Monica King and Lin Scrannage describe the long journey that has finally led to the successful creation of Bridport Cohousing Community in Dorset. Despite all the legal and financial obstacles that they faced they never gave up. Their living units are now all occupied and their community house is very close to completion. It's an inspiring tale.

Bridport Cohousing at Diggers & Dreamers
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/bridport-cohousing

Bridport Cohousing
https://bridportcohousing.org.uk

School of Natural Building
https://schoolofnaturalbuilding.co.uk

Hooke Park
https://hookepark.aaschool.ac.uk

Kirsten chats with Mary Davies and James Newman who are both long term members of Pilsdon Community. They're joined by Helen Lynch who has just become the new Warden. They talk about the original inspiration for the community and its founding members back in 1958. Nearly seven decades later the place is still going strong as a radically inclusive community which offers struggling people an opportunity to find a way through their problems.

Pilsdon Community at Diggers & Dreamers:
https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/community/pilsdon-community

Pilsdon Community:
https://www.pilsdon.org.uk/

Nicholas Ferrar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Ferrar

Little Gidding Community
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Gidding_community

Pilsdon Morning
Gaynor Smith 1982, ISBN 13: 9780863030598

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

Matt describes how he was born into a Bruderhof Community in England which then moved to... South America! Back in the UK as a young adult in the 1970s he chanced upon Lower Shaw - an old farmhouse with a bit of land that was fast being surrounded by the expansion of Swindon. His story then takes us through the various stages that Lower Shaw Farm has gone through in the intervening decades.

Lower Shaw Farm
https://www.lowershawfarm.co.uk/about-the-farm

Bruderhof Communities
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruderhof_Communities

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

Barbara Sanders and Chris Coates continue the story of Burnley-based People in Common. This episode covers the move from terraced houses to Altham Cornmill and the many creative ways in which this move was facilitated. A big thank you goes out to the dozens of volunteers who contributed their labour... and especially an informal organisation of the time that was called "Rapid Transformations". All RT needed was a bottle of whisky and a site for their sauna!

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/

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/