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/