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Clare Richardson

About Clare Richardson

Posts by Clare Richardson:

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That it’s all just a little bit of history repeating.

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I was born under Callaghan’s Labour government in 1977, into a world of brown Dralon, the Silver Jubilee and its accompaniment by the Sex Pistols. Jim Callaghan had a majority of just three seats in parliament. With no parliamentary power, mounting internal divisions in the Labour Party and widespread industrial action all over the country, he was doomed to lose a vote of confidence in 1979. Out went Labour for 18 years and Thatcher became PM.

Thatcher rode high, promising fast and easily understood policies to solve the mess the country was in, through a move back to traditional British values and isolationist nationalism, using Saatchi & Saatchi to convey it all in readily digestible ads. Things had become increasingly chaotic and national decline was starkly apparent. Combined with a disunited opposition, she had a perfect springboard into a more authoritarian style of government. We needed old-fashioned values and a return to individual liberties. Forget community, this was more about individual aspiration.

Over the past few thousand years, wise people have shared various ideas that there are traditional ‘cycles’ that we will see played out over and over again in society and politics; Plato distinguishes five forms of government that we see come and go through these cycles: aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. (Obviously, I had to look up what a timocracy was). In our lifetimes we will see almost a whole cycle. The long global cycle, according to Dr. Dan Cox, is a period lasting approximately 70 to 100 years. At the end of that period, “the title of most powerful nation in the world switches hands.”

If we look at WW2 as the beginning of a cycle, we could be hot on the heels of tyranny. The rise of right-wing populism again, as we can see all over the globe and very apparently across Europe, was not unpredictable. When people see an unending decline, we often look for leaders who offer quick, understandable solutions, whatever the trade-off. What we don’t always fully comprehend is the truth behind the problems. Underfunding of services, decrepit systems not fit for purpose and mismanagement of taxpayers’ money are not as delicious front-page fodder as a boat full of desperate people trying to cross the channel. Those people, we are led to believe, will steal our jobs and our homes whilst simultaneously being on benefits and taking over our seafront hotels. For populists who want power, a very dull election with little choice among the manifestos on offer is a perfect playground.

Across the world, we witness another rise of the right and the age-old nationalist play for the population of each place to retain, regain or renew their national identity. Blame a group of people – immigrant or Jewish people, perhaps, alongside simple, fast solutions to complex issues that have been millennia and often a colonial past in the making. The myth often is that there is a pure, ethnic, national identity in a place that is being acutely watered down. A long time ago, I had a conversation with a friend’s Italian Grandfather and, later in life, with my friend Gabriel in Spain, about Mussolini and Franco. Their opening conversation was the same, they saw nothing but poverty as they grew up, before these people came to power and, subsequently, they were amazed by the transformation, hospitals, schools and good roads being rapidly built almost overnight. They also both lost close family members to what then became an authoritarian, fascist regime.

Our unconscious bias needs a collective rattle to prevent us from such easy manipulation, followed by regular rattles, individually. We’ve all got it, a touch of the unconscious biases, it’s an intrinsic part of how our brain tries to efficiently process the stuff we see and experience. Be mindful, think about what you read and why you want to believe it – if a particular group is targeted, check and check again what the motive might be. We were all fairly happy to help those fleeing Ukraine, people who looked like white Westerners and dressed like us, arriving on planes and trains – easy to swallow without much thought and without unconscious bias beacons making much noise. Would we have not helped them, or threatened to sink/shoot them if they had come by small boat or on the back of a lorry? When the people are brown and otherwise visibly different to the mythical ‘ethnic Englishman’, some British people are perhaps not so sure, not so trusting, not so quick to offer our spare rooms. Could it be the low hum of anti-Muslim, racist and baseless rhetoric that we have heard, read and watched every day for decades that has found a way into our somewhat collective unconscious? That they are ‘other’, not like ‘us’, and God forbid I bring it up, vaguely connected to our colonial past. Probably. Whoops-a-daisy, Brenda, I think I might be an unconscious racist.

Designing the future of a place does not just have to be a rearranging of what has come before – it can be new and different to reflect a new and different society. Different is not always something to fear and the past was certainly not always glorious. We are on a small island in Europe without an empire, what could that look and feel like if we dared to dream? We could be the ‘envy of the world’ for our world-beating health system, radical education system, our rich community capital or all-encompassing social support. Much is made of some male candidates being ‘men of the people’, or like ‘a bloke down the pub’ – I really don’t want Sid from the White Hart as PM, much as he has some interesting takes on things. Let’s vote for someone you’d trust to feed your cat over the weekend, and perhaps someone who is not into supporting genocide and upholds basic human rights. Have a think about what your decision means for all of us, ignore the urge to not talk politics, just do it well – be kind, remain connected and be compassionate when you don’t share someone else’s opinions. Nobody had their mind changed through a shout-off.

It’s not an easy election to vote in, but it could be one of our most important for 70 years. A more connected, curious and compassionate society is possible.

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Crowd with a large tree above them. A sign held up reads 'Love for all, Hatred for none'

Empathy, migration and humanity

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Photo credit: Emma Turner

So many of us feel the hardness, loneliness and disconnection around the places we have lived all our lives. It’s impossible to imagine migrating to a place where you add into that a lack of familiarity with not just the place, but the language, foods, weather, customs and the very landscape itself. I had a very privileged glimpse when my son was a tiny baby and very ill overseas and I had to make sense of the medical system. It seemed impossible to navigate and I was faced by person after person who could not understand exactly what it was I was unable to comprehend or confused by, being so familiar with it themselves. The process to get seen by someone was unfathomable to me. All was well in the end for us though, I never once imagined I would be turned away once I had found my way and this was just a fleeting glimpse, not a whole new life with a raft of oncoming, interconnecting alien experiences before me.

Lots of us have friends, colleagues or people in our day-to-day lives, around the shops, services and spaces we regularly inhabit, that have migrated to the UK who have encountered the differences, hurdles, assumptions and challenges of living outside of the experience they were born into somewhere else. Have you ever asked them about their unique observations of the UK, the things they encountered that seemed entirely crazy to start with? Some of us seldom cross paths with anyone who has experience of migrating across the world to be here. What are your assumptions around those that choose a life here over the one they encountered as they entered the world?

We know that various players in the media want us to believe certain, simplified and distorted pictures about those that migrate here, to benefit whatever end/policy/camp they are seeking to support. We also know that migrating people come here for many reasons; study, marriage, a perceived better life for themselves and their families, seasonal work, asylum and refuge, and many more complicated reasons beyond. When we choose to migrate to Australia, France, Spain or any of the other usual destinations for migrating Brits, would we expect to be caricatured and labelled too? I’m certain we are and yet we know in our hearts that the reasons behind any movement, especially with family in tow, are complex and unique to each situation and that, as individuals, we all hold different values and cannot possibly be lumped together.

Part of my family are believed to have moved from Eastern Europe and settled around Spitalfields/Whitechapel in the 1880’s, apparently along with 90% of all the Jewish people migrating here, until the first world war. Charitable Societies to support the huge influx of working-class Jewish people fleeing a hostile Europe at that time gave new arrivals the tools to survive, such as signposting to work, soup kitchens, cheap lodgings and made a huge number of small interest-free loans available that enabled many to start their own businesses. So, a collection of people who showed kindness to strangers helped to ensure I appeared here far later in 1977. Thank you 19th C East End Societies.

According to government data, this year has seen the greatest number of people arriving via small boats than ever before, a stat reported widely and yet ‘in 2021, there were around 9 asylum applications for every 10,000 people living in the UK. Across the EU27 there were 14 asylum applications for every 10,000 people. The UK was therefore below the average among EU countries for asylum applications per head of population, ranking 16th among EU27 countries plus the UK on this measure.’ The hyper-visibility of boats coming across the channel makes the front page, not the balanced truth. We’ve seen plenty of reports in the media labelling people ‘illegal migrants’ or just ‘migrants’, using dehumanising language to further set us apart, and we must learn to think mindfully and critically about the information we are being fed. This year, Red Cross researchers found that 74 per cent of the UK public has sympathy towards refugees and asylum seekers – up from 59 per cent in December 2022, so perhaps the divide and conquer rhetoric is not succeeding.

Join us in our new six-week exchanges between people who have migrated to the UK and those whose families have lived here for generations. If you believe a more connected, curious and compassionate society is possible, then let’s examine and reimagine the kind of welcome we offer people. Roots curate up to an hour a week of offline activities between you and a partner that we pick for you for three weeks, followed by three guided conversations for the final three weeks. These offer you an opportunity to reflect on your life and the lives of others, to ask questions, share ideas and to look at our society through another lens. Noticing our similarities always brings great joy and appreciating our differences and talking about them offers us rich opportunities to learn, develop and create a society that works for all of us.

The programme is fully funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, individual participants do not need to pay. We start again in October, please register your interest here.

 

Blackpool's Holden Mile with the tower in the background and Pat's Bingo in the foreground

Bingo! What a conversation.

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Photos and blog by Linzi Cason – Community Lead and Co-Facilitator on The Roots Community Conversation: Blackpool 

The community conversation was just over two weeks ago and I am still thinking about some of the conversations being had. It felt good to talk with other ‘sandgrown-uns’ about our town and a vision for what it could be. When asked about what we would most definitely keep it was clear that the Parks, Tower and of course Notarianni’s were top of the list. But we also discussed about how strong a community we have here in Blackpool. Comments like ‘we can talk about the bad parts of our town but when someone else does you feel offended and jump to defend it’. We are protective of the town and rightly so, there is so much on offer to locals and visitors.

As the illustrative notes are drawn up from the conversation, Blackpool is once again in the news. First with the Office for National Statistics with its yearly statistics stating we have the lowest life expectancy in both men and women. This then followed by the headline ‘The Prom is Dead’ with claims the weather has meant traders have had the worst year yet. It is hard, as a local, to read and understand fully what these mean. On one hand you consider that your own life might end before others across the country simply because you live here. On the other hand I personally feel for those traders suffering on the prom (as the granddaughter of a rock stall trader). But honestly these only cross my mind as I read about them because with the Rebellion weekend just passing you only see the town filled with people enjoying themselves.

However, what does stay with me, is how people from outside of the town feel when they read these headlines. Does it put them off coming here? And that is where I feel (and others on the call) feel the town needs to be defended. Blackpool has a sense of magic, that is why people return here over and over for holidays and some to stay. As I mentioned on the call, my own work has led me to support those who have returned here from childhood holidays to find all that is gold does not glitter. But that is ok, we know as a town what our problems are – all towns have them – but it is what we do next that really matters.

Although the Roots conversation is over, there are still actions to be taken: residents on the call were keen to start a regular, informal conversation that feeds back monthly/bimonthly to our elected officials – Roots and other friendly organisations working in this field are developing some advisory guidelines to help ensure that the conversational participants remain equal around the table and that no single person gets lumbered arranging them – all ideas on this are welcomed and other places where conversations have been held are looking hopefully at creating something similar too, for residents and by residents.

Finally, it was mentioned that we need to take a trip to Pat’s Bingo and I think that might be a good start to what a regular conversation could look like. So who is going to join me? 

For more information or to add your ideas to the conversational melting pot, or to plan that trip to Pat’s contact clare@rootsprogramme.org

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Roots Community Conversations & Future Generations

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After a longish period of feeling a bit apathetic about life in the UK and politically homeless, I was invited to attend an online event being arranged by our friends at Network of Wellbeing. It was an evening online call called ‘Building Wellbeing Together: Wellbeing of Future Generations’, which, at the time, seemed like an opportunity to share visions of what we might hope future generations may experience in terms of wellbeing. I had no idea what the evening may really hold, but all of us here at Roots love attending these kinds of events for inspiration and reigniting ideas and passions for the work we do and I was interested to listen and learn from the comfort of my sofa.

First up, and first assault on my apathy, was Amanda Janoo, a Vermont-based speaker from the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, who spoke at length about replacing our system and mindset, exchanging economic growth as the central thing our society values as a mark of success with the wellbeing of our planet and the humans living on it. Our second speaker was a woman the same age as me, I don’t know why this made her all the more interesting to me, still yet to figure that out, but it certainly added something to the mix. Sophie Howe is the outgoing, and was the first ever, Future Generations Commissioner for Wales.

Key to understanding Sophie’s story is comprehending the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. Rolling out in 2016, it set out seven well-being goals: i) a prosperous Wales, ii) a resilient Wales, iii) a healthier Wales, iv) a more equal Wales, v) a Wales of cohesive communities, vi) a Wales of vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language and vii) a globally responsible Wales. Which all sounded like lovely things to aim for, but I couldn’t imagine how these points could actually be achieved. The Act set out these goals alongside a small bunch of principles that new developments should be passed through the lens of before getting the ok.

Essentially, as I understand it, all new developments must be examined to ensure that they would allow future generations to enjoy at least the same levels of health and wellbeing that we do now, and if short-term thinking threatened the wellbeing of future generations, then pressure to veto such thinking could be applied. In this capacity, Sophie Howe advised the Welsh government against building a bypass around Newport linked to the M4 motorway because it would result in financial debt for the future as well as destroy local biodiversity. She argued that we were building capacity for extra road traffic we didn’t want. It happened, or rather it didn’t happen, the bypass was canned.

I love the idea that every development through government should be put through this lens. I thought about my son, who was sleeping upstairs as I took the call. My generation inherited a UK in which buying or even renting a house is far more difficult than ever before, Norway enjoys a society enriched through it’s sovereign wealth fund, whilst we sold off our gas to the highest bidder, oh, and older people disproportionately voted for Brexit. Suddenly, what we are creating right now, and the legacy we offer our children’s children, came very sharply into focus.

My son and I are a groovy, solid, single parent and child unit. Engaging in the capacity of putting myself forth as a local councillor is fraught with time constraints and having juggled for too long with a multitude of other things, clubs, sanity and trying to remain afloat financially, I am reluctant to try to go there, even if anyone would have me. Ruth Ibegbuna, Roots’ Founder, worked on ‘Community Conversations’ previously in Wales and then, with a few of us alongside her, in Scotland, partnering with the David Hume Institute. These conversations brought people together as equals for around two hours, online, and were not something I had previously experienced. The digital divide was bridged for these sessions by helpful extra partnerships with other organisations such as libraries and community hubs who supported participants with tech and know-how. The sessions I assisted with struck me, most notably, as really warm and friendly where the people turning up all felt their voice was equally worth listening to, like a chat across a kitchen table. Nothing reminiscent of Handsforth Parish Council whatsoever. Some participants represented local organisations and took their place beside very wonderful, ‘ordinary’ individuals from the community who knew it very well and had special insight, or were new to the area and had unique ideas for connecting the dots better. We had a chatty few hours and created a list of action points that people volunteered to tackle and report back upon.

The experiences of visiting parliament in London, the town council in Bungay, where I live, and the wonderful experiences I have enjoyed bringing together the voices of us, the Norman Normals of the area together to connect and talk, calmly and compassionately about what they want the future to look like in their place have led us to the project we are working on at present. Roots Community Conversations kicks off at the end of March in Bradford, the place in which our founder, Ruth Ibegbuna, grew up and we hope to continue into a community near you, neutral space holders for informality and the less-usually-heard voices.

 

Register to join us across the Roots kitchen table, online on the 22nd March at 10am to chat all things Bradford 

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The Roots Exchange: Different Lives

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Abiola and I, here at The Roots Programme, are getting ready to start another round of our gently held exchanges from March. Our Roots Exchanges are over around 6 weeks and involve us pairing up people from different places with different lives around the UK to ‘see how the other half live’. Some of the time it might feel like having a pen pal, and at others it feels like taking part in a Human Library, it involves sharing and reading and listening to another perspective.  We believe a more connected, curious and compassionate society is possible, and our exchange offers ‘unlikely’ connections with people from across our society, that you otherwise might never stumble across, with a life experience different to your own to be curious about.

It can be difficult to step outside our social bubbles, we tend to surround ourselves with people who share similar beliefs, values, and experiences as us. This is often referred to as ‘homophily’, the tendency to associate with people who are similar to us. Our social bubbles can be formed by a variety of factors, including our geographic location, our education background, our occupation, our socioeconomic status, and our interests and hobbies. We may also be influenced by the media we consume and the online communities we participate in.

Stepping outside our bubble is an opportunity for personal growth and learning. It can help us to develop empathy and understanding for people who are different from us and to broaden our perspectives. It can also be a way to build relationships and connections with people who we may not have otherwise encountered. Roots ensure people come together as equals, we give you the common goal of connecting compassionately with your partner and allow you space to cooperate, all whilst held gently and supportively together by the Roots team.

Some people on the exchange find themselves sharing and communicating with someone entirely different to themselves, and others, despite our best attempts to pair across a range of differences, find a multitude of similarities with their partner in the end. Some people don’t reach the end, and that’s ok too. Any which way, to dare to try is the exercise we support – to take a step outside of the safety of your social bubble and to exchange our unique perspectives and life experiences with others is what we all need to do more of to dispel our fear of ‘other’ and to build a more connected and compassionate culture.

We don’t tend to give too much detail up front around our activities across the six weeks usually, to keep things fresh and interesting, but we’ve felt moods change. The social world and worlds of work that we must step back out into don’t feel quite as comfortable now, perhaps, as they once did, and so we have tweaked the exchange activities and made them more approachable and thought-provoking, we hope, with the psychological safety of knowing that the activities are very carefully thought out and won’t create tension between you. 

In week one we pair you and you learn only your partner’s name and you may hear a recording of their voice, but you won’t communicate directly for another few weeks. Week one should feel like a very, very gentle introduction. Again, in weeks two and three, you will share written or transcribed information about your tastes, your daily routine and your passions and interests, with Roots doing the actual exchanging of materials between partners, as intermediaries.

From week four partners begin to communicate directly, without Roots as intermediary, but to ease you in, we initially set a task to discuss on a phone call or an online call. After that, the final two weeks are conversations around themes that Roots believe we do not discuss often enough, our senses of belonging and of difference. The Exchange does not pitch people against one another, we want to reduce debate and argumentative conversation as our first port of call – we encourage and support compassionate curiosity and dialogue, that is what this space is for, to practise those things mindfully and with intent to go away and plant seeds within your own worlds for the same. As I said before, we believe that a more connected, curious and compassionate society is possible.

Join us on an exchange

 

Visions of the UK (from people like us)

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Visions of the UK (from people like us)

I’ve had a low key Summer with my son, we’ve watched the news less, done less than perhaps we usually do and certainly spent less than in previous Summer Holidays. I’m a single parent, working part-time for Roots and adding in days on other projects, flexibly, around my child. Less ‘extra’ work is possible during the Summer because I have Arlo at home, but this limit on Summer earnings has never phased me previously.

The cost of living crisis has snuck up on us quickly; being creatures of habit, our weekly shopping bill has climbed steadily, despite containing the same things week in/week out. My lackadaisical attitude towards listening to or acting upon anything Martin Lewis says has cranked up ten notches, I now read everything he publishes as soon as it drops into my inbox. I’m noticing the rapid change and our lives are radically different to the one we lived only a year ago – there are now few extras incoming, no TV subscriptions and no impulsive buys or holiday plans. I’d be tucking money away in a savings account if there was any left over at the end of the month, too.

The reassuring thing for us, now that school is back in, is that I have a bit of extra capacity to work more hours and bridge the financial gap a bit, but what about my neighbour eight doors down, who works as a carer, undoubtedly on a low and unwavering wage and already doing all the hours god sends? The one chink of light, in what feels like a long, communal slide into the abyss, is possibly a hangover from the new kinds of relationships we all built here during Lockdown, that we are able to talk to each other about what’s happening to us now, in a candid way that we didn’t before.

I was at another neighbour’s house this week, doing her highlights at the kitchen table as a favour, and her husband brought up the energy crisis, the new PM and immigration – all in one short, DIY hair bleaching session. Despite my love of a good political ranting session, these neighbours have never wanted to discuss anything like this before and always felt awkward when I brought anything up. They carried on, talking about how they felt embarrassed by the last PM we had representing us on the world stage and that they knew nothing at all about the new one – how distant they generally felt from our leaders, and how unlike ‘us’ they are.

We talked about immigration, ‘everyone still wants to come here, though.’ I felt it was okay for once to wonder out loud that ‘if that were true, then, why are there so many driving, service, farm and labouring jobs going begging at the moment?’ – a million, apparently. ‘Could it be that our migrant workforce might be going back to their countries of origin in their droves?’

It was a calm and thoughtful conversation, no debate, heavy on wondering and light on facts, just learning about each other’s attitudes very gently, drinking coffee, swatting at a persistent wasp and doing quite a good amateur job on Eileen’s highlights. It was, however, the start of a conversation we’d never had before – what do we see when we look around and what do we want our UK to look and feel like?

Over the next 18 months, The Roots Programme will be holding online conversations with ordinary people to discuss our visions of the UK we want to live in. We are also holding smaller, community-based online conversations in the same way, in places where wealth and deprivation may sit side by side.

Attend our UK-wide, online Visions conversations, come along and dare to dream, choose to listen and connect with others who live here in the UK, compassionately.

Find tickets here for our online event on the 28th of September. 

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Roots UK Exchanges: WHY are we?

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The Roots Programme began as a pre-lockdown, in-person, pilot exchange between a small number of adult partners with the support of an even smaller team of Roots facilitators. The participants were from the North and the other UK regions and paired with people from large corporations and organisations in London. The initial vision was to bring people together, people who might otherwise never meet and certainly had no real experience of each other’s lifestyles and landscapes in this same society, supporting them to meet, talk, see how the other half live and break bread together. Post-Brexit, immediately after the results came in, we awoke to a UK that we couldn’t have dreamed of prior to the decision to hold a referendum. The referendum could not have done a better job of setting British people at odds if it had been designed to do just that. A society, unlike the US, that seldom found itself fractured across just the one burning issue was just that, bitterly divided into two distinct camps that defied traditional party affiliations and class camps. As the first in-person, pilot Roots exchange came to an end, in trotted the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lockdown wore on through 2020, Roots saw that the pandemic, as with all major upheavals through history, offered another rare opportunity to pause and reimagine the kind of society we want to inhabit. People across the country were embracing online means of communication, and at a rate nobody could have foreseen. The shapes of our relationships were changing, it was easier to chat on the phone or online than to see someone on the next estate down. The all-hands-to-the-pump call to the nation to lock down, the chaotic and changing ‘hands, face, space…whatever’ messaging followed by that trip to Barnard Castle sent our trust in government on a rollercoaster ride across the next couple of years. Medical staff, shop workers and transport staff all became ‘key workers’, keeping the population alive, fed and moving – and we clapped for them from our doorsteps. High levels of covid plagued the areas that experience high levels of deprivation, further highlighting the disparities in our society – who could miss it? Confidence in the British government became very low indeed, particularly within our marginalised communities. The vaccine rolled out from December 2020 and we saw further division across the country over those, with most reluctance, unsurprisingly, seen in those marginalised communities. 

A new Roots team was assembled for the new brief, a small one once more but spread across the country this time, since online working had swiftly become the norm and suited the new, risk-reduced, online nature of the exchanges perfectly. Roots’ team are in Bristol, London, East Anglia, West Yorkshire and Scotland and our HQ is in Manchester. The newly formed team set about looking at how we could bring people together from across the UK to ‘see how the other half live’ and, as Ted Cantle wrote in his 2001 Report into the northern race riots, how those who live ‘parallel lives’ to our own exist.  

In 1954, Gordon Allport, an American Psychologist, published a book called ‘The Nature of Predjudice’ and set out his hypothesis that, under the right conditions, bringing groups of people together under controlled conditions to make contact could successfully bridge divides and create dialogue, reducing discrimination, assumptions and prejudice. Just post-World War II, he was mostly concerned with desegregation in the US as troops returned home. The ‘Contact Theory’ has since been applied to many other in-groups and out-groups, such as with the integration of the LGBTQ+ community in a University in California and in reducing anti-Muslim sentiments in communities in the Netherlands.  It’s such a simple hypothesis that it could almost be overlooked, but the kernel of what Roots envisioned was there.

Roots’ latest exchanges, starting out afresh and in a whole new world after the initial lockdown, took in the four principles that Allport had set out for contact theory to present the best outcomes. Our pairings would be across gender, generation, location, national identity, ethnicity, educational background, class and faith. We wanted to bring people together, initially, with equal status within the exchange, and so we began without formal introductions and pursued relative anonymity. Exchange partners have a common goal, to take time each week to explore someone else’s life, whilst reflecting on their own identity and life choices. Allport stipulated integrated cooperation, and so no part of the exchange is competitive – partners must arrange times together to converse and they complete a very simple activity cooperatively. His final principle was for an authority to encourage and support friendly, helpful, egalitarian attitudes. Roots are that structural body, supporting and facilitating with the lightest touch and the sincerest amount of humanity and warmth possible, to set the tone.

Roots don’t have ambitions to scale up massively and work with huge numbers of people on the adult exchanges. Our approach is small in scale and big in sincerity, warmth and individual impact. We firmly believe that deeper individual experiences create more mindful, longer term behaviour shifts and create more profound ripple effects across wider social bubbles over time. 

We pair people trapped in social bubbles of sameness, seldom meeting or engaging with anyone too far different to themselves with those who feel marginalised, misunderstood or not seen and heard effectively within our wider society.

Register here for our latest exchange or contact clare@rootsprogramme.org to learn more about taking part in our series of 2022 and 2023 exchanges.

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The Lost Art of Connection (still in progress)

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Another ‘Experience Exchange’ has begun here at Roots, between pairs of adults who wish to take a few steps in someone else’s shoes. As the intermediary in the first few weeks, I am again humbled and inspired by the task of gathering and exchanging the thoughts, passions and stories of the people who have been paired with strangers who live quite different lives to them, across our society.

Through the things they discuss in the written and recorded materials we exchange between them, their life’s journey and their relationships become tangible, recognisable and intriguing. Memories are triggered for them as they wind their way through our guidance, and they package tantalising, insightful and honest morsels of their identities to share with their exchange partner. Some can be seen to already have a surprising amount in common with their partner despite a cultural, gender, generational or geographical difference and other pairs appear to be from different plains entirely but share a similar warmth, humour and keenness to connect and share.

Reading the responses and preparing to exchange them, as Roots’ intermediary, is more emotional a task than I ever recalled it was. I remind myself repeatedly that I am the carrier pigeon and not the exchange partner. I want to write to them all, ask them questions, and tell them what their stories spark within me. I want to explain why their favourite book is important to me too and that I’d love to hear more about how they found it. It isn’t that just I am, uniquely, drawn to these kinds of gentle interactions, we all love to listen with curiosity to stories and have our memories ignited, but working from home, as so many of us are, can be lonely, even in the town of my upbringing where I know so many people. This new ‘WFH’ life, spent mostly in my house, day after day, is a profoundly anti-social one and I’m missing connection, myself. I don’t yearn to share an office with a huge body of others again anytime soon, but it focuses the mind on what kind of connections we are still able to make now that we’ve all become a bit rusty, and that opportunities to find new, in-person connections have become a bit thin on the ground.

Last week I remembered, with some rust evident, how to make good, solid small talk, on the line at our local football club. My son has been at running clubs on a Monday night for years. This involves me, traditionally, sitting in a cold car alone, alongside a load of other parents alone in their cold cars, watching the runners when they are close enough, reading our books and listening to the radio. This, after sending our children, one by one, through a Covid-related, coned-off, barrier area to be hand-gelled and clip-board-registered. There is no space for parents and carers to easily interact around this session. Arlo decided to try football last Thursday, so we arrived at the new place, wandered about until we had been directed around about 7 different groups of small football players and, finally, I found myself with a few adults I recognised from the school gates. ‘Do you want a pint?’ Asked one of the dads as I approached the edge of the pitch. ‘A..sorry…a what?’ I replied, assuming I had misheard. ‘A pint, the bar’s open, do you want anything?’ Now, after 6 years of having to pretend that I am a clean-living, off-duty triathlete at running club, I am now expected to have a pint on the edge of the pitch at football club. Some parents were pairing their pint with a cheeky roll-up.

A whole new world. I’m not glorifying the drinking of alcohol at a children’s sports club, however it might appear, but the big hitter, the thing that really emerged for me there was that this was a place at which we were ALL expected to connect and engage with each other, as a community, and that is indeed what happened. I had a very weak half a shandy in a very bendy plastic cup, the others had one, singular pint a piece and we watched our children play football (in a quagmire) together. We all laughed at a story that another parent told; so hard that I had to wipe my tears and blow my nose on my child’s Harry Potter face-mask. I refused to kick the ball back on because I had my new suede boots on, so another carer dove in front of me like Peter Schmeichel and booted it back into the game. It didn’t matter. Connection and community feel amazing, incredible, like a big, furry, warm hug and I had forgotten that I had forgotten.

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Permission to be curious…

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Working on the materials for The Roots Programme’s ‘Experience Exchanges’, I started to think about the pen pal I had when I was around ten, my son’s age now. We wrote for about a year before it tailed off but, in that year, I learned a lot about life in a small village in Italy as I went about my days in a small village in Norfolk. My pen pal had incredible wavy, decorative handwriting and used Parma violet-scented, pastel notepaper that I always felt gave the written words an Italian ‘accent’. She sent me Italian sweets (I probably asked her to, the shame) and told me all about their big Easter celebrations and how much ceremony there was in her Catholic family life. It all seemed Technicolor in comparison to my life but, in hindsight, the interesting differences between us must have been enough to keep her writing back to me too. Differences are interesting, however mundane we imagine our own lives to be at times, and being a pen pal gave me permission to be curious. 

About six years ago, I decided to write to someone I knew that was on remand. I wrote around ten letters which were sent via an online form and a fee to get them to him in the prison. His replies were an incredible, awful insight into a system that was on its knees. They were also clearly a relief to write and some sort of escape. His letters were on folded, envelope/notepaper, all-in-one things and not a single space was left anywhere on them. He wrote about his prison experience in detail, and in very tiny handwriting, to give as full a picture as he could, with the knowledge that all of this would be read by the authorities lingering heavily through his stories. My letters were limited by the online form in terms of length, and I also had to think hard about writing too luridly about the joys of being on the outside. I chose to write intricate day diary style letters instead, ‘mundane, gentle, comforting and readable’ was the aim. My son was much smaller so we were always making something or baking something I could write about, I talked about the swifts turning up in the sky whilst I hung the washing out, the new kitten’s penchant for weeing up the curtains, the crappy woodshed I was building out of old bits of fence and what I was trying to grow in the garden that was being stripped bare by the slugs and the caterpillars. I really wanted to make him feel in touch with home, but it was also an interesting exercise in mindfulness, compassion and connection.

My friend Nicholas, who I volunteer in my community with, introduced me to the Mass Observation diaries and materials last Winter; the thoughts, lifestyles and choices of ordinary people, in their own words, from 1937 onwards. It struck me as another kind of exchange between people, but across vast swathes of time. I watched Victoria Wood’s dramatisation of the Mass Observation diaries of Nella Last, a 49-year-old housewife from Barrow-in-Furness. Nella wrote for many, many years, beginning at the outbreak of the Second World War. She lived a life that seems extraordinary to me now, but in her own mind was very ordinary indeed.

Pictured – Nella Last and her son, from Wiki Commons

The Roots Programme’s ‘Experience Exchange’ offers an interesting opportunity to swap stories, offer insights into our different, routine day-to-day life experiences and to listen compassionately to other people’s experiences. Roots hopes to expand existing levels of social connection and empathy across the UK, encouraging individuals to imagine a relationship-focused future and make micro-changes to the way we engage with others that will benefit us all. 

Register for our exchange and meet someone who leads a parallel life to your own, have full permission to be curious, share your lived experience and try on someone else’s shoes. 

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Autumn: Join The Roots Programme’s Adult Exchange

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The Roots Programme are starting to see interest from individuals across the UK who would like to take part in our next round of adult exchanges in Autumn this year. This will involve a commitment of six weeks, an hour or less per week that these curious and compassionate people will dedicate to getting to know someone and imparting those bits of their own story that they wish to share with them.

We are looking to support exchanges between adults who seldom step out of their own social sphere and those who feel they are unheard, misunderstood or marginalised within this society.

It’s a simple premise, Roots believe that we can counter our sense of polarisation in this country by drawing people living parallel lives in the same society together, with permission to compare and exchange their life experiences in an enjoyable way. We want participants to think about their identity, their roots, place and assumptions around others afresh.

Join us, tell your story and step outside of your bubble, for the kind, compassionate and connected society we all want to live in.

Register here or contact clare@rootsprogramme.org to register your interest.

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Neighbouring, Listening and Belonging

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I’ve lived here on this long road for twelve years, although I only really formed warmer relationships with my neighbours since I became a single-parent five years ago. Even those were only maintained by some conversations over the fence, the odd lend of something, nothing profound, and I often thought, at night and in the early months of being partner-less, that if anyone tried to break into my house, I didn’t even have the phone numbers to call for help next door.

My left-hand neighbour and I share a passageway, as well as the experience of single parenthood. She has five girls, almost all of whom have now left home. She is funny, practical, sage and is the well of so much love from and to her family that she could sink a ship with it. My right-hand neighbour has five boys, a few of whom are still at home with her and her husband, and a few years ago she became a member of lunchtime staff at my son’s school. We didn’t find many points at which to chat much, but she’d often walk around my house and visit my other neighbour.

During Lockdown we inadvertently sky-watched for Starlink together, all three households sat in our respective front gardens with a glass of something, chatting and laughing more than looking upwards. Last Autumn we all spent an un-arranged afternoon taking a collapsed hedge out together and recently we all got together in the garden to watch the football final and then to communally discuss what to do with my car which constantly broke down. We now have a common life that I am proud of, not just borrowing cups of sugar, I care, they care, we all care about one another with quiet understanding.

Our front garden abuts the route of a lovely walk with views all over the valley and so we saw a huge amount of people from the community, repeatedly taking their walk, over the Summer last year. It made me think about the two ends of this street, one long stretch of road lined with houses but divided by its two names and, loosely, by style of housing and socio-economic background. The part my neighbours and I live in is an area of 1930’s social housing and, as you get further down towards town, the name of this road changes and some of the houses get quite a lot larger, older, and grander, although there are also a lot of small terraces too.  One of them, far, far down the other end is a ‘hall’, gated with tall brick walls surrounding it, a grand portico thing, ornate gardens and a fleet of cars straight out of ‘Yes Minister’, all of which can be seen when the gates occasionally open to let a Jag in or out.

That difference in street name matters to many, I think, and it’s a shame we are divided by that symbolic fence. The sense of community we felt back last Summer has waned a little, people don’t do the Love Lane walk so often and we sit out the front far less. It led me to wonder how we could take advantage of the remnants of that upsurge in community enthusiasm, remarked upon up and down the country, and continue to get to know each other better, more deeply than a nod and a passing wave.

Years ago, I filmed reminiscence interviews with 60 elderly people around the district and witnessed the effect that being deeply listened to has on a human, it can bond us deeply within half an hour if we listen with compassion and interest. More recently, I was introduced to the 30’s and 40’s Mass Observation diaries by a nearby friend and fell in love with all the ordinary voices telling their ordinary, exquisitely descriptive stories of times gone by – previously unheard angles on lives we shall never know. I started reading Tony Parker’s moving oral history-based accounts of ordinary people in the 60’s, some more from the Studs Terkel archive and went on to buy a small, but not ordinary, recording device myself. I have made many recordings with people in my neighbourhood over the past month, experimenting with techniques spoken about by Tony Parker and Studs Terkel.

The recordings with my adjacent, immediate neighbours were especially lovely moments. The first was my neighbour with whom I share a passageway. It was an early experiment, I asked her some questions and just as soon as I pressed stop on the recorder, she began to talk freely, joyfully and memories of her childhood neighbourhood were flying out of her. When I recorded a later conversation with the neighbour the other side, I made extra sure she was comfortable with me and with the recorder, comfortable in her chair, I let the recording run, allowed some silence in and she spoke at length, gloriously colourfully and as though she was interviewed like this on a daily basis. Every person I interviewed was certain they would not have anything interesting to say, all were fascinating, and a few were moved to tears, not by the themes but, I think, through the process of being listened to so closely.

‘Where do you belong?’ was a question I have asked almost everyone, and it has been the hardest for people to consider and to verbalise. I don’t know where to begin with my own answer to it, but it gave people a chance to really think about place, identity, community, friends and, commonly, where they don’t belong anymore. It has led me to believe that belonging is, perhaps, a commitment we make to those around us that we decide to lead a common life with. I thought I wasn’t much like my neighbours but it turns out they think I am just like them and that I belong here and that’s bloody beautiful.

*With special thanks to Linda, and Eileen and Andrew (all pictured, along with Dave the spaniel), for supporting my research and generally humouring me and being very good neighbours.

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Anthony’s Experience

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My name is Anthony Gough and I am a visually impaired theatre-maker and a Director of an arts organisation called Engage 2 Stage. We set up originally back in 2017, and as a Community Interest Company last year in 2020. We produce work with, and alongside visually impaired people and I see our work not only as a way of connecting with visually impaired people or connecting the visually impaired community with the sighted community around them, but I see it as a tool to raise awareness. Also, from the perspective of using the performing arts to empower people, to give them a voice, to highlight their experiences and to show people that the arts is such a huge and adaptable industry and if people wish to do so and want to try and pursue a career in the arts then that’s something that’s achievable and something that is definitely possible.

 

I am visually impaired myself; I’ve got a condition called Congenital Stationary Night Blindness and that means that I have, overall, about somewhere between 20-30% of my vision. I’ve got about 50% vision in one eye and about 20% in the other, and at nighttime, obviously, because I have a night blindness, that bit of useful vision I do have becomes even less useful, so effectively, at that point, and in those kinds of dark environments I am more reliant on support and more reliant on people around me, supporting me.

 

So, I am Manchester born and bred and Engage 2 Stage is based in Bury, Greater Manchester. We’ve worked alongside various organisations, The Bury Society for Blind and Partially Sighted People, for instance, and The MET Theatre in Bury, but we are always open to any kind of new partnerships and just say to people ‘do you want to go on this journey with us, this adventure with us?’ What’s been interesting about this past year and a half is that obviously so much has been going on, there have been so many different changes, so many different challenges that so many people have faced. This past year, we’ve gone into several new spaces that we never actually thought would be on the horizon; we’ve gone into filmic work, which as an arts organisation, we didn’t see ourselves doing. We contributed to a project with Manchester International Festival called ‘Playing Through the Looking Glass’ (Credits: MIF, Elizabeth Roney (Engage2stage), Blain Cousin.) and we’ve recently brought out a short film called ‘Lockdown Thoughts’ with Bury Library and Archive service (Credits: Elizabeth Roney (Engage2stage), Joshua Lord, Blain Cousin, Produced by Engage2stage.). We are also working on a film called ‘Our Journey Home’ (Credits: Elizabeth Roney (Engage2stage), Rachel Gillies, Production by Engage2stage.), which follows the lives and journeys of visually impaired people and important places and locations in their life. It explores what it is that they see as being their home, whether it be a metaphorical home or their location in terms of home or whether it’s a home away from home for them. So that process was interesting with a bit of filming between lockdowns last year.

 

I always see every new experience as an opportunity, so for me, The Roots Programme was an opportunity for me to not only get involved but learn about other people’s perspectives on things. I am always really interested in other people’s perspectives on things because, for someone who does have limited vision, I do find it interesting, although we may not always see eye to eye on politics or policies or on what we prioritise, for me what was interesting when I was talking to my peer on The Roots Programme was that our similarities far outshone any differences that we did have. It made those differences more and more insignificant really and that’s probably one of the things I am going to take away, that even though people almost go to war on party politics, not something I particularly like – it’s more divisive than a lot of things, but for me, I really felt that our similarities and that common ground should be a real focus because we can build our ideas from there.

 

My peer was very much into sport and how it can increase positive mental health and wellbeing, obviously our physical health and wellbeing too, but I saw similarities with how I saw performing arts – as a tool. Actually getting people connected, getting people talking, improving mental health and physical wellbeing as well as routes into employment, which is another important subject. Over two-thirds of visually impaired people who are of working age are out of work, that is something that really annoys me. I have seen first-hand how dedicated visually impaired people can be and how proactive they are in the work they can produce and I don’t think there is enough effort made in the communities surrounding the visually impaired. The employment and support agencies don’t work, they just didn’t understand the areas in which I wanted to work. I think that’s the case for not just me but a lot of people who want to go into certain areas, there isn’t a good enough understanding and I think it deserves a really good rethink and reform around how we make work actually work for people. I think that having a job, having a career and having employment is something that gives people purpose and we all need that.

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Rediscovering curiosity and compassion

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Fresh from working on The Roots ‘Experience’ strand of exchanges, we’ve noticed just how many books are being published around the subjects of human connection and cognitive diversity at the moment. In light of the unprecedented period we have all spent physically apart, it’s no surprise. None of the fundamental ideas are new to us either; Roots believe that our differences are not what necessarily divide us but that the fewer and fewer opportunities we have to interact with those who are different to ourselves certainly does. We developed a series of activities to bring adults with very different lives, from different locations, across regional, national and community roles, together in a neutral space to talk, share, build a connection, understanding and find compassion for their partner.

 

To allow participants to come together in an equitable partnership, we moved slowly with activities, introducing location, voice, tastes and the issues that individuals were passionate about along with tales of the people who had acted to connect and help them in their journey. We hoped to support two humans to make contact, meeting on an equal platform, to be curious about one another’s lives, share memories and passions.  

 

Back to those books we’ve been reading, ‘Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking’ by Matthew Syed, ‘Fractured’ by Jon Yates and ‘Messy’ by Tim Harford are but a few. All discuss, present and demonstrate the need for cognitive diversity in our workplaces and organisations to create complex, better systems that work best for most and to turbo-power creativity when we are exploring new ideas. They talk about the need for a plethora of different kinds of thinking to approach a problem, which brings to mind the work of Temple Grandin, a prominent author and scientist who has often spoken on the untapped potential of people with autism in the workplace. This was not to repeat the slur that people with autism all have some kind of hidden superpower, she wished to establish the idea that complex problems take ‘all kinds of minds’ to solve them, that neurodiversity is normal and vital, rather than any kind of deficit. 

 

Teams of cognitively diverse individuals do better, it’s been studied and can be well-supported across a number of instances, from those chosen to work at Bletchley Park to an averaging of thousands of guesses in an early 20thC game of ‘guess the weight of the Ox’. This all works well if we are to assume that those in our highly paid, highly educated engineering department genuinely consider those with plenty of experience but a lower wage on the manufacturing floor to be their equals. We all know we should consider our fellow man to be our equal without having them prove or justify it, but have a look around, we don’t.

 

A friend, who I am fairly sure regularly votes in the opposite direction to myself, gave me a very old copy of Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’ as a gift. The unexpected gift giver just made me promise to read it. I read it and stuck a sticky note on the page where he wrote “Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.” Whilst elbow deep in my stack of books, that all excited me with their foundational idea that the best could only possibly come from a group plucked indiscriminately from the 66.65million corners of our society, I watched an online lecture from Anne Phillips, the Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics. She is publishing her book ‘Unconditional Equals’ later this year, and what she spoke about seemed to blow cool air on the excitement of my earlier cognitive diversity odyssey. She said that human equality is a commitment we should make to one another, not just something we maintain by blindly ignoring our differences. I hadn’t thought of this…it provoked a relationship audit, a worldview audit, and a big judgement audit all riddled with guilt and, hopefully, awakening. I thought about my neighbourhood, the woman sat on her step all day smoking, the man sitting at the war memorial drinking tins of beer all day. I subconsciously place conditions in terms of who is equal to me, but these people are my equals, they are. I needed that audit and rediscovery of some basic humility.

 

In my humblest of opinions, the most beautiful upshot from meeting people living a very different life to our own, for brave and in-depth conversation around those differences, is often not a watershed moment where we change position dramatically on a single issue but the ongoing moments when we realise that everything we already know is knitting together with the new knowledge to create a broader, clearer vision of the world around us.  We are already on the right track, we just need to commit to seeing the other lives as something intertwined through our own and just as important.

 

“I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.”

― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

*Image: Tyree Guyton’s ‘Heidelberg Project’, Detroit (Photo: ‘Diverse Thinker’ by Clare Richardson, 2001)