…and then there is what you might call domestic anarchy – the mild sort of messiness of most peoples lives and homes. This last sort of anarchy tends to get amplified in communal settings. Continue reading Knocking-up, Support and other things we were supposed to do
I know you are supposed to be able to remember exactly where you were when you heard of some great historic moment that happened in your lifetime – But I’m sorry but I don’t know where I was when I heard : man had set foot on the moon……… Continue reading Hiding from the BOSS
So how do you turn a derelict mill into a thriving community with a handful of semi-skilled enthusiasts, no money, whilst bringing up small children (some of them being home schooled.) and at the same time being involved in local political campaigning ? Continue reading Doing Up The Mill (part 1)
We decided that it was one thing to be watched by Big Brother – but being charged for it was another thing entirely Continue reading What Did We Do in the Strike?
So most of the stories that we told ourselves back in the 1970s & ’80s about the Mill turn out to have some basis in history – even if we didn’t get the facts or dates quite right. Continue reading Notes on the history of Altham Corn Mill
We went to more theatre/music/art in Burnley than I ever did when I lived in London – partly because you couldn’t quite believe what was being put on in this post industrial backwater Continue reading Urban Myth & Magic
If you had asked me in the past what our decision making process was at People in Common I would have said we used consensus, or more correctly I would now say we used the unanimity form of consensus process that was prevelant at the time. Continue reading So how did we decide that
At PIC when I arrived the only music that was going on was that Barbara was learning to play Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer on an old upright piano she had jammed into her to tiny downstairs front room bedroom Continue reading Singing for our lives
So we set up Altham Workers Co-op and set off on something of an adventure in running our own business. There was definitely an element of making it up as we went along. Continue reading “No toilet and what if I got pregnant ?”
A year or so before I joined People in Common had bought a derelict cornmill with a three and half acre field on the banks of the River Calder some five miles from the houses in Burnley. Continue reading Mill owners out on a stroll
