

The first of three talks programmed in partnership with the Essex Book Festival. Writer and social historian Ken Worpole focuses on ‘back to the land’ and utopian experiments in North East Essex, including the Adelphi Centre, Frating Hall Farm, the Othona Community and Ardleigh. Part of Radical ESSEX an anthology accompanying a project re-examining the county in reation to radicalism in thought, lifestyle, politics and architecture.
This event is part of Essex Book Festival’s PLACE weekend, taking place at Firstsite in Colchester on Saturday 23 & Sunday 24 March. More info: https://essexbookfestival.org.uk/event/ken-worpole/
Nature produces mental and physical health benefits. It works for all people, young and old, rich and poor, all cultural groups, in all green environments whether urban park, farm or wild nature. In our modern high-consumption economies, life has often come to be lived on red alert. Yet activities in nature involving immersion and attentiveness can quieten the internal chatter, and help us form healthy habits to affect behaviours across the lifecourse. The green mind could also help foster greener economies that would help us and the planet.
Jules Pretty is Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex. He was Head of the Department of Biological Sciences from 2004-2008, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Science & Engineering) from 2010-2012, then Deputy Vice-Chancellor from 2012-2019. His books include The East Country (Cornell Univ Press, 2017), The Edge of Extinction (Cornell University Press, 2014), This Luminous Coast (2011, 2014), The Earth Only Endures (2007), Agri-Culture (2002), The Living Land (1998), and Regenerating Agriculture (1995). He received an OBE in 2006 for services to sustainable agriculture.
Booking through the Quay Theatre
The fifteenth Annual Constable Trust Lecture, given this time by Professor Frances Spalding, CBE, FRSL, Emeritus Fellow, Clare Hall, Cambridge. http://www.theconstabletrust.org.uk
Image: John Nash ‘Mill Building, Boxted’ 1962, Tate Gallery.
A talk by Professor Jules Pretty connected with his recently published book ‘The East Country’.
“An old farm ethic from the east country states you should live as if tomorrow were your last, but farm the land as if you will live forever. Nature will survive us all. How it looks depends on our choices, our responsibilities. This is it, said Seamus Heaney. There is no next-time-round.”
In our technology-obsessed world, we are becoming increasingly estranged from the land we live on, most of us unaware of the damage that our actions – or inaction – is having on us as individuals and on the world around us. Jules Pretty’s evocative and beautifully-written new book suggests we should all go outside and explore the east country on our own doorsteps. And that is exactly what the author wants you to do…
Jules Pretty is Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex, has received an OBE for his services to sustainable agriculture, and has written widely on the braiding of nature and people.
Martin Bell OBE talks about growing up on the Waveney and his father, writer, Adrian Bell’s friendship with Sir Alfred Munnings
Dr John Thornes, a professional academic meteorologist, discusses why the sky plays such an important part in Constable’s most famous representation of British landscape, The Hay Wain.