect".
Then, just as Our Person In The Darkened Room was wondering what all
the crap was about, he was told to participate in the chanting now
consisting of only one word ·the Mantra. He then meditated thereupon.
Curious, though, that everyone else he knew was given the same personal
Mantra. Perhaps there·s only one mantra, or maybe all his friends have
TRANSPORT WELL·OILED
The total lack of imagination in liberal environmental thinking was
demonstrated at a conference ·Transport without Oil?·in Newcastle at the
end of September. Local environmental groups organised the show of
transport planners and others with the clearly significant if little-known
Tyneside Branch of the Light Railway Transport League. But the so·called
experts had no ideas except whether cars were to be in or out in their
dream futures. The most startling contribution to the conference was
the effective demonstration of the same idiocy with added irresponsibility
from the head of the Tyne and Wear Road Users Group ·a Mr John who
lives in Kent.
The one·day conference didn·t actually get round to discussing alternative
means of transport or organisation of production and distribution
to achieve this. Well done the clearly significant if little-known Tyneside
Branch of the Light etc, etc.
Undercurrents/NewcastIe
going
on in your area, please get in touch ...
CORNWALL ·Jon Campbell. Lucastes, Lerryn, Lostwithiel, Cornwall.
GLOUCESTER ·Godfrey Boyle, II Shadwell, Uley, Dursley, Gloucs. (Uley
636)
POWYS ·Bob Todd (NCAT), Llwyngwern Quarry, Machynlleth, Powys.
(Machynlleth 2400)
CARDIFF ·Paul Downton, 139 Wyverne Road, Cathays, (Cardiff 43485)
BUCKS ·Kip Handling. Signal Cottage, Bledlow, Bucks SUSSEX ·Duncan
Campbell, 31 Franklin Road, Brighton, Sussex. (Brighton 686822) ESSEX
·Jan Wysocki, Hams Cottage, Back Road, Kirton, Ipswich
YORKS ·Leeds Future Studies Centre, 15 Kelso Road. Leeds 2. LANCS
·Nigel Ferguson,
21 Chatsworth Road. Lancaster NORTHUMBERLAND ·Geoff WatSon,
Church Cottage. Chollerton, Hexham,
Monica Frisch, EGIS Information Service, North Lodge, Elswick Road
Cemetry, Newcastle 4. EDINBURGH ·Michael Tribbeck, 10 Cannon Lane.
Edinburgh 10. (03t·447 4908)
WHAT·S ON ...
The Institute of Contemporary Arts at Nash House, Carlton House Terrace,
London SWl, are having a series of meetings on Communica·tion and
Community Action, at 6.30 pm on Tuesday evenings. Each month there
will be
a different topic, with four lectures per month. Topics are: November
·video, December lobbying and PR, January ·film, February tapes and
slides.
The Farm and Food Society is taking part in the First World Congress at
The World Exhibition of Survival at the International Rogier Centre,
Brussels, November 21·24. This is being organised by Universal Survival
whose declared target is Quality of Life. There will be sessions on Soft
Energy, Biological Agriculture, Nonviolence, Nuclear Power, Healthy
Food and Natural Medicine. Details from the Farm and Food Society, 37
Tanza Road, London NW3, 01·4550634.
Should Britain Feed Itself! is the title of
a conference organised by the Conservation Society and UK and Ireland
Agricultural Students Association on Saturday November 22, at the
Palmer Building, Reading University. One of the speakers is Kenneth
Mellanby. The conference will discuss whether Britain should feed itself,
on the assumption that it could do so, given a drastic change of diet (see
review of Mellanby·s Call Britain feed Itself? in this issue). Registration £
1.00, lunch £ 1.00, payable to Conservation Society. Indicate your
requirements and enclose a large SAE with the money, to Stephen
Mottram, Sibley Hall, Redhatch Drive, Earley, Reading, Berkshire.
Turning Point is an all day meeting at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square on
November 29 at which activists, thinkers, and other concerned people
will discuss where to look for a solution to the present crisis ·towards
ecology, politics or technology. Speakers will include Jerry Ravetz, Colin
Hutchinson and James Robertson, author of Profit or People. For details
write to Alison Pritchard, Turning Point, 21 Phillimore Place, London W8
7BY. 01·9379766. Tickets are £1, pay your cheque to Turning Point.
The first European Sarvodaya Conference A Vision For a Communitarian
Society ·will be held on Saturday December 13 at Conway
Hall, Red Lion Square, London WCI. "The conference aims to gather and
express solidarity for a new set of principles and a programme for action.
All those who believe in a decentralised society, an ecological life·style
and a humane economy should gather and uphold these values." The
conference is jointly sponsored by the London School of Nonviolence,
The Ecologist, Christian Action, the Free J.P. Campaign and Resurgence
and participants include E.F. Schumacher, Geoffrey Ashe, John Seymour,
Leopold Kohr, Lanza del Vasto and many others. The Friday and Sunday
meetings will be at Eastbourne House. For details write to Satish Kumar,
Eastbourne House, Bullards Place, London E2. Tickets are £ 1 each,
payable to the London School of Nonviolence.
Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Assessment (NA IT A)
is holding a two day workshop at the Open University, Milton Keynes,
April 3·4 1976. This is aimed at bringing together groups involved with
com·munity technology development, AT, grass roots industrial struggles,
environmental lobbying, social audit, technology assessment etc, to
exchange experiences and compare strategies. Contact Dave Elliott via
Under·currents.
ORGANISING AN EVENT?? Please send any information for inclusion in
this section to Barbara Kern at Undercurrents.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Partridge Rise Up, Ye Noble Diggers
READERS WITH LONG MEMORIES may recall the Diggers·brave attempt
to seize Cambridge in the February 74 general election, (see
Undercurrents 6). A lost deposit having finally confirmed their distaste for
Parliamentary demo·cracy the scene of the struggle has shifted a long way
from Westminster .... right down to earth on far·off Bodmin Moor. During
the summer Poltesque Farm, an 80·acre site near the village of Temple,
was taken over for people·s use and now houses a population of fifty
souls, making it the largest agricultural commune in Britain. The farm had
been left unwanted since the original owner fled the country owing a
large amount in death duties. Until recently the land was used
unofficially by another local farmer, but faced with economic crisis he
has cut down the size of his stock and is now helping the settlers to
develop more
direct methods of food production. Much hard work had preceded this
move; an old stone barn was transformed into a cooperative dormitory
using material liberated from derelict sites all over Cornwall and work has
since begun on a second building. The community aims to have all the
land under intensive cultivation within two years and thereafter to
become a high·production unit assisting other groups with a similar
ideology. Although the community is very recent the framework of its
constitution is based on the teachings of Gerrard Winstanley, as laid
down in ·The Law of Freedom in a Platform·. The objective is a situation
in which leaders and committees are unnecessary.
The principal activity is spontaneous work; anyone finding a job which
needs doing either does it or lists it on a blackboard for others requiring
direction. A general meeting of all concerned sets down standards for the
way in which each job is done, and these are reviewed regularly as more
people acquire the necessary skills. The community intends to prove that
a sharing system is not only spiritually better, but can also lead to greater
material comfort through intensified and sensitive use of resources. The
latest news from Cornwall is that two more derelict farms have been
found, one with very fast water nearby_And Trago Mills, the local
out·of·town shopping centre, is running a special offer on fibre·glass
waterwheels this month.
Information from Nathan Moran.
p
GERRARD WINSTANLEY was a 17th century English revolutionary whose
ideas deserve to see the light of day again. Radical history, with its more
recent exotic heroes, has rarely paid much attention to the original
home.grown product, but there is no doubt that Marx himself was quite
familiar with Winstanley·s writings. The Civil War and the English
Revolution were cornerstones of his historical understanding ..... basic
examples of the transformation of society from feudalism to capitalism.
The Civil War, (1642·1650). was the point when the old established
aristocrats were overthrown by the rising merchant class. But it was a
long exhausting struggle and, as in most wars, the bulk of the fighting fell
to the lot of the ordinary folk of the shires and the country towns, who
also contributed to Cromwell·s cause by raising heavy taxes and giving
free quarter to his troops. With the execution of the king and the
proclamation of
a republic (commonwealth" therefore, they naturally expected to be
relieved of the old feudal burdens of high taxation and unequal
ownership of land. But they were disappointed., for the victorious
Parliamentarians merely appropriated the privileges of the vanquished
Royalists for themselves without doing anything to ease the condition of
the poor.
The levellers were the ultra·leftists of Cromwell·s revolution; they were
not satisfied with a simple change in the personnel at the top of the
tree ..... they wanted society to be made more equal throughout. And to
the left of the ultra·leftists came the True levellers, led by Winstanley, who
aspired to a complete common·ownership of the land and the
introduction of a social system based on wider community objectives
instead of the narrow personal interests of its separate members. Thus the
bourgeois concept of individualism was being challenged right at the
inception of the bourgeois state. _ ... a fact which may come as a surprise
to many who regard this current of opinion as a much more recent
phenomenon.
In April 1649 a number of men armed with spades arrived on St Georges
Hill in Surrey intending to till the common land and grow food for the
needy. They were mostly poor residents of neighbouring Cobham and
Walton·on·Thames, landless
labourers of a class dispossessed by the enclosure system and subject to
tremendous hardship in that period of economic chaos. Their leader was
Gerrard Winstanley, who had expressed the aim of the project in his
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A Full-length FILM about the leader of the True Levellers and the events
on George Hill, 1649·51 has been directed by Kevin Brownlow and
Andrew Mollo, two exponents of a peculiarly British variety of
non·establishment cinema: the low·budget feature·movie with amateur
actors, shot at weekends, yet striving for, and often surpassing, the
technical standards of the big·money boys. ·Winstanley·will be making its
British debut at the London Film Festival in November.
Great political issues of the period haunt the action, though for the most
part unobtrusively. The film does not set out to make abstract statements
·it is simply a record of events with a commentary taken from
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FOOD for PEOPLE: The Land for the People Food Event at Leeds, Oct 18 &
19.
IN AN IDYLLIC GREEN FIELD with two horses, among miles of deserted
farmland but close to the London·Leeds railway, is a horrific sign:
TAYLOR WOODROW BUILD EVERYWHERE. This wooden structure is
itself the only evidence of building in the whole area so far, and appears
all the more threatening when there is no·one around except the
occasional solitary tractor·driver. The fields themselves are. beginning to
look visibly unhealthy as the tractors become bigger and better machines.
But you can·t eat tractors. In Leeds almost all discussion was actually on
some aspect of communication and exchange of information itself:
A Land Registry ·People living locally could most easily check out each piece
of land to find out details about the condition of the soil and who owns it, etc.
Many local groups could usefully exchange accurate knowledge of possibilities
in each area. There was already a lot of commitment from people at Comtek
(sec Undercurrents 12) to look but for usable land nationally.
A Catalogue of People ·their skills, interests, commitments, resources and
present requirements, something which the Futures Centre is trying to do
already. land for the People has produced a rough list for people to make
contact with each other locally. (In the Bit library there·s
an amazing 1 50·page directory of people who attended a conference on
Alter·native Agriculture last year in America, where the movement back to the
land is obviously growing very large_)
A Land for the People Handbook ·Some people offered to write on
particular topics such as ·the cities·exploitation of the countryside·. We
still need articles on subjects like Agribizness and its dangerous practices.
agricultural ·science·. reclaiming waste land, building regulations and
ecodesign, alternative technology, the ecology of human settlement and
so on. Information is badly needed in such areas as: setting up collective
organisations. legal frameworks and how they work in practice,
organisation of meetings; up·to date statistics, facts and details on land
ownership in Britain; radical methods of land (or swamp?) cultivation,
game farming, wild foods etc; nutrition, planning laws, Community Land
Bill, squatting land, alternatives to industry, alternative economics, village
co·operatives, compost, recycling waste _ .... the list is probably endless.
We can·t ignore the tremendous amount of land that now lies waste in
small and large plots all over the country. Every spare bit of land will
become important to grow food sooner or later ..... who can tell how
soon? Action to create community gardens and to secure more allotment
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Leach From Stone Age to Supermarket:
ENERGY AND FOOD PRODUCTION
The rise in agricultural output of the developed West has been almost
entirely due to massive inputs of energy, putting agriculture in the UK, for
example, on a par in energy intensiveness with industry. The result, as
Gerry Leach of the International Institute for Environment and
Development points out here, is a highly energy·inefficient system,
comparing very poorly with pre·industrial and present third·world
methods and entirely inappropriate to the needs of the vast bulk of
mankind. To increase yields, quality and reliability, without high costs,
environmental damage or massive unemployment, the way forward must
be through self·sustainable and renewable resources.
This is a shortened version of an article appearing in the first edition of
FOOD POLICY. Thanks are due to the author and IPC for permission to
publish and to Geoff Tansey for help with editing. A much fuller treatment
of the same subject is Energy and Food Production bV G. Leach,
obtainable from the International Institute for Environment and
Development, 27 Mortimer St, London Wl. Price £1.00.
SOLAR ENERGY alone is not sufficient for food production; other energy
inputs are necessary, While most traditional farmers achieve high food
yields for each energy unit invested, the industrialised food systems of the
West have raised food yields and quality and cut labour usage, but have
done so by heavy consumption of ·and dependence on ·fossil fuels. Most
developed societies now use 7 to 8 units of fossil fuel energy for each
food energy unit consumed, or an annual 0.8 tons of oil equivalent per
person.
These energy subsidies have helped transform working conditions and
living standards in modern societies, especially on the farm. They are also
a natural response to a period of high wages and cheap energy. Their
emergence is easily explained. Yet they do raise several important
questions for the future. Not least of these are whether recent trends in
the energy·intensive food systems of the West need to be reversed, or can
be without harm; whether they are a possible model for the developing
world to copy; and if not, what energy·food strategies can do most for the
energy and food·hungry majority of the world·s peoples.
The input range
bV men or animals. With semi·industrial systems the proportion ranges from 10·95% but is
usually 40·60%, the remainder being fossil inputs mostly for fertilisers but with some
machinery and fuels. All other systems shown are full·industrlal. with muscular effort
accounting for less than 5% of the total, and usually less than 1%.
____________________________________________________
consumed) is consistently high. achieving a traditional aim of agriculture,
which is to secure a net energy flow to man. With industrial systems
much more energy is needed per unit output. with animal products and
sea fishing requiring consistently higher amounts of energy than crops. as
one might expect. This last_ fact does much to explain why for the total
farm systems of the UK, USA and Holland the Energy Ratio is always less
than one and as low as 0.3. The Table also shows for the UK and Holland
a strong trend towards greater energy intensity in agriculture in the last 20
years. When one includes the entire food production and delivery system
to the point where food is sold in shops the Energy Ratios in developed
societies drop to around 0.2. giving an annual fossil energy requirement
of about 24 GJ (1 GJ is 10·Joules) or 0.56 tonnes oil equivalent per capita.
In most developed societies a further 5·10 GJ per capita is used in
transporting food to the home and in the home for cooking, refrigeration
etc. Many rural communities in the Third World consume much greater
quantities of fuel in the home than this, bringing their overall energy
consumption for food close to the Western level.
Energy and labour
An important consequence of the high energy ratios of primitive·farming
systems is that labour requirements for food supply are not abnormally
high, despite popular mythology. With an Energy Ratio of 25 a
subsistence farmer need spend only two hours per day on average in
order to feed a family of four with a combined food energy intake of 40
MJ per day. This figure is comparable to those of Western societies, where
roughly 25·30% of household incomes are spent on food and drink.
Table 2 makes this comparison more explicit by comparing food energy
yields per man hour of labour. Most nonindustrial cropping systems
achieve
10·50 MJ per man hour for raw food delivered to the home. With
full·industrial crops this productivity soars to around 3000·4000 MJ per
man hour of on·farm labour with food delivered to the farm gate. But
these high outputs arc then dissipated in two ways. Much of the crop is
fed to animals. which reduces the productivity enormously. It is down to
50·170 M J per man hour on most average UK livestock farms, for
example. The second loss occurs when one includes all the other sectors
of the food system. The total direct and indirect labour force in UK food
production and supply is estimated at close to three million workers, with
probably a further one million providing food and feed imports. On this
total the labour productivity is as low as 35 MJ per man hour.
This is a notable figure in view of the frequent claims that modern
methods allow one farmer to feed 60 or more people. These methods
depend on, have allowed and indeed largely caused the vast social
changes ·including urbanisation and the factory system ·which
have put large distances between the field and the mouth in every sense
and greatly swelled the ranks of non·farm workers in the food system. In
fact a
food system worker in the UK feeds ·only·14 to 16 people ·a figure that is
typical of the middle to upper range for preindustrial farmers when one
counts actual working time.
Energy and land
Figure 1 compares energy inputs and outputs per unit of land for a wide
range of farming systems. It confirms two important relationships. The
first. demonstrated by the sloping diamond of the pre·industrial systems,
is that hard work can provide large yields. The highest point of this group,
for example, is for traditional Chinese small·holdings of 230 m2·with
labour inputs of 7064 hours per hectare·year and outputs as rice and
beans of nearly two tons of protein and 280 GJ per hectare·year. Most of
the labour was for collecting dung. Allotment gardens in the UK, with an
estimated 14000 hours of labour per hectare·year yielding 60 G J and
788 kg of protein as mixed vegetables, also score outputs almost as high
as any full·industrial cropping systems on record. In both cases high
outputs are achieved mainly by virtue of labour intensity and small scale,
which allows intensive fertilisation, weeding and double and
inter·cropping. However, it is crucial to bear in mind that high yields and
high labour intensity are rarely a recipe for wealth; for example
at 1974 prices the UK allotment produced a return of only £0.2 per man
hour.
The second relationship is the more conventional one that large fossil
inputs in the form of fertilisers and mechanisation can also give high
yields. The cluster of full·industrial crops (cereals, rice, potatoes and sugar
beet) have energy yields of 30·80 GJ per hectare·year, roughly three times
higher for temperate climates than the majority of pre·and semi·industrial
tropical systems.
However, energy inputs are also much higher while ·at least on these data
there is a sharp tendency to diminishing returns. As before, the effective
yield is greatly reduced by feeding the crops to animals ·a shown by the
plots for UK livestock farms and animal products.
____________________________________________________
Table 2. Food energy outputs per man hour of farm labour
Output
Agricultural system (MJ/man hour)
Pre·industrial crops
!Kung Bushmen, hunter·gatherers 4·5
Subsistence rice, tropics 11·19
Subsistence maize, millet, sweet potato. tropics 25·30
Peasant farmers. China 40
Semi·industrial crops
Rice, tropics 40
Maize. tropics 23·48
Full·industrial crops
Rice. USA 2800
Cereals, UK 3040
Maize, USA 3800
Full·industrial crops plus animal
Sheep, cattle, pig and poultry, dairy farms, UK 5l>170
Cereal farms. UK (small animal output) 800
UK allotment garden, approx. 4·3
UK food system, approx. 3l>35
(all labour)
____________________________________________________
The UK farm system
A greater insight into food·energy relationships can be gained by looking
at the changing patterns of one country. As late as the 1920s UK farming
was a pre-or semi·industrial system, with only 10 000 tractors compared
to 410 000 today and an average fossil energy input of a mere 100·150
MJ per hectare year compared to 9000 M J in 1970. Only 6% of farms
had a power supply and their combined consumption was less than 1 %
of present levels.
The transition to full industrialisation occurred very rapidly and mostly in
the 30 years since World War Two. In England and Wales the number of
farm horses declined precipitously, releasing 10% of the total farmed area
for food production; wholetime farmworkers fell in 50 years from nearly
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 34
_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 35
700 000 to 260000; and the tractor population rose to about 350 000. At
the same time, while crop yields rose to roughly double their 1900 level
consumption of energy intensive chemical fertilisers soared. In the same
1900·70 period the total output of animal products roughly doubled, but
since the effective area of farm land increased by 28% (largely due to the
decline in grazing land for horses) and feed imports also increased, the
increase in animal yields per hectare was probably more like 50%.
The effects on energy consumption were substantial. From a very low
level at the start of the century, by 1968 the energy input to UK farming
had risen to 378 million GJ or .76 million tons oil equivalent, equal to
4.6% of UK primary energy consumption in that year. For
this investment, among others, farming delivered 130 million GJ of food
energy and 1.16 million tonnes of protein for human consumption
·enough to feed exactly half the population in energy terms and 62% in
terms of protein. A l*"breakdown of these energy inputs is given in Figure
2, while Figure 3 shows rather more approximately how the main classes
of energy input changed during the 1952·72 period.
The most notable changes were in the substitution of energy for
manpower. By 1972 each full·time farm worker was backed by a direct
energy input of 502
GJ or 11.6 tonnes of oil equivalent per year. Counting all part·time
workersl directors and the like reduces this to about 180 GJ per man year.
Even this lower figure puts agriculture, on this measure, well into the
category of heavy industries = in the UK the direct energy per manyear is
about 130·140 G J in engineering and 310 GJ in motor vehicle
production. Equally significant, the marginal energy cost of replacing
labour appears to have soared. In the early stages of farm mechanisation
it often took only 10·20 MJ of energy to save one hour of labour but by
1965·70 this quantity had risen to around 230 M J.
The UK food system
In a developedl urban society such as the UK farming accounts for only a
fraction of the total energy required for food supply. Food has to be
transported p(processed, packed, stored and sold in shops, and in the UK
it has to be imported in large quantities. Figure 4 gives an estimate for
1968 of the energy flow for the whole UK food system to the shop door.
The total input of nearly 1300 million GJ or 30 million tonnes oil
equivalent for a population of 55 million was 15.7% of national energy
consumption ·though of course a good deal of this energy was
·spent·abroad.
These figures do not point to a very energy·efficient food system. Nor is
this a viable system for all people for all time. Copied on a global scale it
would demand prodigious quantities of energy ·4000 million people each
consuming 23.6 G) per year of fossil fuels in order to cat
(let. alone cook) gives an annual fuel bill of 2185 million tonnes oil
equivalent or 40% of global commercial fuel consumption in 1972.
This figure might be reasonable if other efficiencies were especially high.
We have already seen that they are not for labour usage. Each Briton
depends on at least 0.71 hectare for food ignoring all imports of food and
feedstuffs. This is little less than the global average of 1.1 hectare per
person counting crop land, permanent meadows and pastures.
Why are these efficiencies so low? The overwhelming reason is the high
propor·tion of animal products in the diet and
in farm outputs. The UK farm produces exactly equal amounts of dietary
energy in the form of animal products and of crops fed directly to man.
Vet while the latter are grown on 1.55 million hectare, animal production
requires 10.25 million hectare of crops and grassland and 1.52 million
hectare approximately for imported feedstuffs. Thus the crop
sector is seven to eight times more efficient in its use of land to provide
food energy than is the animal sector. This is a minimum estimate since it
ignores a further 6.65 million UK hectare of rough grazing suitable only
for animal raising.
As for fossil fuel efficiencies, a dramatic demonstration of the
energy·profligacy of animal production is given by Figure 5. This
compares the Energy Ratio for a variety of (average) farms in the UK, all of
them producing some crops and some animal products. As the proportion
of total energy outputs accounted for by animal products rises from 2%
(large cereal farms) to 93% (small specialist diary farms) the Energy Ratio
plummets almost 10·fold. Indeed, with data of this kind it is possible to
show that relatively minor reductions in consumption of animal products
can give dramatic reduc·tions in the energy inputs and the land
requirements for farming, giving for the UK 100% rather than 50·60%
selfsufficiency for temperate foodstuffs.
Energy conservation
Many minor opportunities exist for energy savings that do little or nothing
to alter the structure of farming or other food production sectors. The
really important routes to fuel economy, however. lie through the
all of the organic matter feeding the biogas plant would be crop wastes
(and dung) and by eliminating the need for draught animals (let alone
much backbreaking human labour) some land would be released for food
production. At the same time better tillage methods and irrigation could
both increase crop yields and the production of biogas fodder. It is not
hard to see how powerful synergistic effects can occur once the
stranglehold of the present low energy, low production system is broken.
A similar argument applies to other renewable energy sources which
provide concentrated fuels or power. These include liquid fuels
obtainable from plant matter by fermentation, destructive distillation or
pyrolisis for powering machines such as cultivators or small tractors;
electricity from biogas or fuel forests·; conventional solar panels to
provide hot water and space heating in colder mountain regions; and
solar-electric devices such as that proposed by the Meinels of Arizona
University for concentrating sunlight onto pipes, storing the energy in
molten salts or rocks, and extracting it as required (day or night) to drive
turbines to provide electricity at overall conversion efficiencies as high as
25%.
The development and diffusion of energy devices of these kinds
throughout the rural areas of the Third World is an enormous challenge.
Many of these devices have been cos ted by conventional economics and
have been found either to be wanting or only marginally attractive
compared to more conventional supply technologies. The question is
whether economics. with its high rate of discounting the future and its
failure to catch many of the most relevant factors in its net, is the most
appropriate guide. No one has yet thoroughly explored the multitude of
consequences and transformations that developments of this kind could
bring about ·not least on food production, on rural incomes, on personal
wellbeing and self·respect, on the invigoration of village life, and on the
mass migrations to the exploding cities of the Third World; in short, on
the whole development process.
____________________________________________________
Table 3. Summary of energetics of UK food system, ca. 1968
Biological flows 106 GJ per year
Solar radiation incidence 610000
Primary production harvested from plants 1 116
Imports of animal feed 104
Edible farm output: crops 65
animals 65
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Elliott Soft Technology for Hard Times: Back To The Drawing Board
A conference on Industry, the Com·munity and Alternative Technology
has been organised for November 15th and 16th at Bradford University
by the Futures Studies Centre, Leeds. Amongst subjects for discussion will
be the Lucas initiative ·described in UC12. This series of articles looks at
the conference, some possible contenders for AT production, and some
aspects of the US arid UK industrial context.
Industry, the Community & AT. The Bradford Conference
DISCUSSION WILL aim to explore some of the implications of the Lucas
initiative and ask just how (and whether) alternative technology can be
brought to the community by this type of industrial diversification. It is
deliberately broadbased ·there will be trade unionists, managers, futurist
and alternative technologists present. and, potentially, some lively
debates. The conference will be organised around a series of workshops
or, ·commissions·on specific topics, leading up to plenary sessions at the
end of each day. In addition to discussions centred on initiatives like that
of the Lucas workers, it is planned to have sessions dealing with other
aspects of the campaign against redundancies ·for example the idea of
community works programmes, and the various retraining schemes,
together with more general sessions on strategy and goals. What follows
is a guide to the sort of topics the conference will aim to tackle.
Problems and implications of the development of Alternative Technology
by industry The problem of organising the shop floor around the
campaign for the right to work on appropriate socially useful technology;
experience of study groups/project teams; industrial relations
aspect·extending collective bargaining to include issues of technical
choice, design and control; spreading the idea to workers in other
industries.
Managements response to this initiative. The attitudes and ambivalent role
of the middle manager. The response of industry in general ·will it absorb
AT and market it like any other commodity? (Undercurrents readers will
find some ideas on these issues in UC10 and 12).
The Meaning of work A more general discussion on the nature of work,
leisure, production and consumption roles ·should we be campaigning
for the right not to work? What is the role of techno·logy, e.g. automation,
AT, etc? Can we shift to a non·work society or a society in which work
and leisure are fused? The role of women in present society as a case
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study they do unpaid work, but it is not socially accepted as true ·work·.
The role of long range planners and futurologists Can and should these
experts help groups like the workers at Lucas? How should they relate to
management? What is the position of the various long range planning
groups set up by industry and government?
Community Works programmes and unemployment Can and should
unemployed workers be offered socially useful work on community
projects of various kinds ·or is this likely to lead to.exploitation of cheap
labour? Implications of the various ·emergency·schemes for jobless youth
currently being developed. Alternative programmes of com·munity work,
devised by and for local communities, rather than run by the state, Le.
self help. (See
UC 11 for a discussion of landsettlement ideas).
What is Appropriate Technology? Can we say what is appropriate without
relating this assessment to a social context? Are the traditional AT·s
necessarily ·appropriate·? What other options are there? General analysis
of the options available to firms like Lucas; assessment of the desirability
and viability of various examples of AT and a general discussion of
strategy. There could also be specialist workshops on specific
technologies ·windmills, solar collectors, heat pumps, solar cells, fuel
cells, etc.
Training, retraining and detraining If shop floor workers are to generate
and sustain AT projects they may need training to help them. Technical
training is probably less urgent than training in how to choose and
manage technologies and programmes. There are a number of relevant
courses in ·design·and ·choosing appropriate technology·. Can shop floor
workers (and others) be released to do these? Can retraining grants be
used for nonvocational training of this sort?
With rising unemployment, can some workers be sent on retraining and
further education courses rather than be put on the dole? Can the
temporary employment subsidies be used to fund this? Investment in
education is an intelligent response during a recession. With the ever
increasing pace of technical change, retraining is a vital need even
without recession ·as successive governments have realised. There is also
a vital need for access to technical and general training for women, if the
provisions of the sex-equality legislation are to have any meaning.
If the provisions of the Industrial Democracy legislation now being
framed are to be implemented, then many shop floor representatives will
What Is To Be Made?
AS PART of their campaign for the right to work on socially useful
technology, the Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards Committee
The crucial issue is not technical complexity as such, but its social
implications. Complex systems usually require specialists to produce and
maintain them ·so that the average individual is frozen out. But in order
to ·gain control·one doesn·t have to become a jack of all trades, or reduce
all technologies to the ,imp lest possible.
If we are to ask ·What is alternative technology?·or ·What technologies
are appropriate?·we must keep a fairly open mind and consider a wide
range of options, including some that may not appear ·appropriate·when
judged by the standards of the AT enthusiast. The ideas that will emerge
from the process under·way at Lucas may be very different ·for they will
relate to the experience of a highly skilled workforce and to the
communities to which they belong.
I have selected a few examples from the more technically complex end of
the alternative energy technology spectrum in order to illustrate and
explore some of these implications. The Lucas plan is likely to include
some of the more conventional low technology AT ideas-windmills, solar
collectors etc: but here I am trying to assess whether there are any other
alternatives that should be con·sidered.
The Lucas alternatives I have chosen to look at possible alternative
energy and transport systems, consisting of combinations of existing
pieces of hardware. Most of the basic items already exist, the central
problem for the future is integrating them together so as to obtain the best
possible use of natural energy inputs. It is this sort of engineering effort
that Lucas could supply. Fuel cells, first proposed in the 19th century and
used on the Apollo flights can operate on a wide range of gaseous, liquid
or solid fuels ·including coal gas, methane, ammonia, methanol.
hydrogen peroxide and hydrazine.
Fuel cells work like electrolytic cell, in reverse, fuel is fed in and
produces dc electricity_ Some of the more advanced cells, using liquid or
solid electrolyte, operate at high temperatures and are not dependent on
platinum or other rare metal catalysts. But as yet, despite $100 million or
more spent on develop·ment, no commercial unit is yet widely available.
However the situation is changing fast. One reason has been the rise in
conventional fuel cost; another is the fact that centralised production and
distribution of electricity is inefficient.
Maximum energy conversion efficiency in a ·power station, is around
40% (coal) 33% (nuclear). Transmission losses drop this a further 5·10%.
A small domestic fuel cell, fed by locally produced methane or hydrogen
would be much more efficient. Fuel cells effi·ciencies of 70·95% have
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 47
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they are about 20% cheaper to run. Top speeds are fairly low ·around 50
mph ·and typically the range is 100 miles. The General Electric DELTA
has a top speed of 55 mph and an accelera·tion of 0·30 mph in 6 sec.
Several electric cars are now available including the Enfield. Lucas nave
also developed an electric delivery van, are testing a 34 passenger bus
and the Lucas Taxi has recently been demonstrated in London.
They have also developed a light weight 12 volt power unit for an electric
bicycle. The battery operates a small electric motor to give boost power
when going up·hill ·it is triggered by any abnormal pressure on the
pedals.
A prototype has a top speed of 17 mph, and a range, from each battery
charge, of about ten miles ·depending on the terrain. And in theory it is
possible to regeneratively recharge the battery when going down hill.
Hybrid transport systems, like the electric cycle, seem sensible. They are
also intrinsically attractive since they make intelligent use of muscle
power without discriminating against old or infi rm people.
Weather·protected pedal-electric systems could become wide·spread,
particularly in cities.
One general problem with electric powered vehicles is that at present
they would need electrical power from the grid and grid electricity is
inherently polluting, lossy and inefficient. Generation/transmission
efficiency is below 40%, and rectification and battery charging is only
80% efficient. The overall system would be something like 25% efficient,
but remember that petrol vehicles have typical efficiencies of only
10·25%. National generating capacity would have to be increased, by
about 50%, assuming current use patterns, although this does not take
into account the fact that charging could occur overnight, off·peak. A
more optimistic estimate is that we would need 43% on top of our
existing capacity to meet current transport needs.
We should not however be worrying too much about centralised energy
production but instead use local generation of de electricity. Wind
charged systems would obviously be ideal, there is no need for
rectification or current stabilising, just trickle charging at the local
community wind·plant overnight.
Steam powered vehicles, like electric power vehicles, have suffered at the
hands of the petrol engine lobby. Despite the 20% lower fuel
consumption and decreased pollution associated with external
combustion systems the i c engine still reigns supreme. Ec engines can
use a wide range of fuels, methane, hydrogen, petrol, all burnt at
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• • • • • • • • • • • •
Elliott Solar Power Politics
ALTHOUGH there is obviously a social need for cheap alternatives to the
existing range of energy technologies, there is as yet no major demand in
market terms for these items. Indeed it's hard to see how there could be.
A basic problem of capitalist economics is how can consumers show a
preference for goods or services until they are offered on the market? It is
no use asking the CEGB to provide you with windpower units; they are in
the business of central power pro·duction. Fords will say that there is no
demand for electric cars (you can have any sort of propulsion unit as long
as its a petrol driven internal combustion engine).
In theory it is up to small entrepreneurs to take the risk of putting a
radically new product on the market and thus begin to create a demand.
Unfortunately the big monopolies are often antagonistic to any rival
product and will buy up and bury the patent ·or absorb the new company
and it usually takes a lot of capital and considerable R&D effort to put a
new product on the market. It also requires a massive marketing
campaign to educate' the population. So normally only the big firms can
introduce new ideas. There are exceptions of course ·hovercraft, dexion,
letraset are examples (cherished by the small entrepreneurs of this world)
of original ideas which have broken through from small beginnings.
The marketing dilemma
Given this it is interesting to see that in the US considerable thought has
gone into how best to bridge the gap between need and demand in the
field of 'solar heating and cooling'. There is obviously a potential market
there ·one consultant has estimated it will be worth $1.8 billion annually
by 1985. But the market forces are sluggish and dominated by the
interests of the monopolies. The Govern·ment however is concerned to
get solar power off the ground ·for it is faced by a major energy crisis.
Consequently it must try to compensate for the 'imperfections' of the
market, by offering incentives to firms through government research
contracts. When it comes to military technology or space technology, this
is not too difficult, the state just pushes cash to the relevant agency and
the defence firms snap up the contracts.
The arms economy' and the associated military·industrial complex acts as
the major economic flywheel, independent of market forces. The space
effort followed a similar pattern. To a degree the US no longer has a free
market economy ·it has introduced a form of planning ·but planning
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 54
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geared to the needs of the big monopolies and managed by the state. The
emphasis has shifted to programmes of public works ·poverty projects,
pollution control technology, recycling systems and so on ·all of them
highly profitable. The state, through legislation, has aided this process,
making pollution control mandatory and creating a vast new market.
Priming the solar pump
The problem now is to stimulate interest in solar power. The government
can fund some projects itself ·though this is usually only pump priming.
As in the UK, government agencies do represent a fairly large consumer
of public techno·logies but the real market is the domestic and
commercial sector ·more so in the US since there are few state controlled
services Of industries. The result has been a spate of new legislation both
to encourage government agencies to investigate solar power and to
stimulate the wider market.
The 1974 Housing and Development Act is designed to encourage
lending institutions to accept the additional costs of solar heating and
cooling systems as part of the mortgage on a home, while the Solar
Heating and Cooling Act (1974) is intended to stimulate acceptance by
the private housing market. A national 'demonstration' programme is
aimed at spreading the idea. Of course, Federal funds can only act as
pump primers ·but coupled with tax incentives, prestigious research
projects, public demonstration projects and new legislation they can help
create a lucrative market for the big com·panies to exploit.
Now this may be all to the good. For a start it is amusing to see the US
explor·ing the idea of a planned economy, and it certainly will get AT off
the ground. Whether such a process can produce the sort of low impact
technology that is needed is far from clear.
In Britain of course, we already have a considerable amount of planning
by the state ·with all its bureaucratic con·notations. Firms can obtain
funds or grants or tax concessions from govern·ment if they comply with
government priorities ·for example, regional develop·ment grants. The
National Enterprise Board, the brainchild of Tony Benn, is meant to take
this a stage further ·in the hope of stimulating socially needed industrial
developments. One of the more progressive ideas ·which has been
watered down since Benn was removed ·was that long range corporate
plans should be aligned more to national needs through the 'planning
agreement' system. Corporate plans would be discussed at a tripartite
meeting of management, unions and government officials. The state
would seek to ensure that the firms plans fitted in with longer term
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• • • • • • • • • • • •
Saunders: ALTERNATIVE ENGLAND & WALES SUPPLEMENT 1
NOT fully corrected
NW:: North West. NE = North East, W = Wales. WM = West Midlands.
EM = East Midlands. E ::: East Anglia, SW = South West. S:: South, L =
London. Page numbers and headings correspond to Alternative England
and Wales.
Impressions and Contacts
NW Changes (p.6·B) CoIne·Somewhere has finished.
NW Additions
Horse Fairs: Appleby Fair goes on for a week from the second Wednesday
of June·basically a gypsies·scene with up to 10.000 people. 1.000 trailer
caravans and still quite a few horse·drawn living wagons. Free camping.
Shipley Fair is held on Easter Tuesday on the road from Bradford to
Ilkley·one day with no camping.
NE Changes ()
Hebden Bridge. I·m told the freak population is now much more settled
and there are less free loaders (who got them a bad reputation). The
contact point is now Community Press and WISH (Well of Info on Self
Help) at 35 Market Street·an advice centre and book·shop. Also a local
community paper comes from there.
Barnsley. lifespan got muddled with another project I apologise deeply. It
is in fact in a row of railway workers·cottages, established over a year,
growing their own veg and educating their kids. They take both long and
short term students to live and work with them (by arrangement
only·don·t turn up without writing). Their aim is depth education in
alternative life styles.
NE Additions
Lee Gap Horse Fair is held twice yearly·24th August and 17th September,
at a site near Tingley on the road from Dewsbury to Leeds. Others are
held at Yarm, Brough and at Brigg·no details.
W Wales·changes (p.l()
Boncath: Meigan Fayre. Much bigger and better in ·75, drawing a crowd
from London and elsewhere though still mainly the local South Wales
freaks who organise it. Still free, though donations are asked for, and runs
for several days with camping. It·s the nearest equivalent to Barsham but
has amplified bands and a ·freaks only·atmosphere. Not now organised
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Brighton. Bright Times and The Garden have finished, also The King and
Queen has been first burned then cleaned up for a smarter clientele.
Southampton. Swan Crahs closed.
Housing
Rent Allowance (p.31). Easy to get and applies to anyone with a lowish
income. A couple in Norwich wrote to say
they get half their rent (£11 pw) paid now they earn £1 OOOpa; when
they earned £1700 they still got £2.50pw allowance.
A Birmingham reader earning £14pw now gets all the rent and most of
the rates paid, and though it took over 3 months to come through it·s now
automatic.
Communes (p.34). The Communes Movement is being revived by its
founder (in 19651 Tony Kelly who·s sent this piece:
Commune Movement, Cymdeithas Selene, Can y Lloer. Ffarmers,
LIanwrda, Dyfed, was founded to create a federal society of communities
concerned to help each other and others to each·s chosen ideal of
communal living, by shared work, money, resources and people.
Frequent newsletters. theoretical, practical and for contacts. Now in
collaboration with Communes Network (which see). Subscription about
£3 and some big envelopes, but variable. Information 20p.
The Communes Network is as described plus members get monthly
newsletters consisting mainly of news from com·munards. They had a
gathering in September and will have others every six months at least
Home Making (p.48·66)
Building Repairs·Materials (p.49)
Whistons, New Mills, Stockport, Lanes has mail order list (free) of nuts,
bolts, screws, electric motors, metal rod, sheet and strip. A reader
recommends them, but I once ordered a 141b mixed lot of nuts and
bolts·about half were useful, the rest consisted of 3 enormous bolts I
never used; so be warned.
Bargains (p.48·66) Rayburns .and Agas (p.581
A reader suggests asking central heating installers locally as they often
take out old boilers including these when heating goes in.
A list of parts and suppliers can be got from Agaheat Appl·iances,
Glynwed Domestic and Heating Appliances, Oxford Street, Bilston, Staffs.
NW Liverpool. Workshops for the Blind, 1 Cornwallis Street, L 1, are
recommended for cheap floor coverings.
supplement I hope.
W C .. digan (Ceredigion). Now only open on the first
Saturday of the month·they sell 2% tons that one day I Their mark·up isn·t
8% ·more like 18%·.
Mrs Grisedale, Cledan, Nebo, LIanon (N.222/6581 sells goats·milk,
yoghourt and cheeses·a little expensive but cktan and good delivery
service·.
W Maehynlleth and Newtown. Natures Foods packed up.
W Welshpool. Richard and Mandy·s food co·op is no
longer.
W Hay·on·Wye. Country Stores, 14 Broad Street·whole·
foods and home·baked breads.
WM Binningham. Sunrise·s phone number is now 021·454 0435.
WM Newcastle-under·Lyme. Food co·op can be contacted through
Grapevine, 27 Well Street·see above under Contact.
EM Leamington Spa. Cornmother has moved to 42 Bath St. EM
Shrewsbury. Crabapple Natural Foods, 16 St Mary·s Street, due open
now·run by Crabapple Community mentioned on page 34.
HE Lincoln. See below under Mystical·Buddha Maitreya Sangha.
E Cambridge. Arjuna is now an independent wholefood
shop.
E East Anglia. Dakota doesn·t operate through all centres
now·main activity is at Prue Campbell·s near Norwich. She says it still
handles as much as before.
E Norwich. Food co·op run by Judith Dauncey, c/o
Bristol·WS Bookshop, Bridewell Alley. She also makes up a good muesli
(8Sp for Sibs).
E Chelmsford. Marriages (p.7]) also sell retail.
SW Bampton. I·m told a wholefood shop is being set up at 19 Fore Street.
SW Barnstaple. Barnstaple Whole food Supplies now have
a stall in Barnstaple Market on Tuesday and Friday and will soon have a
shop in Boutport Street.
S Brighton_ Simple Supplies due to open in George Street
run by Whole Earth Group.
S Reading. Reading Wholefoods, 1A Merchants Place. A
Dyfed (Boneath 459). This agency has about fifty people on its books.
representing about thirty different trades. They put an advertisement in the
local paper and in the space of a few months received about a hundred
jobs ranging from an £800 building job to burying a dead horse.
Common Ownership (p.90)
Whatworks 178 Oxford Road, Manchester 13 (M.273 11891. At other
times phone Mal or Mick at M.SSl 0492.
Help (p.l 06·120) Changes
Law reform (p.10n
NE c.uleford .. Ralph Gook·s new address is 1 Pentlands, Stony Stratford,
Milton Keynes.
SW Plymouth. John Whitby, 9 Reigate Road, Pomphlett (P.41901l.
Local Centres lp.l 09)
NW Liverpool. Women and Children·s Aid moved to 1 Smithdown Road,
L7 (051·733 6981),
NW Caine. Somewhere no longer exists.
NE Hull. Bogus does not now sell s/h books, records or run a food co·op.
W Cardiff. Cardiff Community Concern has moved to 58
Charles Street and is also open 1Oam·12pm on Saturdays.
WM Coventry. Foieshill information and Advice Centre, 436a FOleshill
Road.
Gingerbread·s phone has been OJt off. Housing Action Group is now
inactive.
Community Development Project is called the Coventry Legal and
Income Rights Service.
EM Nottingham. St Ann·s Community Craft Centre has closed.
EM Oxford. Uhuru no longer runs a food co·op though it does sell
wholefoods. It does not sell locally made crafts any more.
SW Truro. City of Cornwall Collective, Earth Centre, Tabernacle Street.
The collective has moved to bigger premises opposite the market which
will give room for an office, production and meeting place. Shop for
books, magazines, secondhand tools, pesticides (herbal only) and herbs.
Courses for people wanting to grow their 0·Nn food. Lectures on Diggers
every Friday
night and on the mystical approach of Diggers (Society of Levellers) every
Sunday.
Publications (p.134·1391
Changes
People·s News Service, new address: Box 1949, 197 King·s Cross Road,
WC1.
Magic Ink produce a catalogue of alternative and radical publications
called News from Neasden.
Smoothie Publications has produced a pamphlet. Alternative Technology.
Gay (p.1371
Sappho. 39 Ward our Street, Wl. Local (p.13?)
NW Blackburn. Blackburn barker no longer exists.
NW Manchester. Mole Express (061·273 5379/65411 is not produced by
Grass Roots.
SW Bristol. Spam and Tenants·News are no longer being produced.
SW Glastonbury. Tore moved to 3 Jacobs Close, Windmill Hill,
Glastonbury·n·lt out recently.
S Brighton. Bright Times is closed.
Additions Information (p.1341
Folder. Titus Alexander, ·free House·, The Public House Bookshop. 21
Little Preston Street, Brighton. This folder, occasionally produced,
contains a magazine. ·Ideas into Action·, reviews. information,
supplements from alternative papers.
Ecology. Food, Survival p.135)
Whole Earth magazine. 54 Queens Park Road, Brighton. Ecology and all
things wholesome.
Head (p.136
New Fapto. 6 Cecil Street, Margate. Kent. Freak magazine. Polittes (p.
137)
Bosses Enemy. clo Stuart Daniels. 36 Sandford Road, Moseley.
Birmingham 13. lOp. Articles on culture. politics and unions.
Local (p.1361
NE Whitley Bay. Mutant. The Used Dromedary Co, Apple House. 8
Waterford Crescent, Whitley Bay. Tyne and Wear. Published occasionally.
5p. Alternative comic magazine. local news. gig reports. record and book
reviews.
EM Nottingham. NottIngham Voice. People·s Centre, 33 Mansfield Road
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 66
_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 67
Weaving Ip.221)
Hedgehog drum and hand carders, spindles and spinners can be obtained
from T J Willcocks, Wheatcroft, Itchingfield, Horsham, Sussex (Slinfold
346).
Workshops, Info, Classes (p.224)
NE CeoIfrith Arts Workshop, 17 Grange Terrace, Sunderland is part of the
arts centre and, among other things, has silk·screening equipment for use.
L Classes in Japanese brush drawing are given at Haku·
renji, 40 Deansway, N2.
Selling Crafts {p.2251
NW Margo Robinson, 23 Mason Street, Colne, Lancashire
has opened up a local community craft shop.
NE Whitley Bay. Bolinski Bros Big Bonanza Booklet (mail order
catalogue) can be obtained from the Used Dromedary Co, Apple House,
8 Waterford Crescent, Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear. The catalogue
includes foods, records, cards, herbs, T .·shirts, pottery, comix, alternative
publications, posters, etc.
S All Sorts of Things, High Street, Codford, Wiltshire is
a local shop selling all sorts of things including crafts.
Community Action & Community Projects (p.230·2361
Changes
Advice and Information (p.233)
Community celebration. A film is available about last year·s Granby
Festival from Merseyside Visual Communications Unit, 83 See I Street, L 1
(L.709 9460). For hire or purchase the charge will depend on what you
can afford.
Food Co·ops (p.2341
Down to Earth Community Supplies wrote to say that their kind of shop
does not have a mark·up of 50.60%; it·s more like 33%% of cost price.
(The higher figure refers to chain health food stores.)
Additions
NW Liverpool. Chris Elphick, 176 High Park Street. L8.
He is a member of the Community Arts Panel of the Arts Council and a
member of the Merseyside Arts Association executive and will help any
group with information and applications, especially community groups.
EM Oxford. Uhuru, 35 Cowley Road (0.48249). A meeting place for
WOOF (p.2541
The list of farmer; wanting helpers is only sent to WOOFers; who have
already been on 2 ·Weekends arranged through WOOF, so as to protect
farmers from unsuitable people. For info send an S.a.e. at least 9")(4".
Self·Reliance Newsletter Ip.2551
This has folded. but Practical Self·Sufficiency has started (November 75),
It is intended to cover organic food production and preservation; keeping
livestock, whole food
cooking; low·cost energy sources and practical home busi·ness ideas.
Subscription £3.50 p.a. from Broad leys Publish·ing Company.
Widdington. Nr Saffron Walden, Essex.
Farm and Food Society (p.257) want it made clear that they are a pressure
group for ecological agriculture ·based on sustainable methods. with
respect for natural behaviour patterns of livestock, nutritional produce for
consumers, and a fair deal for farmers as opposed to industrialists in
farming·.
W Centre for Living is the name of John Seymour·s Self·
Sufficiency school·now 15 or so people camping, but planning
permission is through for a dormitory. Visitors pay £1 a day or 50p if
self·catering.
Book,
The Backyard Dairy Book is back in print in an improved revised edition
from Prism Press, Stable Court, Chalmington, Dorchester, Dorset (Maiden
Newton 5241 at £1 plus postage. They are due to publish The Backyard
Poultry Book also
by Andrew Singer in the Spring.
Technology (p.260·266)
Conservation Tools and Technology have moved to 143 Maple Road,
Surbiton, Surrey 101·549 58881.
National Centre for AT has a lot of working exhibits now and a bookshop.
They charge visitors for a tour, but it·s good value.
Liberation (p.268·279) Changes
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 76
_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 77
Othen (p.2751
The Hunt Saboteurs Association is now PO Box 19, Ton·bridge, Kent.
Anglian Diggers no longer exist at that address. No new address.
Additions
Radical Traditionalists, c/o John Michel, 11 Miles Buildings, Bath
IB.28925)·Publishes In Defence of Sacred Measures, In Defence of People
and Population and The Fall of Babylon, available from Cokaygne
Bookshop in Cambridge.
Others (p.2751
Paedophile Information Exchange, BM PIE, London WC1V 6XX.
Paedophile Action for liberation, c/o BM Gaylib, London WC1 V 6XX
1274 9590), For a sensible article on this subject see Peace News, 10
October 1975.
Women (p.280·282) 0 0
Addlt·m t 9 9 t 9 9
Women·s Centres (p.2801
NW Blackburn: Contact local women·s group through Amamus
Bookshop, 1·3 Market Street Lane (8.610061. Meets every Monday night
at different places and gives free pregnancy testing and advice every
Saturday l1amlpm.
Information and AdvM:e lp.2821
Feminist Books, PO Box HP5, Leeds. Publishes and distributes literature
on the women·s movement. Send for catalogue.
Changes
Pressure Groups (p.282)
Abortion Law Reform Association does not organise the National
Abortion Campaign. The Campaign is a selfcontained grass roots group
with eighty·five local branches. The Reform Association says they do the
demos and the activist stuff.
Gay Women·s Groups (p.2821
Sappho magazine address is·now: 39Wardour Street, Wl.
Homosexuals (p.283·285) Changes
National Gay Organisations (p.283)
Sappho Women·s Group, c/o Sappho, 39 Wardour Street, Wl. Local
Groups (p.2841
W Cardiff. Friend, c/o 7 St Mary·s Street.
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 77
_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 78
tougher.
The price is the minimum it can be sold tor in bookshops to give us back
wttat has been spent on producing the book ·full details of costings are on
page 368. But to nuke it available cheaper, you can buy direct by post for
£1.50 each for 8 copies or £1.75 for 4. Single copies arlO £2.50.
These prices include post and packing besides a 25p donation to CLAP,
yet we still get as much as by selling through bookshops.
You can borrow a copy through your local public library ·see opposite
side. Or, if you get a copy for £2.50 by post and re1\lrn it unmarked in
the padded bag it was sent to you in, we will refund your money less
postage.
You c .. look at or buy copies from aU branches of Virgin Records besides
bookshops and some headshops.
PI .... sell capias by buying direct. You can make £1 profit on each or PiSS
on the savi·
·CUT OFF HERE AND RETURN ·
Please indicate your order and return with payment. All prices include
post and packing. Books are IlO(mally posted the same morning that
prepaid orders are recEived.
Alternative England and Wales 1 copy £2.50
Alternative ErY,and and Wales 4 copies@£1.75 .. £7.00
Alternative England ;n:t Wales 8 copies@ £1.50 · £12.00
Alternative England and Wales , hardbound
library edition £8.25
Alternative England and Wales poster. A3 116" x 12")
Alternative England and Wales poster, A4 (8" x 11")
Alternative England and Wales supplement 1
included free with books, otherwise s.a.e. or lOp
Alternative London 4th edition £1.50
Self Exploration·a guide to groups involved 85p
Love, Siri and Ebba £1.00
Survival Guide 50p
Foreign cheQue (see note below) 50p
·
I enclose banknotes/cheque/POs for , . . • . . ._•£_
Thanks to all those who sent in information for this supplement: Robin
Ellis, John of Crabapple, C Newman, Vivian Milroy, Richard Larkin, David
Ormandy, Paul Thompson, Helen of Colne, Judy Cottam, Diane Mundy,
Jim Adams, Lewis Creed, Ian of Lancaster, Mario Rin··IOlucri, Woof of
Alligator, BhasluJra, Michattl and Frankitt Woods, Fnmce$ Emelttus, John
Grey, Stuart Danittls, Primr0s6 PtISCOck, Pat H·y, Chris Prr.;cott, Uhuru,
t·at Cwm M,,;gan, Tom Hood, Geoffrey Ashe, T Willcocks, W Menzies, K
Mulf!$, Lyle McQueen, Jeff Gale, E Hatvany, Jim Fowfer, Martin Shaw,
Richard Ellen, Chris Elphick, Tony of Anicus, Da"" ClKJdy, D."" Foulkes,
Van and Janet
of Llandrindod Wells, Tony of ToadstoOl, John Sa)", J BoWflf·, Mi*Don,
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Day & Edwards Communesense A Guide To Planning
An Englishman's home may be his castle but if you want to so much as extend a battlement
in this sceptred isle of ours you need planning permission. Undercurrents, in its customary
role of provider of information to the sublimely ignorant, gives here a few words of advice
on defeating the bureaucracy. As usual with our brand of anarchistic good intentions there
are differences of opinion. Chris Day, as a sound practical man, says never appeal against a
refusal, while Michael Edwards, in detailing the difficulties of communes. merely advises
caution. Now read on ...
SOONER OR LATER, anybody who wants to build something themselves
runs into planning problems. Everybody knows somebody who has had
an application refused. The stories, as related, make the refusals seem
wholly unjustified, irrational. and unfair in that worse has been approved.
This sense of outrage tends to magnify the belief that all planning is
corrupt, unjust, and unnecessary. Fortunately it is rarely quite so bad.
About half the refusals you hear of are planning refusals and half are
failure to comply with building regulations. These are quite separate
fieldsJ and require separate applications: the tactics required for success
are also quite distinct. Of these, building regulations are the easiest to
deal with because they are all in a book (The Building Regulations
obtainable from HMSO).
The building regulations are designed to protect the public from shoddy,
unhealthy, dangerous buildings (e.g. houses that are unsound, damp and
have high fire risks). They specify performance; they do not compel the
use of particular materials (except for specific jobs like chimneys and
even here there is a choice). In the USA the regulations can be framed to
benefit manufacturers; fortunately this is not so here. All the regulations
are in the book and they mostly only stop you doing things that are
inadvisable anyway. (You can get around the nonessential regulations -
e.g. rooms in tiny roof spaces - later, by incon·spicuous work after your
final inspection and approval).
With a rule book, you know where you stand. Although you may meet
narrow·minded local officials who interpret building regulations strictly,
they generally have some discretionary powers. The regulations, for
example, specify rather elaborate standards for a healthy earth-closet;
ours is just a hole in the ground and is quite adequate. But there is no
guarantee that they will let you build a new house with an E.C. For
improvements of old buildings (avoiding grants) a helpful building
inspector may waive certain regulations (e.g. ceiling heights and window
do not permit new buildings here)." In our part of the world, a building
empty for four years or longer no longer counts as existing and needs a
new planning application. Don't tell them it's been empty for four years;
they don't ask, and thanks to administrative size, they don't know. In
some areas, four walls but no roof, one wall and a chimney, or even old
foundations are assets; find out anonymously what the local policy is.
Sporadic development:- "No new isolated buildings in rural areas". Try to
show off its least-isolated aspects i.e.. its relation to other buildings.
Aesthetic:- Here they have got you.
But actually, as the details in most architectural drawings are so minimal,
they assume that your application is for another bungalow. It is worth
presenting full and flattering drawings of what it will look like - and, if
need be, views of it set in its surroundings, photo-montages and so on.
If refused, never appeal. It is slow, expensive and final. Reapply,
modifying your design and refuting their reasons for refusal. (and
incidentally, you can have a caravan on your land so long as an
application is in, or you are building). If you are in a rural area - and this
is where so many planning problems occur - you probably intend to grow
your own food. Tell them. Agriculture and horticulture are approved of. A
smallholding - or farmworker's bungalow - are usually OK. If your land is
already a farm or
a smallholding, it has a holding number - quote it.
These are some things you can do without needing to apply to the
planning authority (they do, however, need building regulations
approval):
Houses:
-Enlargement of a house by up to 50 cubic metres or '/10 of its volume
(whichever is greater) up to 115 cubic metres, so long as it does not
project above or in front (towards road) of the existing building.
-A porch not exceeding 2 square metres area, and 3 metres in height. It
must be 2 or more metres from a boundary fronting a highway.
-A shed (not a garage, stable, loosebox, coachhouse or dwelling) of up to
half your garden area, but not in front of the house (towards road) nor
exceeding 4 metres height at ridge or 3 metres, if other roof shape.
-In the case of farms, small holdings etc., in excess of 1 acre and for
agricultural purposes: you may erect a building up to 465 square metres
ground area, not exceeding 12 metres in height (3 metres within 3 Km of
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 88
_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 89
an aerodrome).
Precise details can be obtained from your local planning authority. The
last point is quite significant. In addition to the advantage of simply being
allowed to build, it would seem that all sorts of 'unsightly' stuff (such as
lashed-up solar collectors), if they are part of an agricultural building,
need only to comply with building regulations. which should be no
problem.
In short, what all this means is that if you play their game and watch the
rules carefully, you can get away with quite a lot. Good luck.
Chris Day
'Go out and see what they're doing .. . . And tell them to stop!'
COMMUNAL HOUSING projects can run into all sons of planning
problems wherever they are and rural locations present some special
likely difficulties. The Planning law requires permission to be obtained for
any 'development' - and this is widely defined to include changes of the
use of land or buildings as well as actual construction work.. If your
project is purely agricultural, on an existing agricultural holding, involves
no new building and if the communal living pattern is construed simply
as ordinary residence,then planning permission probably won't be
needed. Usually, though, the problem won't be that simple.
possibly manage to get them - and who are able to drive and that further
reduces the custom supporting bus services. This picture is a simplified
generalisation, but elements of it are to be found in virtually all parts of
the countryside.
Trouble
Local planning authorities are in pretty severe trouble. The clarity with
which the problems are understood, and the relevance and energy of the
response, are very variable. The most common type of rural settlement
policy is one which tries to concentrate new housing and employment in
a small number of 'key settlements' where public and commercial
services are also encouraged to congregate though it's not unknown for
some public services to operate in bland defiance of such schemes. The
'key settlements' are usually at nodal points on the transport network and
this strategy thus serves, among other things, to'concentrate demand for
bus services where it can most easily be met - though often at the
expense of the services to the sparser areas.
This is sometimes the real rationale of rural planning policies, and at
other times a rationalisation for measures which derive their real impetus
from a kind of 'conservation' which is basically trying to keep new
people (especially poor people) out of the bulk of the countryside and
sustain landscape and property values there. As a result many rural
authorities more or less prohibit scattered development in rural areas,
including their 'non-key' villages, and they can usually count on being
backed up in appeals by the Department of the Environment.
Counties in England and Wales are responsible for the main planning
policy formation and for embodying the results in structure plans.
Subsequently the counties and/or the district councils have to prepare
detailed local plans. In fact most rural counties have yet to prepare
structure plans and those which have seem, for the most part, to have
paid scant attention to the countryside. In the meantime policies set out
in the Development Plans of the 1950. and 1960s, as amended, are the
ruling ones. Whatever plans there are provide the basis for the system of
development control - the process of giving or refusing planning
permission - and the responsibility for this control falls to the district
councils on most ordinary proposals.
Dealing with planning machine
The planning machinery can be tackled head-on or avoided like the
plague. The head-on approach is often risky. slow and expensive - unless
you can establish by discreet enquiries that a favourable decision is going
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 90
_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 91
unexceptionable.
The best you can hope for in this sort of situation is to get a 'personal'
permission - one which is for you and you alone to benefit from and
which provides for the use to revert back to what it previously was if the
property changes hands. A second best expedient can be to seek a
temporary permission which comes up for renewal after a period of years.
In both these cases the special permissions are only really feasible for
changes of use, not for substantial building since it is not very practicable
for an authority to require building work to be reversible.
When is a commune . . ?
The planning permission under which one London commune operates is
subject to a condition that 'The premises shall be used only as a
commune' which suggests that someone in the town hall has a clearer
idea of what that word means than most commune dwellers. In that case
the authority decided that communal living was a use of land distinct
from private residential use and thus required permission whether there
was any building or not That situation is certainly one to avoid if you can
- by moving in, and generally behaving to the authorities, as distinct
households or operating under the co-ownership housing association
rules and subsequently introducing whatever sharing arrangements you
have in mind.
Breakthroughs in rural planning
In the long run there is great scope for struggles to break the hold of
convention in rural planning thinking. Sewage, water supply and the
other main services are an obvious target Policy is based on the premise
that most households should have the right or at least the expectation of
connection in the long run to main services. As the alternative
technologies of waste recycling and energy generation improve they
should gradually be able to loosen the hold of this premise. Similarly
small scale water purification methods could break the dependence
between wholesome water supply and high cost pipe networks.
It is harder to see how to pierce the arguments for settlement
concentra·tion which are based upon the needs of schools, shops and
social services for compact service areas. In some districts it may be true
that, so long as there are any people living scattered in the countryside,
there should be more of them rather than fewer. More generally, demands
of professionals and businesses for ever larger facilities need to be
scrutinised and the arithmetic of rural living and survival costs must be
gone over as carefully as the assumptions on which it is based. The
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• • • • • • • • • • • •
The View from the Quarry: A letter from Gerald Morgan·Grenville
The National Centre for Alternative Technology at MachynlIeth. now in existence for over
two years, has been one of the more con·troversial recent developments in A T. Follow·ing
reports in Undercurrents 8 and elsewhere. and frequent criticism of the centre at AT events,
they have asked for space in Undercurrents in which to discuss their;r ideas, and to give
news of developments at Llwyngwern Quarry, NCA T·s home. Below, Gerard
Morgan·GrenviIle slates his views on the centre·s role. The article is not in/ended to reflect
the collective views of NCAT. or of Undercurrents or its members.
Of the numerous things of which I have at one time or another been
accused perhaps the most paradoxical is that I have sold out AT to the
Establishment The means by which some suspect that this has been done
is by having set up a focal point for AT which, by an insidious process of
big company and big name involvement, has subverted the original aims
of AT to the profit based interests of Big Business. Remarks to this effect
made at Comtek and some other AT venues have prompted me to amplify
the happenings at the National Centre for Alternative Technology ·NCAT
·better known as the Quarry.
Anyone who has read the attempts of others to encapsulate in a few
words the central ethic of AT and from this to pontificate on the social
and technical means of its establishment, will know that it is a dangerous
task, since the range of its individual interpretations is limitless ·so the
things which I say are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of
those at the Quarry, past or present.
Any ·foreigner·taking a look at the Alternative scene in Britain (or Europe)
could be forgiven for failing to see any consistency or continuity. Projects
come and go leaving scarcely a ripple, and the ideological casualties are
almost as frequently encountered as the wreckage of AT windmill
prototypes. In this general context I cherish the ambition of trying to
create some kind of Alternative bastion, which can provide some element
of stability in the highly fragile situation in which most AT types find
themselves.
I conceive that this nucleus be sufficiently large and cohesive to develop
its own internal dynamic ·philosophical, social, technological and
financial. The Quarry is now a small part of the way towards this goal.
Readers of ·Undercurrents·will mostly subscribe to the ideas that society
could be fairer, that it is possible to live with greater regard for
environmental con·siderations, that small is frequently beautiful, that
unnecessary or dangerous technologies should be avoided, that land
should be for people, and all the rest of the AT creed, which is so
platitudinously intoned and so little exemplified ·for the simple reason
that exemplification is extremely difficult. How do you, when it comes to
the point, become self·sufficient on almost no money, prevent a nuclear
power station being built, ground Concorde, fix a solar collector on the
17th storey of a high·rise block of flats ·or fight a faceless bureaucracy?
You don·t, because you can·t. But what you can do is to select those areas
where you can do something, enlist the co·operation of others who share
your aims, produce a plan capable of realisation, stick to it, and win
small battles one at a time, thus improving the climate for others to do
battle. The something which you choose will depend on your particular
view of AT. The winning ·or losing ·of such battles should be reported
more frequently in ·Undercurrents·if we are to profit from the efforts of
others.
To me, AT is not too much to do with drawing the dole, telephone
tapping or getting stoned. To me it is rather more to do with the energetic
development of a sustainable and better life, in which people work
together for the common good. NCAT reflects this ideal. Such a life
presupposes independence from those whose policies are antagonistic,
and some of the technology at NCAT provides a means to this end. To me
the pursuit of such an ideal is now a matter of urgency, faced as we are
with a bureaucracy employing one in four of the workforce.
I believe, passionately, that man should have the fullest possible personal
freedom ·so long as he respects the tribal codes of behaviour. I suspect
that most people who subscribe to an alternative society cherish the same
belief. Yet I am fre·quently astounded by the political naivety which may
almost be said to characterise the movement. Whether or not we are
political escapists or activists, whilst we indulge in such notions as
Kropotkin anarchism, the fact is that we are all being pushed towards a
totalitarian regime by an unholy but concerted alliance of power seekers.
If they have
their way, NCAT, Undercurrents, and other corporate and individual
freaks will be swept off the board ·make no mistake about this;
individualism and real personal freedom are absolutely irreconcilable
with the totalitarian state: you need look no further than any such state to
see the living proof of this.
I believe that a far more militant role is now required of those who claim
to uphold the basic human rights. If the AT movement is to make a lasting
and worth·while impact it must be prepared to defend its cardinal
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 95
_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 96
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Dauncey Nuts In October?
THE 1975 MAY LECTURES were organised by the Franklin School in
London on October 15·18. They are struggling to become a regular
feature in the paranormal scene, though not quite annually, hence the
misnomer. This year·s theme was ·Frontiers in Science and Medicine·,
with particular emphasis on the areas where science merges into
mysticism .....
Wednesday
The opening night was very d,disappointing. The hall was packed with
about 400 people, but Rick Carlson didn·t manage to say anything new
and what he did say was simultaneously simplistic, vague, and
over·verbose.
Dr. Louis Kervran, who has written a book called ·Proofs of the T
transformation of Energy in Biology·, spoke in French, and was poorly
translated by Dr. Costa de Beauregard, who also passed comment on Dr.
Kervran·s work, which endeavours to show that cosmic energy is
absorbed by the body and transmuted into life energy. He was saying
some interesting things but they were almost impossible to follow in any
coherent way. Confusion, instead of con-fusion, I·m afraid, and no
chance for any questioning or audience feedback.
Thursday
Better. David Tansley, a radionics man, talked about the chakras in the
·subtle anatomy·, and about auras, and showed some very pretty slides.
But it was all at the metaphysical level, which was disappointing,
especially as there is some good evidence that there are scientifically
valid links between the pineal gland, (which is held to be the physical
representation of the second chakra, between the eyes), and
consciousness. The pineal gland appears to secrete the molecule
serotonin, which seems to be centrally involved in the regulation of
perceptions, and hence of consciousness. One theory about the
functioning of LSD is that it mirrors, and somehow blocks, the production
of serotonin from the pineal, and thus interferes with conscious·ness. (See
John Bleibtreu·s The Parable of the Beast, Gollancz, ·68).
John Taylor, on the other hand, perhaps one should say ·in the other
hemisphere·), was at least scientific. Amusing ·he·s got a pretty display of
slides too, of everything from levitation to the fracture surfaces of
• • • • • • • • • • • •
‘Oon·Yellimon’ To You Too!
Positively the last word on Transcendental Meditation .....
Many people who have tried to meditate and failed have succeeded when stoned.
For some reason, grass considerably increases the ability to con·centrate on the
mantra, and to transcend reality.
Although most of the Eastern religions (the Maharishi·s included) claim that
you can reach the transcendental or metaphysical state without external
stimulation, many Westerners have found that it is much easier with the aid of
grass. After having learned how the whole thing works, most people continue
meditating but without the grass. For those in a hurry to reach nirvana, we
suggest that you attempt meditation (at least the first few times) when stoned.
The following is a bastard form of Transcendental Meditation which has
worked for us:
First, get a mantra, a magical word that is meaningless in and of itself.
Supposedly the word should come from the Maharishi or one of his teachers,
and should be a word which is very personal and used exclusively by you.
Being of a pragmatic nature, we fail to see why you can·t make up your own
magical word. Most mantras which we have heard of (and we gained this
secret information through the usual methods of kidnapping and torture) have
four syllables, with the first syllable stressed. We will give you a mantra, but
remember, this is a personal mantra, and you·re not to tell anyone what it is.
It·ll be a secret among ourselves. Shhh. Your mantra is ‘oon·yellimon’, with the
first syllable stressed.
Now, sit on the floor or on your bed, with your feet crossed and your hands in
your lap. Sit up straight. Take a deep breath and relax. Let your mind wander
for a while like it usually does. When you find a space in your thinking which
seems sort of quiet, start saying the mantra but not out loud and don·t vocalise
or move your lips. Stress the first syllable hard, and keep saying it over and
over. If you have to scratch or move. do so, but no matter what happens in
your mind, keep saying the mantra. And concentrate on it as long as you can.
After a while, stop saying the mantra, and relax your mind. Let whatever
happens happen. You may hallucinate, or you may reach a poignant peak of
euphoria, or, and this is more likely, nothing may happen at all. If nothing does
happen, keep trying. It may take a few days of work, but it·s worth it. After
you·ve gotten where you want to go with meditation when stoned, try it
without grass. Grass should be used only as a learning tool. Our friend Ernie
used to meditate quite a bit while stoned, but has recently given it up. He said
that he finally saw God, and God told him to stop meditating. (From A Child·s
Garden of Grass)
• • • • • • • • • • • •
The Gas·Man·s Manual by John Fry Methane Artisan
The Practical Building of Methane Power Plants by L John Fry is now
generally acknowledged to be the best book on small·scale methane
generation yet written. Clarence Goeluke, who with his colleague W )
Oswald at the University of California, Berkeley, has been one of the
leading academic researchers into the biology of methane production,
reviewed the book recently for Compost Science magazine. His verdict
was as follows:
"(this book) is highly recommended by this reviewer to anyone intent
upon building a digester for biogas pro·duction .... The chapter on the
biology of the digestion process is written in a style (that is) lucid and in a
language intelligible to the nonspecialist in biology ..... The section on
design covers a wide variety of possible designs .... Especially fascinating
to this reviewer was the ·inner tube·digester."
To give readers an idea of the scope of the book·s coverage, here is list of
chapter headings:
1. How it all started 2. Building a vertical drum digester 3. Top loader
digester 4. First Full·scale digester 5. Working solution to scum
accumulation 6. Gas Holders used on my farm 7. Digester types and
scum removal 8. Biology of digestion 9. Raw materials 10. Digester
design 11. Digester operation 12. Eco·nomics of digestion 13. Gas and
Gas usage 14. Gludge and sludge use 15. Safety Precautions 16.
Questions and answers 17. Digesters today and tomorrow. 18. Glossary
of terms, bibliography and references, and postscript.
Fry·s book has been available in Britain for about a year, in a
privately·published edition produced by Fry·s nephew, Tony Knox. Up to
now, Undercurrents’·only reservation about the UK edition has been its
price, which seemed a little high at £4. But then, as Tony Knox pointed
out in a letter to us,
"John Fry has let it all hang out in this book ·all the never·before·revealed
information he has painfully gathered over the years is there. After a
lifetime of trying to convince skeptics, all he wanted to do was get the
·monkey·off his back and perhaps earn enough to ease his retirement."
We are pleased to announce that we have now come to an arrangement
with Mr Knox whereby we will sell the book at a reduced price to
Undercurrents readers. To whet your appetite, here·s a sample from the
slurry and starter mixture (fig.2). This must exclude all the air from the
30·gallon drum. Then close the valve.
8) In cool climates, active compost can be packed around the outer drum
to maintain a steady temperature of between SOo and 95°F (35°C). After
about three weeks, gas should begin to generate. The smaller drum will
fill slowly with gas and rise above the surface of the slurry (fig.3).
9) Safety precaution: A note of warning. When the small drum rises the
first time, do not attempt to burn the gas. Rather. let it escape to
atmosphere, push the 30·gallon drum completely down into the slurry
again, shut off the valve and allow it to rise a second time. This is to
insure that no air is mixed with the gas. A gas and air mixture is highly
explosive between the range of one part in four to one in 14 if ignited.
Even outside this range it could be dangerous. Also the first gas yield will
probably not light anyway due to a high proportion of carbon dioxide
when fermentation first starts. When burning the gas, open the valve only
slightly, press down lightly on the 30·gallon drum to create a positive
pressure on the gas. Close the valve before releasing the pressure. In rare
cases there occurs an abundance of gray foamy bubbles at about the time
fermentation starts. If this happens leave the digester alone for a few days.
Do not feed any raw material. If the digester is heated, reduce the heat.
10) Periodic supplies of fresh raw material should be fed in to keep the
digestion going. This can vary from daily feeds to once every three
months depending on the requirements of the user and the digester
design. To feed this digester it is necessary to remove the 30·gallon drum,
take out about 5 gallons of material and replace it with fresh slurry. Again
press down the small drum to exclude air. Drum designs are particularly
good units to learn from since they are so easy to build and maintain.
11) To provide smooth movement of the inner drum, guiding pipes and
rollers can be improvised to keep the inner drum vertical.
From now on, The Practical Building of Methane Power Plants will be
available from Undercurrents at £3.00, plus 30p for postage, packing etc
(second class surface mail). Cheques or postal orders for £3.30 should be
sent with each order to: Undercurrents Books, 11 Shadwell, Uley,
Dursley, Gloucestershire, England.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Woody Woody winds up ...
By public acclaim! Positively the last appearance of the inimitable Woody!
A must for all alternative power station workers .....
It wasn·t my idea!
Having seen fourteen pages of Under·currents taken up with my old, long
essay (instead of things I wanted to read!) I have a lot of sympathy with
Pauline Stone (UC 12). So instead of another six pages of the same, I·ll try
to sum up what it was all about, why I think social theory matters, and
what it might have to do with Undercurrents, AT, and you. Gluttons for
punishment can probably scrounge a copy of the full essay from one of
the Undercurrents gang. By the way, I would like to establish some small
working groups on culture theory J so could anyone interested please get
in touch? (161 Hinckley Road, Leicester).
Right-then:·
Why have social theory in Undercurrents? A good question. I suppose the
answer is that while some Undercurrents readers want to build solar
collectors or keep goats for the fun of it, and others want to be more
independent, most of them (I hope) are radicals, i e What they really want
is a better, more human world ·and they have a hunch that alternative
ways of living will help.
Why is theory so boring? It isn·t. At least not for everyone. As with music,
it·.s hard to believe that what turns you off turns someone else on. But it·s
true. Getting hold of this idea (subject·ivity) is itself an important part of
social theory.
Why do radicals need theory anyway? Without it, everything they do, all
the struggles they take part in, will end in failure ·or will be won without
really making us more human, making a better world. Afterwards, the
theory can be reduced to simple slogans for living, replacing the slogans
of earlier theories, and the mindless slogans common today. Of course
there is no guarantee that any theory will be helpful, but at least it puts us
in with a chance.
When was ·Towards an Alternative Culture·written? Early 1971.
Who for? As a discussion draft among a small political group. There were
ten copies made. Recently some people have made a few extra copies.
Why? Because I was beginning to see (with some help!) that class theory
was built on rubbishy assumptions, that its categories (classes) had less
and less meaning in the modern world, and that its underlying values
were anti·radical. Yet class theory was the best·worked·out social theory,
and the one on which most action slogans were based. I was also starting
to see alienation as the problem of the age, as a main con·dition of
society, and not as a side effect of systems of exploitation and injustice.
Indeed, the struggle against inequality was increasing alienation.
Was the Undercurrents version the original essay? Yes. It was slightly
abridged/edited, but not revised.
Do you still stand by it? Yes, as far as it goes. I would now say it doesn·t
go far enough, especially into human needs and relationships.
How many parts were there? Four. The first two (combined in UC 10)
were a ·from the heart·description of our sick world, and a look at some
attempts to change it. Part three (UC 11 & 12) was yer actual culture
theory. Part four was about living it. (Though still in the abstract: I didn·t
get my first taste of the problems ·and delights ·until later that year.)
Why culture theory? First, because it divides society into sub·cultures
instead of just classes. Second, because it is about building alternative
cultures slowly instead of overturning the one we suffer from by
revolution, or try·ing to reform it.
Briefly, what·s culture theory all about? It starts by claiming that the No 1
fact of modern society is that we are all living against each other, that its
dominant values guarantee a rat race. The power struggles by different
factions ·even the left v right struggles for more or less equality ·are
secondary. To make the face ·fair·, or a dead heat; to ·give power to the
people·, would be pure alienation. The radical task is to scrap the race.
This means new values, new people. So culture theory is about a new
radical direction which is neither right nor left. So far there·s nothing very
original in this. Except that most people taking this view have seen it as a
moral problem (we ·ought·to love each other) and have cut themselves off
from politics. Culture theory proper starts by noting that human
co·operative values are already around, and a few people are trying to
practise them. It puts forward a theory that if groups of these people
co·operate in such a way that their social relations interact with their
values, then a dialect·ical snowball may start to roll, drawing in new
people even as it changes attitudes. At first this will be slow, with as many
setbacks as advances, and no effect on the old society. But the later stages
will be more like a revolutionary situation.
Should the new culture take over? No, because one of the new values is
tolerance to other ideas. In any case there may be more than one new
culture. So the final political stage is a world of voluntary states,
overlapping because they have no boundaries. With love in the air, and
people free to choose, authoritarian and alienating states will grow small
and weak. Thus natural choice will stabilise the new values if they once
become dominant.
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 107
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• • • • • • • • • • • •
Reviews
Unilever·s World, C.1.5. Anti·Report No. 11, Counter Information
Services, 52 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WI. 103 pp. £1.
Unilever is the world·s ninth biggest private company. It has world sales
of about £6,000 million per year, makes pretax profits of about £350
million per year and employs 350,000 people_ It sells in virtually every
non·Iron·curtain country (and some of them) and has monopolies by the
score. Some of the better known are: margarine in the U.K. (70% of the
market), Germany (75%), Sweden (70%); frozen food in the U.K. (60%);
ice·cream in the U.K. (48%); and detergents in the U.K. (45%), and India
(43%). It is also estimated to spend £400·500 million a year on marketing
expenditure ·all socially useless. Yet Unilever seems to go almost
unscathed by nationalisation, and despite anti·trust investigations in many
countries ·U.K., U.S.A., Canada ·it emerges unharmed, and in economies
with strong state control, such as India, it is strengthened rather than
weakened.
One reason for this is Unilever·s public invisibility and the lack of public
knowledge about it, a matter of Unilever policy. The CIS Anti·Report tries
to counter this with a hundred pages of facts, most of which the company
would prefer forgotten. It shows the dominance of Unilever in the world·s
oil and fats markets ·35% of the trade ·and its effects on the third world,
its spread around the world and its diversity_ In the U.K., a few of its
household products are Persil, Gibbs toothpaste, Stork margarine, Bird·s
Eye frozen foods, Wall·s ice cream and sausages, Vesta meals and John
West salmon. It also has Vinyl wallpaper, Thames Board Mills packaging,
Lintas advertising, RBL market research, SPD transport, Crosfield·s
chemicals, BOCM cattle food ... and so on to more than 500 subsidiaries.
All of these trade under separate names and Unilever tries to hide its
ownership of them from the public scan the products in the shops and try
to find the name Unilever! This digging out and airing of facts is very
valuable and CIS have performed a tremendous task in doing it. CIS has
also produced one of the best short histories of Unilever ·better by far
than the dry 3·volume ·official·history from which much of the material
was drawn. It brings out some of the reality behind the paternalistic
Unilever·a quote from William Lever in 1923, "We have been combing
out inefficient men, too highly paid men, elderly men ... and I am
confident this has produced a state of ·fear·in the minds of the
remainder." It manages to show a little of the relationship between
Unilever and Nazi Germany, South Africa, Indonesia and India. It shows
some of Unilever·s power in dealing with governments ·in getting money
out of ·blocked·countries when it wants to and in getting permission for
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 109
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new investments. I t also shows how Unilever works with all capitalist
governments, no matter how abhorrent ·being a "good corporate "citizen".
Finally it gives one or two examples of Unilever·s dealings with its
workers ·especially in Wall·s meat ·and how successful it is in the old
policy of "divide and rule". Wall·s meat sacks thousands of workers on the
grounds that it is losing money, yet also Bird·s Eye sacked 1000 workers
in 1970/71 and again in 1975, despite being one of Unilever·s most
profitable companies.
For all these reasons, the book is a very good pound·s worth and highly
recommended. However, its analysis and conclusions ·or lack of them
·are often suspect. It does not distinguish in the report between those
areas where Unilever has a choice and those where it has to behave as it
does, because of the capitalist system. Indeed, it implicitly assumes
Unilever always has a choice. In many instances, it is determined to
prove Unilever does wrong whatever it chooses. For example, it
condemns Unilever for exploiting the woman who works only at home,
yet says "the growing number of women who both work and keep a
household going ... plays into Unilever·s hands." On p. 24 marketing
expense (including the sales force) is a social waste, yet on p. 42
rationalisation of sales forces is attacked. Unilever is criticised (rightly) for
creating waste by packaging yet is also blamed (p. 22) for creating the
frozen fish industry ·saving enormous quantities of wasted food.
Much of what Unilever does, it is forced to do in the current system. It
doesn·t mean we have to admire it, but nor do we have to blame it ·we
have to understand it and learn how to attack it successfully. Unilever
wastes a fortune on wholly unproductive advertising and packaging. But
what would happen if it stopped? If it did it unilaterally, the competitors
would just gain the business. If it did so by agreement with its competitors
·or by force of government action ·retailers and wholesalers would gain,
increase their own profits, and decrease their efficiencies, wasting a
proportion of the gain. If Unilever takes over a company and
·rationalises·it, is it worse than driving it out of business by taking away its
market with greater efficiency? At least, in the first case, workers thrown
out of a job will get better redundancy terms!
We.need to fight to get Unilever recognised for what it is ·but to do that
successfully we need to know its strengths. It does waste millions, but
frozen food does cut down waste, pre-prepared meals do save time for
people who run households and have paid employment, detergents are
better to wash with than hard soap (visit Eastern Europe to appreciate this)
and margarine based on vegetable oils does use the earth better than
butter. These are real benefits to society and we should try to retain them.
There is ample scope to do that with raw materials accounting for only
50·60% of Unilever·s costs and much of that being wasteful packaging
(especially in toiletries!).
We need to know what Unilever can change itself, what government
regulation might do and where we need to change the entire system.
Unilever is not all-powerful and can be beaten. The references in the text
to "Unilever·s central computers", "Unilever being sure of its aims", and
its "computerised planning" seem very strange to those who work within
it and know of the internal quarrels, the conflicts between its parts about
objectives, the indecisiveness of its management ·and its lack of
computerised planning! CIS mention that the US trade unions forced
Unilever out of enzyme washing powders there (and that Unilever would
not disclose this in the UK). Since then, the Unions have repeated their
success in the UK and enzyme powders have been barred here, too·What
is highly revealing is the lack of publicity this has been given anywhere
yet it is a leading·example of workers·power. We should also fight for
more government control of its marketing practices and its monopoly
powers. But finally, we can only tame and control Unilever, by taking
over the whole capitalist system Unilever is so much a part of the whole.
Despite the weakness of the analysis, we can give thanks to CIS for
providing such a useful weapon. It deserves wide circulation and
contains lessons to be learnt.
Uniworker·
Synerjy, from Synerjy, PO Box 4790, Grand Central Station, New York, NY
10017, USA. $4.50 (including postage).
Calling itself·A Directory of Energy Alternatives·Synerjy is produced twice
a year and July 75 saw its third edition. Most of it is bibliography; it·s
quite thorough (I guess), but each edition contains thousands of
references without any attempt to distinguish particularly useful pieces
from the rest, so anyone who wants to make use of it must be prepared to
exercise their own judgement. (No bad thing in itself.) References include
books, journals, magazines and reports by various institutions including
governments. Subject categories are solar, geothermal, electric, water and
wind·power. Most of the quoted sources are American and not readily
available outSide the US except in good academic libraries. The raw
information·content of all these works could be fairly described as ·all
you want to know and more·, perhaps considerably more. In fact, the
impression left by Synerjy is that it is really designed for PhD students
rather than communards, and one must seriously ask whether, in the
struggle to revolutionise society, a screw·driver and some timber might be
more useful.
Martyn Partridge .
Nick·s Guide ..…
Alternative England and Wales, from Nicholas Saunders, 65 Edith Road,
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 111
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of objectivity is one reason for the secrecy so common in magic. Not only
would one lower one·s ·belief factor·by exposing one·s methods to the
objective gaze of science (and other people) but one would also confuse
other occultists who used other systems totally at variance with one·s
own ·ones which would otherwise have little hindering their successful
operation. For the same reason, Magical orders structure their system of
personal and group evolution into a succession of grades·you don·t want
extraneous beliefs and methods to cloud your successful operation of the
magical subsystem related to your particular grade, and as you progress
up the structure you gain an ability to operate in any particular kingdom,
unhindered by possible converse relationships and attributions pertaining
to other kingdoms .
Similarly, Magic does not require a ·body of knowledge·except within a
group; all members of which practice the same magical system. It is very
tempting to suggest from this that ·Science is merely a subset of Magic·but
I believe this is only true if we redefine Science and Magic outside the
terms of our original four mental processes. If we take Crowley·s
definition of Magic (or should I say ·Magick·) as ·The Art and Science of
causing Change in conformity to Will·, apart from asking for a further
definition of Will, we must further redefine the basic system·structure. I
have no intention of doing this here. One would have thought there
would be no basic conflict between Magic and Science ·or the other two
·but, obviously, there is. This appears to be a result of a failure to perceive
the most basic substrata of the different methods.
The magician these days tends to regard science as a system well suited
to the physical universe, whilst lacking in facilities for comprehension of
non·physical systems, which the magician uses all the time. (Although he
might grudgingly accept certain aspects of nuclear particle theory as
being ·non·physical, whilst laughing up his sleeve at the secret groups of
scientists hidden away by respective governments, working away from the
body of scientific knowledge, turning quietly into magicians).
Unfortunately, some magicians seem deliberately to make it hard for
science to accept them by couching their theories in pseudo·scientific
jargon. There they fail, because magical theories will never stand up to
the critical tests that science requires. For the magician, they don·t need
to. In fact as far as the Magician is concerned, they don·t even have to be
repeatable or demonstrable (in fact, it·s better if they aren·t: introducing
spurious objectivity serves no useful purpose, and can be a hindrance to
proper magical operation as it affects one·s ability to change beliefs.
Velikovsky and Von Daniken, whilst neither are true Magicians (We·re not
having them either!) hold theories which are far more magical than
scientific.
Hence it is foolish to analyse them logically, as logic is not a magical
marijuana and hair on the palm of your hand, then you·ve got much
more patience than I have. Meanwhile a whole lot of perfectly reasonable
people are wasting away their days in exotic jails because of their efforts
to provide goodies for the folk back home. The Trucker·s Bible and its
updated sequel is a comprehensive account of the sort of bum deals
passed around by the Blue Meanies just about everywhere from
Kilmarnock to Katmandu. It·s a huge downer, but required reading for
anyone who thinks the stuff just grows on bushes. The rap for large:scale
possession is pretty tough even in this Isle of Kings, but out in the stix
where the liberal conscience takes its holidays, repressive measures are
nothing short of barbarous. In their efforts to cope with this carnage,
Release has assembled a country·by·country digest of useful information
for hapless victims and anyone who feels inclined to help them OUt.
Subjects covered include average length of sentences, availability of bail,
prison·visiting regulations, torture, brutality and similar local police
customs (and Customs customs, for that matter). There·s also a synopsis of
major government reports, largely ignored, advocating the
decriminalisation of cannabis and its relatives. And there·s an overview of
the international smuggling scene which ought to dissuade anyone daft
enough to contemplate jacking in their job at the bank to set up a Hollow
Teddy·Bear Import Co. Fact is, most of the dope that gets into this country
is handled by well·organised, highly·financed operators who know what
they·re at, while most of the busts involve enthusiastic amateurs who
think they·ve discovered a hitherto unimagined hiding-place. (There
aren·t any.) If you·re the sort of nice person who reads Undercurrents you
almost certainly fall into the second category, so you·d be well advised to
stay at home, score your monthly quid·deal and read these books instead.
And if you order them from Release, please send some postage, cos they
ain·t any richer than you are.
Martyn Partridge
U.K. can eat O.K.
Can Britain Feed Itself?, Kenneth Mellanby, Merlin Press. £1.95.
Kenneth Mellanby is already being quoted far and wide as the respected
ecologist who thinks Britain can achieve agricultural independence. The
basic requirement of his plan is that we, and not our animals, should eat
the fifteen million tons of grain we grow each year. But with that as a
starting point, there arc a number of choices open to us. With nine
million acres growing grain, we still have the bulk of our agricultural land
(the poorer land, admittedly) to do what we like with. The message is
hopeful, and at one point Mellanby breaks away from conservative
estimates and suggests that if we really tried, we could grow a basic
ration for a population of 100 million. Many of Mellanby·s proposals will
be familiar to anyone who takes an interest in the environment. Better use
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 119
_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 120
of hill pasture, animal manure returned to the land, vegetables and hens
in back gardens, and beans instead of meat as a protein supplement. But
a few eyebrows have been raised at his defence of straw-burning,
grubbing up of hedges, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. To
be. fair, he says that straw will in future be too precious to burn, despite
the labour cost of collecting it. Also, he·s prepared to let us keep the
hedges, useless as they arc, if we don·t mind paying the farmers to leave
them alone. But for a book which claims to be written from the point of
view of the consumer, and which warns us that it may offend the farmers,
this looks astonishingly like agribusiness·as usual while the urban masses
collect their ration books.
Tony Durham
Quack Quack!
A Guide to Alternative Medicine. Donald Law Ph.D. DBM PsyD.
Turnstone Books. 1974. 212 pp. £2.50.
The author, says a blurb, is·A Doctor of Philosophy, of Botanic Medicine
and of Literature, he holds diplomas for psychology) dietetics and other
related subjects: (Pity he couldn·t spell ·dietetics·right in that case
·mis·spell ·Diatetics·in ·Contents·and on p. 85 and p. 202. Also, by the
way, there are no Doctorates of Botanic Medicine awarded by universities
in this backward land of ours.) You·d think too that getting all those
qualifications might have kept him busy enough, but no: ·\When not
travelling in connection with his research studies·no details given ·he
climbs, shoots, enjoys sailing, etc. He holds several medals for running,
life·saving, etc. Paints in oils, plays guitar and chess. He has been
awarded two honorary professorships, one English, the other French·no
professorial details provided. One isn·t enlightened either as to whether
the life·saving medals are for the ordinary humdrum kind of life saving, or
for alternative·medical life saving; but since he tells us on p. 193
that·many people have had temperatures of 1100 (Fahrenheit) for a few
days and still rallied round·(a phenomenon totally unknown to any
ordinary doctor who believes in his fuddy·duddy way that a temperature
of 1100 spells d·e·a·t·h), he certainly seems to deserve one or two of the
latter kind. He has also written at least 18 books, a mere fifteen being
modestly listed at the front of the present volume, three others being
mentioned in the text; and on subjects as diverse as palmistry, swimming,
herbs, botanic medicine, baldness, and philosophy ·so that we are
apparently confronted with a polymath, and one of phenomenal energy.
Still, the topic·s alternative medicine, so let·s see what he·s got to say
about it. Well, first, there ore a few mis·spellings: ·pantothemic·(instead of
·pantothenic·) acid on p. 103, ·lumber·for ·lumbar·on p. 125, and
·raisings·for ·raisins·on p. 122. And then a doctorate of philosophy is
usually indicated by ·Ph.D.·or ·D.Phil.·, not by ·Phd·. Dr. (of philosophy)
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 120
_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 121
Law seems to think oxygen is absorbed in quantity through the skin (p. 46
·it isn·t). that the sacrum consists of five quite separate bones (p. 73
square old allopathic doctors, who spend eighteen laborious months
dissecting corpses and gazing at skeletons, know it consists of five bones
very firmly fused together into one), that ·sulphur is a mineral salt·(p. 99
·odd, because most of us think it·s an element), that vitamin D can be
·absorbed from sunlight·(p. 105, which would be difficult as there isn·t
anything material in sunlight), that vitamin K ·is calcium in essence·(p.
107 it isn·t), and that there is a disease called ·diabetes mellitus insipidus·
(p. 194 there isn·t, there are two quite distinct diseases, diabetes mellitus
and diabetes insipidus).
No matter. Medical quibbles and carpings perhaps. Perhaps. Let us get
down to the meat of the matter. The book starts with a mention (analysis
·Would be too strong a word, much too strong) of some of the defects of
allopathic (i.e. orthodox) medicine. A few of these are on target, though
·permanent genetic damage to the blood·(p. 15), whether due to
phenylbutozone (most doctors spell it ·butazone·) or anything else, is an
entity unknown to allopaths; the news that ·several universities have
established Chairs of Iatrogenic Medicine·(p. 16) is news to this keen
observer of the medical scene; doctors (as distinct from Dr. Law) gave up
about seventy years ago believing that bad smells from drains caused
disease (p. 31). and in a decade where most medical research is directed
at auto·immune disease, inherited disorders, non·bacterial
environmentally produced disease. and over·and under·nutrition the
notion that allopaths believe ·bacteria are the sale cause of disease·(p. 34)
is, so to say, a shade simplistic. Finally, Dr. Law ·who is apparently aged
50 or 60 ·may say ·I remember my grandparents·generation most vividly.
Illness was exceptionally rare·(p. 32), but the hard fact is that out of 1,000
boy babies born in this country in 1900 only 247 could expect to reach
age 70, whereas in 1970563 out of every 1,000 could expect to. Illness
rare, Dr. Law?·Miracle Deaths at work perhaps. If he had said that not ali
the credit by a long chalk for the improvement in life expectancy should
go to doctors, but some to engineers, builders, teachers, politicians, etc.,
that would be quite a different matter.
Having disposed of allopathic medicine in 40 pages, Dr. Law turns his
eagle eye on the alternatives. He lists 60 alternatives, which is a lot,
especially as more than 50 are alternative modes of treatment. Well, I
mean, suppose you get ill you can·t treat yourself in fifty different ways
simultaneously, can you? Anyway, this moronic, sloth·like allopath
couldn·t. Moreover, the list includes alternatives of probable or certain
value sometimes for some conditions (for example, acupuncture,
exercises, relaxation techniques), others of possible or doubtful value
(homoeopathv, certain herbal remedies, baths). and yet others that are
Dr. Law quotes.) Worst of all is a statement (p. 160) to the effect that Still,
the osteopath, ·is said ... to have cured ... some cases of cancer and
tuberculosis. The advantages of Still·s methods are that the cure is
virtually instantaneous·with the clear implication that osteopaths might
achieve the same today. That statement, cancer being what it is, is cruel
as well as irresponsible.
This ridiculous book is not of itself worthy of a long review; but it so
happens that many people, including some doctors. are today very
dissatisfied with the approach to health and sickness of orthodox
medicine and are seeking alternatives. If the laity look to books like this
for guidance, they will do themselves more harm than good. This is not to
say that allopathic medicine is perfect: it is not ·as a host of books and
journals from the Lancet to The Catonsville Road·runner all intermittently
testify. Neither
is it to say that an alternative medicine is not needed: it is needed,
desperately needed. This is no place to go into details, but a commentary
as critical as this review could have been written on certain aspects of
allopathic medicine (and of the society that produced it). though it would
not indict the vast majority of orthodox doctors for cruelty, or for plain
ignorance of chemistry, anatomy, physiology, diagnosis, or for
recommending ineffective treatment of most complaints. If you have an
acute appendix or meningitis or thyroid trouble or a brain tumour, then
get yourself to an orthodox doctor just as fast as your legs can carry you,
brother: if you don·t, you may well not live to regret it. One may not
approve of heart transplants or of connecting babies to baboons or of
operating on spina bifida children, but of the immense knowledge, the
brilliant technical skill, and the well·meant (if perhaps misguided)
dedication of the doctors concerned there is simply no doubt. A change
will come aside from a major societal change ·by combining the best of
allopathic medicine with a radical reform of other parts of it (particularly
in the preventive field), and the combining with it of some unorthodox
but effective non·allopathic methods. Some of the latter figure in Dr.
Law·s list; but he does the cause of alternative medicine no service at all
by producing this slipshod, undiscriminating book, which is really little
more than a mishmash of nonsensical drivel, ignorance, superstition,
half·truths, and non·truths some dangerous ones at that. Gamma minus. I
recommend him for the Barbara Cartland 1975 Special Award.
An orthodox medical practitioner
Saving Our Bacon
Save Your Own Seed, Lawrence D. Hills, The Henry Doubleday Research
Association, Backing, Braintree, Essex.
"Once we dug for victory and now we dig for peace, from ·rat races·,
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_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 126
·vicious spirals·, ·belt tightening·... and all the other stock phrases of an
age when the>e flourish like weeds, but unfortunately cannot be
composted."
So writes Lawrence Hills in the foreword to his new booklet on saving
your own seed. In line with the philosophy of the Henry Doubleday
Research Association this booklet is written to help gardeners by giving
practical directions for raising the easier seeds, to save money in these
inflationary times and to save those varieties which are now vanishing
from the seed catalogues. Seed raising is not as easy as it sounds. There
are the pitfalls of the F I hybrids, rogues, crosspollination and poor
summers. However, for those who succeed there is the satisfaction of
being able to ignore the new EEC regulations and the seed merchants
who aim to fill our gardens with bigger and more prolific tasteless
vegetables.
The beginner is advised to start with beans, lettuces, onions and spinach.
Because these are easy, they are cheap but this is·relative ·nothing is
cheap if you are on a pension. With these all one has to do is to allow the
plant to run to seed and to catch the seed before it is dispensed by the
wind. With the correct drying and storing you will have seeds for years
to·come. One well grown lettuce will produce 30,000 seeds and as these
have been successfully germinated after as long as thirteen years it is well
worth the effort. The more ambitious can try grow·ing their own onion
sets, resistant to onion fly and guaranteed to produce onions even in a
bad summer. For these the poorer the soil the better. Other seeds well
worth trying are peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes and some
root crops. All require their own techniques for cultivation, drying and
storage. The brassicas are more difficult. Because these are genetically
similar to some weeds it is easy to end up with the kind of brassica one
often finds growing on the cIiff tops. The shrewd gardener is advised to
invest in half a pound of first class cauliflower seed, due to its difficulty to
produce and its long keeping characteristics it is thought to be a better
investment than krugerrands. Potatoes too, selected carefully from the
greengrocers will crop just as well as the expensive seed potatoes.
Although seed growing has many advantages it does involve land being
occupied for up to three years. However, as the majority of seed will keep
for as long as two years and in some cases as long as fifteen it does (mean
that seed growing is not necessarily an annual event. Seed from one plant
will provide for many years sowing. No seed growing is complete without
a germination test early on in the year ·no more difficult than growing
mustard and cress.
In all, an excellent 50p worth for any gardener ·if only for the jingle on
the last page revealing the secrets of the packet life of the vegetable
seeds. Gone now the annual dilemma, to throwaway the old and buy
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new (all those half used packets) or to risk the old and possibly a poor
crop. Seed merchants ·all is revealed.
Charles Harries
Round·up
Pluto Press·s new book, Your Employers·Profits, by Christopher Hird, is
very useful. It talks about finding out what Companies are up to, who
owns them and whom they own, their profits declared and real, and how
to gauge a Company·s overall health. It also covers Nationalised
industries, Building Societies, Charities and other types of organisation.
All very thorough and excellent value at 90p from sympathetic and many
straight bookshops.
Prism Press have just reissued the first English edition of Kropotkin·s
Ethics at £1.95 for 394 pages. Kropotkin·s name is a password to these
pages, but the book isn·t likely to be very valuable to struggling country
anarchists. It·s a blockbusting analysis of the problem of values and ethics
in various cultures and makes a lot of modern social analysis look pale
indeed, but doesn·t enter the same sort of ground as Conquest of Bread or
Fields Factories and Workshops.
ITDG Publications (9 King St, London WC2E 8HN) keep on quietly
producing the goodies, which we·ve failed to keep up with for some time.
So better write for a complete list if you arc likely to need anything.
They·ve recently produced Methane: Proceedings of a one·day Seminar,
compiled by Leo Pyle and Peter Fraenkel, at 80p plus 15p postage in the
UK, a volume as fragmented as conference proceedings usually are but
containing something on most aspects; microbial and anaerobic
techniques, bio·gas plant, agricultural digesters, engineering and
commercial considerations, third world aspects and a lot more. An
excellent overview. Also outstanding but very practical is A Manual on
the Hydraulic Ram for Pumping Water by S B Watt (sic), no price given_
The design described is very thoroughly researched and is said to be one
of the most useful available, especially for poor com·munities. It can
pump water with a head of a metre and a flow exceeding 5 Iitres per
minute. It needs no external power, has only two simple moving parts
and can be fairly easily knocked together. As even ITDG haven·t got
round the laws of Physics yet, it can raise the water to much higher than a
metre but only a fraction of the throughput can be raised.
Australia·, we thought, when we saw the September issue of Earth Garden
was labelled Spring. And so it proved; they·re at PO Box 111, Balmain
2041, Australia. Very countrified and Mother Earth News·like, with no
political line, and they·d run a mile from carrying a shock horror probe
on oil rigs in the Bass Strait. But what there is is very well done;
biodynamics, music, geese, compost, bees, building, and more, with lots
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 127
_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 128
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Letters
ENERGETICALLY YOURS
Dear Sir,
UNDERCURRENTS magazine. latest copy. £0.45
With reference to our telephone call of 27.10.75 to I.P.C, we were
informed that the above publica·tion was available from Under·currents
ltd. The item is required rather urgently, and I should be grateful if you
could supply a copy of the latest issue, with an invoice for £0.45 to the
Department of Energy.
E A Cooper Assistant librarian Department of I::energy Thames House
South Millbank
LOVELESS LEYS
1 was sorry to see some of the attitudes expressed in the ley·line·article,
(Mysterious Energies. Undercurrents 11). I also shiver in the cold of the
system·s techno·logical ethos, but love is as real as bedrock. II isn·t
necessary (or helpful) to get into superstition to find it, and although it
may appear 10 be against that ethos to believe that one can find spiritual
energy in particular spots, it is, in fact an unconstructive attitude in that it
seeks to avoid the fact that love comes only to and from struggle. Without
having looked at the evidence I·m quite .. willing to believe that the
pre·Celtic lot surveyed straight lines 10 site their rites, and that they
attached religious significance to them. But it·s a very different thing to
say that highs come from these places. Wile tiler one is feeling high is
easy to know; wily is much harder. If leys make you high then isn·t it
surprising that at Glastonbury, said to be one of the most leyed places in
Britain, the average standard of loving is actually below the national rural
average? I mean the locals there tend to be particularly mean and
suspiciOUS. The country isn·t all like that: I·ve been in villages in Norfolk
where the people are so relaxed and unhassled it makes me feel warm
just to pass them in the.. street.
Chris Eve London
INFLATION EXPLAINED
On the whole we Think you are very nice and look forward to reading
each new issue of Under·currents, but what we can·t understand is why,
after an excellent review of Amory Lovins World Energy Strategies, Chris
Hutton·Squire gets so much space in which to indulge his personal
feelings about us. His words, 200+ of them aCtually, at the end of his
review seem to us to be no more than gratuitous target practice. No one
here can remember him asking for an ex·planation for the high price of
the book, which is maybe why he didn·t get one. As it happens, the book
is expensive because it is imported from the USA, and the reason why it
was published there was in order to get a world·wide dis·tribution for it
which we couldn·t manage ourselves. There are other reasons as well, to
do with such mundane matters as FOE·s cash·now situation and the
administrative problems of handling publications.
If Chris really wants all the details, all he has to do is to come and ask ·or
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Small Ads
COURSES
MIDDLESEX POLYTEt,; ... ·NIC esc and esc Honour5 In Society an~
Technology, This fouf·year sandwich course offers you the opportunity to
study the natural and social sciences and their inter·dependence. You can
enter with A-levels In any two subjects. The course provides .In
understanding of the complex relationships be·tween science and
techno.logy. enabling you nOI only to under·stand your own place in
contem. porary society, but to work responsibly with the beneflts
technology can bring. Write or telephone for further details and an
application form to: The Admissions Office, PO Box 40, Middlesex
Polytechnic, Queensway, Enfield,Middx. EN3 4SF, Phone 01·80S 0892.
PERSONAL
ORGANIC SMALLHOLDER, married, mid-20s. losing rented land to
developers, seeks food·growing project. Skill and enter·prise but no
capital. The Cottage, Silson Lane, Baildon, W. Yorks.
WE WANT PEOPLE to liv", with us in Bristol. We are Julia, Trevor, Helen
and Chrissy, have just moved into a large house and would like to share it
with others. If you would like to meet us, write 8S soon as possible to 33
Florence Park, Bristol BSG 7L T.
WE HAVE LAUNCHEO a co·operative based business to manu·facture
electronic gadgets with a bias towards AT. W~ are looking for an
electronics design man who would like to be associated with our project,
either fuJI or pan time. Kibei, 120 Garlands Road, Redhill, Surrey.
COUPLE SeEK accomodation In seml-communal mixed house In S.W.
London or adjacent areas. Phone Lloyd or Mandy 874 2170.
ECOLOGICALLY INCLINED male in late 30s interested in self·sufficiency
seeks female with similar interests to share running of a country house on
the Welsh coast. Marriage could be considered at a later date. Reply to
Undercurrents Box No. E1
HARDWARE
BRAD'S SOLAR ROOF PLAN. Complete do-it-yourself info (drawings,
costlngs, supplien, snags, plumbing, even the electronic control circuitry)
for the elegant Canopy that made the New Scientist cover story of
September 19th J 974. 8 months hot water (l26~, 52 C) for 1 p/day ,
we've had over 21 kilo·watts hom our 60 SQ.m. roof. And at £'8/sq.m ..
it's cheaper than tiles. NO rip-off. 25p pillS SAE-from BRAD,
Churchstoke, Montgomery, Wales. (Any surplus, we promise, goes to fund
further AT research),
HEDGEHOG HAND CAROl NG and Spinning Equipment, plus other
accessories, and special oUer fibres. For beginners and professionals. T .J.
Willcocks, Wheatcroft, Itchingfield, Horsham, Sussex. (Enclose s.a.e.)
PUBUCATIONS
BOOKS - Environment, Low Tech, Pollution, Survival etc. Send S.A,E, for
lists. Bogus, 60 Princes Avenue, Hull, ~orks.
SOLAR HEATED BUILDINGS·A BRIEF SURVEY, by W,A. Shurcliffi 122
pp, S 10 (postpaid) from Solar Energy Digest, PO Box 17776, California
92117, "This new and enlarged edition of Dr. Shurcllff's continuing
survey pro·vides concise Information on 132 past, present and future
solar·heated structures, primarily in the IJSA but Including a few 'rom
other countries."
The National Centre for Alternatil/e Technologv has prepared the
following DIY plans.
1. SW Multiblade aerogenerator
(Dynohub) 20p
2. Water pump (20ft head) lOp
3. Pumping windmill
(Sal/onius) 20p
4. Solar Panel 20p
S. 300W Sail windmill (Cretan) 20p 6. Hydraulic Ram 20p
Available from the centre at £1.00, set + 8p postage, or at stated price
plus 8p postage. All these elChibiu may be seen working at the quarry, A
further list of Information sheets is available, but please enclose SAE in all
correspondence. NCAT, L1wyngwern Quarry, Machvnlleth, Powys.
99.9 PER CENT EXTERMINA,. EO s'nce the onset of farm mechanisa·tion,
Heavy Horse Preservation Society seeks donations of money, uhwanted
clothing, used stamps, .old postcards, coins, jewellery, to sell for Horse
Rescue Fund 'or the ,ew survivors. HHPS, Old Rectory, whitchurch,
SalOp.
LEARN TO WEAVE on triangular frame loom (weal/es up to 2' lC S') with
wool, shuttle, charts, in hessian back. Special £12. Looms, 213 Archway
Rd, London N6.
ETCETERA
FRENCH Kingston AWA has a copy of a pamphlet on environ·mental and
ecological matters, written -by the French Organisation of Rel/olutionary
Anarchists. The approach is scientific but not burdened with jargon. We
_______________________________________________________________________ UC13: page 135
_____________________________________ Undercurrents 13 November-December1975 Page 136
invite the interest of any reader whO can tackle scientific French with
help in its translation. Contact Julian Turner, Kingston group of the
Anarchist Workers Association, 16 St. Leonards Road, Surbiton, Surrey.
CLAP 4% TAX. Nobody Is too poor to pay this tax! Send 17p in stamps for
the latest CLAP hand·book - it's a good read in its own right, a bi-monthly
directory of alternative society projects, Pay this tax, or don't complain if
by 1984 there are no revolutionary, imilginative, co_operative and
visionary projects left in this country, Community Lel/Y for Alternative
Projects, c/o BIT, 146 Great western Ro.ad, London W,ll. (tel 01·229
8219)
OR DOES YOUR PROJECT NEED MONEY? If it's community-based,
concerned with the enl/lronment, conSCiousness-expanslon, improving
communication between people, or righting oppression, please send for
details of how to 3pply,
INTERESTED in alternative tech·nology? Interested in developing a totally
new rel/olutlonary politics Outside the traditional or IIbertar·Ian left? we
are an organisation of revolutionary non.marxlsts who' don't believe In
class struggle, but do believe in non..c;entrallst organ·Isation and
liberation from all roles both at home and at work. Interested?, " contact
B, M. LEEWAY, London WCl 6XX.
WORK
A DIFFERENT KIND OF JOB Interested In new ways of working t098ther?
Want to have more say in your own life? Don't miss the new Issue (No.3)
of InThe Making, a jlrectory of proposed productive projects, 1975
edition. From 22 Albert Road, Sheffield 8. Price 22p per copy, Including
post. Subscrip.·tions 60P.
2p per word up to 150 words
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Radical Technology is coming!
Yes, in March or April of next year Wildwood House will finally publish
the Undercurrents magnum opus, Radical Technology. In the States and
Canada it'll be available in January. Please don't write to us, or Wildwood,
to order copies, as they will be widely available in bookshops after
publication, and you'll be able to buy it from us for the cover price, some
£2.50, plus postage, again after publica·tion. Here is Peter Harper's
summary of the book, for lazy reviewers and prospect ive purchasers:
Radical Technology is a large-format, extensively illustrated collection of
original articles concerning the reorganisa·tion of technology along more
humane, rational and ecologically sound lines. The many facets of such a
reorganisation are reflected in the wide variety of contribu·tions to the
book. They cover both the 'hardware' - the machines and technical
methods themselves - and the 'software' - the social and political
structures, the way people relate to each other and to their environment,
and how they feel about it all.
The articles in the book range from detailed 'recipes' through general
accounts of alternative technical methods, to critiques of current
practices, and general proposals for reorganisations. Each author has
been encouraged to follow her or his own personal approach, sometimes
descriptive, sometimes analytic, sometimes technical, sometimes
political. The contributors are all authorities in their fields.
The book is divided into seven sections:
Food, Energy, Shelter, Autonomy, Materials, Communication, Other
Per·spectives, Over forty separate articles include items on fish culture,
small-scale water supply, biological energy sources, a definitive zoology
of the windmill, self·help housing, building with subsoil, making car·tyre
shoes, the economics of autonomous houses, what to look for in scrap
yards, alternative radio networks, utopian communities, and technology
in China. Between the main sections are interviews with prominent
practitioners and theorists of Radical Technology, including John Todd of
the New Alchemy Institute; Robert Jungk, author of Humanity 2000; the
Street Farmers, a group of anarchist architects; Peter van Dresser;-and
Sietz Lcefland, editor of Small Earth, the Dutch journal of alter·native
technology.
Also included between the main sections of the book is a series of
vision·ary drawings by the gifted illustrator Clifford Harper, evoking the
spirit and practice of Radical Technology: 'how it could be', These
drawings, or 'visions' include a communalised urban garden layout; a
household basement workshop; a community workshop; a community
Undercurrents 9
Special Feature on Nuclear Power Dangers. Kiddies' Guide to Nuclear
Power I Waste Disposal Dangers I The Breeder - Fast & Deadly I End of
the US Nuclear Dream I The International Protesters I Energy An·alysis of
Nuclear Power I Nuclear Proliferation Perils I The Terrorists' DIY A·Bomb I
Uranium Supply Shortages, .. PLUS: Nuclear Blackmail - has it already
been tried? I Bunker Secrets de-bunked I Solar Collectors: product review
I Nature et Progress Conference 10 Paris: full report & pnotos I Hudson
Institute ~ritique I Can Home·Grown Food make a Significant
Contribution?
Undercurrents 10 Joint Issue with Resurgence Magazine.
Solar Collectors: Complete Background Theory and low--cost DIY Design
I Towards An Alternative Culture: Part I I Land for the People I New
Villages Now I Sward Gardening in Practice I Anarchist Cities I General
Systems I Future of Alternative Technology I Schumacher: A Conscious
Culture of Poverty I Living the Revolution: Milovan Djilas I Industrial
Slavery Can Now End I Nuclear Protest Builds up Steam ....
Undercurrents 11
Nuclear Nightmares Come True I Bee Keeping I Back to the Land: What
happened in the '30s I Mysterious Energies: the Hidden Secrets of Ancient
Britain I Building with Compressed Subsoil Blocks I Wind Power Special
Feature: Background Theory & Part ( of the Undercurrents-LID Wind
Generator Design I New Methane Digester Design I The House That Jaap
Built - an Autonomous Dome in Holland I Mind Expansion: An Evalua.
tion of Psychocybernetics and Silva Mind Control I Getting Your Goat:
Goat·keeping Demystified I Towards An Alternative Culture - part n ....
Undercurrents 12
AT and Lucas Aerospace I Comtek 751 DIY Biofeedback I Alter. native
Medical Care I The Crabapple Community Illaif Life against Nuclear
Power I The Granada Tele·eco-housc I Planning for War I The Brighton
Envuofau I CEGB Energy down the Drain I Community Technology in
Washington DC I Class War Comix I World Energy Strategies I
Transcendental Meditation I Freedom for Scotland. . . . . ~