(Almost) every year I go the Green Gathering - a festival that really walks the talk: solar powered - great banks of panels in place - and bringing together fun and thought, music and food, and that has at its heart a desire for a better, kinder world.
The Substack version has lots more photos and a chance to shout at me for drifting a little away from just hedgehogs!!
One of the lures of the festival is that it has become my annual campout with old friends. In particular members of the brilliant folk musicians from Seize the Day.
It was not all play - my ticket came from supporting my wife, Zoe’s, work as video coordinator for the Speakers Forum so I am part of the team recording the talks that take place. And this year there was an amazing array of speakers - more on them in a moment.
I also go to the festival with a memory stick!
The reason for that is on the previous two years I had been too late to apply for a slot to speak, but still wanted to … and realised that people may drop out at the last minute. And they did! So I got to do a talk.
One year this opportunity arose on my birthday … and clashed with the wonderful Seize the Day doing a performance… it was a tough call, but I chose the work of talking about hedgehogs over the pleasure of getting a birthday shout out from the stage!
Why? Partly because I am a show off and love being on stage!! But really, because I think it is important to spread the message about hedgehogs at every opportunity possible. Usually I am talking to an audience like the Women’s Institute, the Town’s Women’s Guild, University of the Third Age, or gardening clubs … for many it is entry level environmentalism.
The invite comes because people love hedgehogs, but then, as I am sure I have explained before, there is the Trojan Hedgehog … I use the cute snuffles of the hedgehog to get through the door before beginning a conversation about some of the HUGE issues that face the world. From hedgehogs to the National Planning Policy Framework, the need to reduce animal products in our diet, transport infrastructure reform, climate change - and also the possibility that maybe, just maybe, we need to dismantle industrial capitalism and replace it with something sustainable (for this, I leave the details to the experts, but suggest you read Doughnut Economics by my dear friend Kate Raworth).
But at the Green Gathering, people are already there - in fact so far down the line that I fear they have forgotten the need for love and softness when it comes to nature … so again the hedgehog is useful as I pull those with their heads deep in the analysis of policy back into the hedgerow.
This year, I had low expectations, but just in case, brought along two different talks … and with just 5 minutes notice I went from being about to film a talk to doing a talk (the speaker had got caught in a massive traffic jam) … I was asked to fill the time until he arrived … so I dived into my 50 min hedgehog talk at full speed - breakneck speed to be honest, expecting to be interrupted by the lovely Phoenix at any moment … and found I had finished it in 35 minutes … so plenty of time for good questions. I loved the real sense of jeopardy, the lack of any preparation. It felt like when you are running downstairs … I had the knowledge that if I paused at any moment to thing, I would fall!
And then - the final day - the same thing happened - and I was the only backup around, so was able to pull the Cull of the Wild talk out of the bag!!
The thrill of this was in part from the company I was sharing a stage with. I was unaware of the rapper and activist Lowkey before but wow, what a force of nature - a really powerful presence, speaking out against the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Clive Lewis proved to be a cut above the usual Labour MPs - outspoken and with a deep knowledge and experience. I am not sure how he has not got sacked yet …
Kate Evans was great to see - I have a series of her books, she does the most amazing graphic novels - I first came across her work with the anti-roads protest in Copse, but she has covered climate change, refugee crisis - and has just finished … one about Jane Austin!
Zack Polanski and Ellie Chowns MP - two contenders for the top job in the Green Party did a hustings … good to see that even with disagreements there was a real sense that in the end, they will work together. There is hope!
And do you remember Jonathan Porritt? I certainly do, he was part of the green movement as I was first getting involved … well he has proved the idea that as we get older we get more conservative VERY wrong in deed and has gone from being Prince Charles adviser and business consultant to advocate of Just Stop Oil. His latest book, Love, Betrayal and Anger, Just Stop Oil’s Young Climate Campaigners, sounds utterly brilliant and lends proper intellectual and political weight to a movement that the petrol-heads of the mainstream media have done their best to belittle and dismiss.
The evenings were filled with films - Zoe had just finished editing one about a fortnight long peace camp at USAF Lakenheath, amazing how she managed to condense all that material into a fascinating 45 minutes. There was also a look at the free party movement, JSO protests, and The Battle of the Beanfield … which I could not watch as it is just so sad - the way the then Thatcher government demonised and then destroyed a way of life.
There was amazing music - Billy Bragg was superb, and righteously angry - and if you have not come across the Formidable Vegetables … oh, my, you have a treat in store - permaculture themed electro-funk - utterly brilliant!
Finally - I managed to squeeze in a little time at the Anti-Fa Spa … a sauna and shower set up that left me feeling almost boneless, but also clean!
Thank you Green Gathering for another year of magic … and so thrilled I could inject a healthy dose of hedgehog love into the mix again!!