“… I don’t have a house at the moment. I am living with friends and moving around. I mean I guess for me it’s a choice right now, so it feels like it’s ok. I was really struggling living in London with the whole like …busyness, the rent, the monotony, just hundreds and hundreds of pounds every month. It costs a lot just to survive there, so I left to search for something different.
I gave an address in Totnes to the court, like the probation people, where my friend lives, and then when I went to the meeting in Torquay the woman asked me if I have any skills and I said I’ve trained in horticulture. In London, I did a course for a year and then she was like oh, there’s a place called LandWorks that’s just down the road from your address. At first, she was going to put me in a charity shop, and I was fine with it, I was happy to just do whatever. Yeah, then she said about LandWorks and explained the kind of things you do here, and I was like I would love to go there. My probation was a bit slow, and a bit rubbish and I just ended up coming one day myself because I was in Totnes. I was just going to come and say hello. I did, and then I met Chris. He took me around and it was like utopia, a haven, really special. I felt very lucky, and in some ways … I’m not sure about this everything happening for a reason thing, but like I’m really glad I’m here.
Being found guilty can be quite hard and devastating, and particularly in the context of being an activist, but now I feel ok about it. I’ve made peace with what happened and it feels important that I’m here. I guess what I love so much about this place is that it’s really radical and really doing something important, and it’s also quite subtle in how it’s doing that. I think that I’ve been trying to create change in whatever way for so long in everything I’m doing, but it’s really hard to see if it will change anything. I feel like it’s constantly experimenting and often like a needle in a haystack, you’ve got no idea if what you’re doing will have any difference to anyone and that can be quite a hard way to work. Whereas with LandWorks, it’s obvious that it’s affecting people’s lives and you’re really supporting people and changing them for the better. That kind of tangibleness is, I think, amazing and can be a really motivating thing for your work.
On my first day I thought it was really beautiful and very peaceful. I had no idea what had come before, like with it starting from nothing. It’s really hard to imagine now with all the plant growth. It’s really beautiful and yeah, everyone’s really friendly […] I felt very at home with people that are happy, like wanting to … I felt like people here really wanna support and I’m just ready for that help, I guess. It’s all the different areas which are amazing, like the pottery and Elli’s role in resettlement. It’s kind of not unseen but you know, Elli’s just in that little portacabin and that work is fundamental to so much of this and that holistic approach of what’s happening is really inspiring. Yeah, so I guess I just knew I wanted to be part of it. Chris said to me it would be really good for me to be here and hear other people’s stories, and I think that’s true … have conversations.
I think I’ve got a lot more understanding of the reality of people’s lives who have been in the justice system for maybe long periods of prison […] I’ve been really moved by what I’ve seen and heard here. I’ve met so many accepting … like what you and Chris and others have created over the years, it’s helped me to feel hopeful and inspired. Somehow it’s just that small pocket of change which is actually huge and for me as an activist, it’s really important to see that you can do something in one place in a community and it has huge ripples.
So I’m asking what that means for what I want to do going forward. Because it’s probably not sitting on roads asking the government do to something – I’m not really in that world anymore and it feels hopeless. This somehow feels very hopeful. It’s like the tangibility of it, I think, is what I’m trying to say.”
A window into LandWorks 