As another 1970s commune heads for its fiftieth anniversary we interview Barbara Sanders - one of the founders - and Chris Coates who joined later but lived at People in Common for a couple of decades. In a surprising turn of events some cheap and cheerful terraced houses in Burnley became the test location for pioneering co-operative model rules that remain important to this day.

People in Common
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/people-in-common

A Life in Common
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/shop/a-life-in-common

Spaceheads:
https://spaceheads.co.uk/recordings/a-new-world-in-our-hearts/

Mary joined the Findhorn Community back in 1973 so she has a really good overview of all that's happened there in the intervening decades. It seems that recent events may be making the place far more "intentional" than it once was.

Findhorn
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/findhorn

New Findhorn Association
https://www.findhorn.cc

Findhorn Foundation Trust (SCIO)
https://www.findhorn.org/findhorn-foundation-trust

Nancy spent her early years at Shrubb Family in Norfolk. In this podcast she tells us just how inspiring it was to grow up in the alternative East Anglian culture of the 1970s and 80s.

Nancy's Substack
https://nancythompson731.substack.com/p/making-sense-of-my-weird-upbringing

Shrubb Family
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/shrubb-family

Albion Fairs
https://fairsarchive.wordpress.com

Global Village Trucking Company (BBC documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SNrBey7yQI

Spaceheads:
https://spaceheads.co.uk/recordings/a-new-world-in-our-hearts/

As Lifespan Community celebrates its half centenary we bring you an interview with Freer Spreckley who was one of the founders back in 1974. He and Hylda Sims were both alumni of the famous Summerhill School and originally saw Lifespan as being a kind of lifelong version of Summerhill. Freer describes the early years of that isolated intentional community based in terraced houses, located high in the Yorkshire Moors.

Summerhill School
https://www.summerhillschool.co.uk

Lifespan Community Collective
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/lifespan-community-collective

Commune on the Moors: The Story of Lifespan
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/shop/commune-on-the-moors

Spaceheads:
https://spaceheads.co.uk/recordings/a-new-world-in-our-hearts/

Cath Muller has had a long history in co-operativism having had a key role in the Radical Routes Network as well as being a member of Cornerstone Housing Co-op in Leeds. A few years ago she travelled (over-sea) to North America and was particularly inspired by a visit to Twin Oaks Community in Virginia. Now she's working with others to create "A Commune in the North" with the idea of bring about something on the same scale as Twin Oaks in the UK. And she doesn't want there to be just one commune... she wants there to be many of them!

Radical Routes
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/communities/radical-routes-members
http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/

Cornerstone Housing Co-operative
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/cornerstone-housing-co-operative

A Commune in the North
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/a-commune-in-the-north
https://www.acommuneinthenorth.org.uk/

Twin Oaks Community
https://www.twinoaks.org

Spaceheads:
https://spaceheads.co.uk/recordings/a-new-world-in-our-hearts/

In this episode we're going in-house and speaking to Jonathan How – one of the original members of the Diggers & Dreamers team. As well as communal living he's had past involvements in radical bookshops, wholefoods, publishing, co-op development and more recently local government. Following his path from the British urban squatting movement of the 1970s to the present day we hear how his conclusion is that the hippies were right all along – they just needed to be a bit more organised! If we're ever going to achieve anything then we all need to rebalance our mindsets so that they're made up of equal parts digging and dreaming.

Diggers & Dreamers Timeline:
https://www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk.about/timeline

Spaceheads:
https://spaceheads.co.uk/recordings/a-new-world-in-our-hearts/

This month we welcome Dr Bill Metcalf both a lifelong communitarian and an academic based in Australia. Bill starts us off by exploring the definition of intentional community and the utopian goal of living a ‘better’ life. This prompts the question of what we mean by better, who gets to decide this, how is this shaped by the politics and history of communities?

Dr William Metcalf:
https://hpi.uq.edu.au/profile/4546/bill-metcalf

Shared Visions Shared Lives
Bill Metcalf 1996, ISBN 13: 9781899171019

Spaceheads:
https://spaceheads.co.uk/recordings/a-new-world-in-our-hearts/

In this episode host Kirsten Stevens-Wood interviews David Harris, who is a resident and archivist from an extraordinary community called Whiteway Colony. Whiteway was founded in 1898 by Tolstoyan anarchists, and has been going strong for over 125 years. David shares some of Whiteway’s most interesting stories, including intrusions from spies, accusations of “beastly morals”, and sharing taken to the next level! He also explains how Whiteway residents live together today, and how he is archiving Whiteway’s rich history.

Whiteway Colony:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteway_Colony

Utopia Britannica:
https://www.utopia-britannica.org.uk/pages/whiteway.htm

Whiteway Colony: Social History of a Tolstoyan Community
Joy Thacker 1993, ISBN 13: 9780952176008

Spaceheads:
https://spaceheads.co.uk/recordings/a-new-world-in-our-hearts/