An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent
Transition Culture has moved
I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Totnes featured 3 commercial market gardens within the town itself, Heaths, Gills and Phillips/Victoria Nursery. The largest, at least initially, was Heath’s, started in 1920 by George Heath senior (see left), and then run by his son, also called George, until its closure in 1981. Much of the south-facing area of the town has been dedicated to food production back through history, and the gardens serve as a powerful reminder of the potential of urban market gardening.
Over the next few days I will be sharing some of the output from the oral histories I have been doing in Totnes and its surroundings, as which will make up part of the introduction to the EDAP and also part of my research. I did about 15 interviews, and have condensed the outputs from them into subject areas such as food, skills, energy, transport and so on. The period covered is from the 1930s until the early 1960s. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. Images are courtesy of the Totnes Image Bank, to whom I am very grateful.
Had a fascinating afternoon recently at Schumacher College (you can read Simon Berry from DEFRA’s account of the day here). Schumacher is part of the Dartington Estate, and I was asked to speak about the future of Schumacher as part of the wider Dartington Estate. At present Dartington’s land is let for conventional dairy farming, and the lease comes up for renewal in 2014, so the process is starting of thinking what to do with the Estate’s 1000 acres. Here is the talk I gave, filmed on Simon’s phone…
Sometimes there are particular films that really capture the essence of what Transition is all about. Here is one, a beautiful 6 minute piece about the 400 Fruit Trees project in Kilkenny in Ireland. It is so great when people document what they are doing in this way. It is a beautifully relaxed and inspiring start to your day.
I am currently in heads-down Totnes Energy Descent Plan editing/writing mode, which is proving hugely time-consuming, so posts at Transition Culture will be a bit erratic over the next few days.I am currently working on the food section, which is fascinating.We have been lucky enough to get a grant from Landshare to allow us to commission Geofutures in Bath to take Simon Fairlie’s Can Britain Feed Itself? paper and to focus it on Totnes and its surrounding ‘foodshed‘. It is fascinating work, and the first public unveiling of it will be on Monday May 18th, at an event in Totnes called, imaginatively, ‘Can Totnes Feed Itself?‘.
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Totnes featured 3 commercial market gardens within the town itself, Heaths, Gills and Phillips/Victoria Nursery. The largest, at least initially, was Heath’s, started in 1920 by George Heath senior (see left), and then run by his son, also called George, until its closure in 1981. Much of the south-facing area of the town has been dedicated to food production back through history, and the gardens serve as a powerful reminder of the potential of urban market gardening. 
I am currently in heads-down Totnes Energy Descent Plan editing/writing mode, which is proving hugely time-consuming, so posts at Transition Culture will be a bit erratic over the next few days.
