Undercurrents 13 November-December1975

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• UNDERCURRENTS, the magazine of radical science and alternative technology [ISSN 0306 2392], was published from London, England, from 1973 to 1984 [No. 60]. This text version has been created in 2006-9 by me, Chris [Hutton-]Squire [a member of the now-dissolved Undercurrents Collective], by OCRing scanned images of a print copy; the text has been spell-checked but it has NOT been checked against the original. Health & Safety Warning: The practical, technical and scientific information herein [though believed to be accurate at the time of publication] may now be out of date. CAVEAT LECTOR!

The many stories that Undercurrents told will interest students of a period that is both too distant and too recent to be adequately documented on the Web. The moral, philosophical, social, economic and political opinions herein remain, in my opinion, pertinent to the much more severe problems we now face.

Readers who wish correspond on any matters arising are invited to contact me via: chris[at]cjsquire.plus.com

This pdf version is formatted in 15 pt Optima throughout, so as to be easily readable on screen; it runs to 139 pages [the print versions were 48 - 56 pp.]: readers wishing to print it out to read are recommended to use the text version and to reformat it. The many pictures that embellished the print version are sadly not included here. There no restrictions on the use of this material but please credit individual authors where credit is due: they are mostly still with us.

Page numbers below are for this pdf version. The beginning of each section or article is indicated thus:

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The magazine of Radical Technology: Contents Number 13 November-December 1975 6 EDDIES. Six pages of news, scandal, gossip, horror and happiness. 24 DIGGERS ANCIENT AND MODERN. The film Winstanley and the Leeds Land for the People Conference. 30 ENERGY AND FOOD PRODUCTION. From Stonehenge to Supermarket. 41 LUCAS. Soft Technology for Hard Times - Dave Elliott sets out the back·ground to the Bradford Conference on Industry, the Community, and Alter·native Technology. 57 ALTERNATIVE ENGLAND AND WALES. An update to Nick Saunders' guide. 85 PLANNING - A COMMUNESENSE GUIDE. Chris Day and Michael Edwards with some advice on defeating the bureaucrats at their own game. 94 NATIONAL CENTRE FOR ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY. Gerard Morgan-Grenville sets out his view on where AT is at. 97 NUTS IN OCTOBER. Guy Dauncey on the May lectures. 101 "OON·YELLIMON TO YOU TOO". Undercurrents grasses on transcendental meditation. 102 THE GASPERSON COMETH. An extract from L John Fry's book The Practical Building of Methane Power Plants. 106 WOODY WINDS UP. Part 4 of his essay Towards an alternative culture: "Stop saying it and start doing it." 109 REVIEWS. Unilever/Synerjy/Alternative England and Wales/Anarchy theory/ Magic/Truckers' Bible/Can Britain Feed Itself?/Alternative Medicine/Save your seed/Roundup. 129 LETTERS: your chance to get back at us.134 SMALL ADS137 RADICAL TECHNOLOGY is coming!

This magazine was produced by Duncan Campbell, Pat Coyne, Tony Durham, Richard Elen, Dave Elliott, Chris Hutton-Squire, Martin Ince, Barbara Kern, Martyn Partridge, Dave Smith and Peter Sommer. It certainly wouldn't exist without Graham Andrews, Godfrey Boyle, Sally Boyle, Geoffrey Cooper, Herbie Girardet, Nigel Thomas or Woody.


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UNDERCURRENTS is published bimonthly by Undercurrents limited, a non.profit organisation at 275 Finchley Road, London NW3, and 11 Shadwell, Uley, Dursley; Gloucs. It's printed by Prestagate Limited, 39 Underwood Road, Reading. ISSN 03062392. Copyright © of everything in this magazine belongs to Undercurrents Limited; nothing may be reproduced without permission, which will be gladly given to people we like. If you want to phone us, try 01·891 0989 evenings, 01·8364363 x144 daytime, Chris Hutton·Squire, or Uley (045 386) 636, Godfrey or Sally Boyle. Subscriptions cost £2.50 for six issues, surface mail any·where in the world. This is about $6.50, but check the exchange rate. For the USA, Canada and Mexico copies are airfreighted and the sub·scription rate is $7.50. Our US agents are Air and Sea Freight Inc, 527 Madison Avenue, Suite 1217, New York, NY, 10022. Second class postage paid at New York, NY.

Back cover: David Bramley as Parson Platt in Winstanley. See page 24.


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• • • • • • • • • • • • EddiesMAKE THE ELECTRICITY BOARD YOUR BATTERY The national grid system could be the best electrical ·storage system·yet devised, and may be ideal for storing energy from windmills. This notion, which the CEGB will regard as high treason, has developed from a new ·inverter·which is used to turn DC power from windmills to AC. The device·a "synchronous inverter" made by Windworks of the USA, allows independent energy producers to feed power into the electricity grid·and even run their electricity meters backwards when production exceeds consumption. It·s true, of course. that even in Britain large companies with their own private generating equipment have been running synchronous generators and feeding their surplus power into the national grid for years. But Windworks·synchronous inverter, christened the ·Gemini·, is the first we·ve heard of that·s specifically designed for smallscale use in conjunction with intermittent energy sources like wind generators. Gemini works by taking the varying, direct·current output of a typical wind power plant, smoothing out its fluctuations, and using the resulting power to drive a high·power transistor oscillator which produces up to 8kW of alternating current at exactly the voltage and frequency of the normal electricity system. As Windworks put it: "In operation, all available DC power is converted to AC. If more power is available from the DC source than is required by the load, the excess flows into the power grid. If less power is available than is required by the load, the difference is provided by the power grid in the normal fashion." The beauty of such a system to the windmill builder is that you don·t need any energy storage. The electricity grid provides instantaneous back up power, to whatever degree is required, whenever the output of your wind generator falls below that needed to supply your needs at any given time. Conversely, if you happen to be producing more power than you need, you can ·sell it back to the electricity board by getting Gemini to run your meter backwards.


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But what does the electricity board have to say about such practices? In America, Wind works have not apparently encountered any problems so far. Ben Wolff says the group are "working with our Utility company to try and establish a rate structure for this type of system. It has worked well with no technical problems since February. The Utility agrees there are no technical problems...;.. only economic ones ... To the wind generator owner the economics of a Gemini inverter appear very attractive. Windworks say that "for wind systems with capacities up to 20 kilowatts, synchronous inverters are approximately one sixth the cost of conventional inverters, per kilowatt capacity." The main obstacle to the introduction of such devices in the UK will probably be the unwillingness of the Central Electricity Generating Board to accept the concept of a decentralised network of independent small·scale electricity producers. At present in Britain, the relatively few private concerns that produce their own power find that backup energy from their electricity board is charged at a higher rate than normal, and that the rate at which the CEGB buys their surplus power is very low. If faced with the prospect of a much larger number of smaller power producers, the reaction of the CEGB would probably be to make the differential between its buying and selling prices much larger ·or else refuse to buy any privately·generated electricity at all and modify all electricity meters to prevent them from running backwards. The arrogant zeal of our nationalised monopolies in suppressing any innovations which might upset their technocratic assumptions IS depressingly predictable. More information:Windworks, Box 329, Route 3, Mukwonago, Wisconsin 53/49 USA

A Lovely Network There·s a new game to be played on the phones in Paris. But, courtesy of the automatic international telephone system, anyone can play. The game is Le Reseau (the Network). There are a large number of lines in Paris which are disconnected or where, for one reason or another, the line is connected to a recorded announcement only. Fortunately, because


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of the way the telephone system works in France, the engineers cannot prevent two people who call the same (disconnected) number at the same time hearing each other. So one can have a conversation with random callers who also know the Reseau number. According to Undercurrents·Paris correspondent, now a regular listener to Le Reseau, all kinds of weird and wonderful names are used, and people arrange meetings. A lot of gay (and straight) contacts are apparently fixed up on the network. And its a forum too ·you can have a conference about anything. You can try it from Britain, or indeed anywhere else. One number, which was working recently is Paris (code from Britain 010331) 272 5428. Have some fun. The same does not happen in Britain. Only very occasionally when a fault arises in some part of the phone system does a ·conference circuit·come about. British phone phreaks occasionally find one. Perhaps the most famous was the Case of the Exploding Exchange. A few years ago the I RA blew up Strabane telephone exchange, putting it out of action. Lines to Strabane from Londonderry, used for STD calls to Strabane were converted by the blast into a conference circuit. Phreaks and even people could have a free conference merely by dialling the STD code for Strabane.

The Number Go Round BRITAIN·S FIRST alter·native computer centre is now running and making sufficient money for its founders to be actively looking for new alternative projects on which their high technology tool can be used. The Galdor alternative computer is located in a now rather elegant shed at the bottom of a suburban garden-in Surbiton, Surrey. The main computer is an amalgam of International Computers and Tabulators 1301s cannibalised over the years, to provide a highly useful computing capability. In the last few months two of the main workers, Andy Keene and Stuart Fyffe have been able to devote more time to the project instead of running it as a hobby while working elsewhere. Most of the paying business at present is in processing and addressing membership lists and circulars for local clubs. But in the two years that Galdor has been operational there has always


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been con·siderable time spent showing people ·school kids, friends, neighbours .... ·just what the machine can do, letting them press the buttons and get on with it. Not something you·d normally find; most computer installations now·adays like to keep everyone but the operating elite as far away as possible. Unfortunately, since the centre was set up as a project in itself the plans to have the computer serve as an alternative tool have not been entirely realised. Although the running of the centre is at least one kind of alternative ·"the small scale democratic use of relatively sophisticated machinery", according to Stuart Fyffe. Those with an urge towards AT labels might call it AHT ·Alter·native High Technology. The WdY the computer has been set up has both demonstrated this idea and been an exercise in the cunning use of establishment resources. The machine is repaired by cannibalising other machines of the same kind ·in 1974, the Metropolitan Police provided two redundant 1301 s which they had been using for computing Traffic Warden pay. And the Galdor workers were recently to be found in the Department of the Environment at Hastings adding a fifth c?computer to their collection of reusable scrap. A nucleus of half a dozen people, most with other jobs, have kept Galdor going. And there seems plenty of continuing enthusiasm. What they need now is suggestions for useful projects. One possibility could be to adapt a programme already running at a Scottish University, and available to the community. This allows single parent families, pensioners, and other claimants to find out what benefits they should be paid by the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS). The DHSS never tells anyone, but on completion of a questionnaire which is input to the machine, their full entitlement is printed out, with explanation. Suitable software for this kind of programme already exists at Galdor. Survey analysis work has been done, in addition to more esoteric studies of UFO data. The cost of running the machine is little more than electricity ·so the Galdor centre may soon prove to be a useful thing to have around. Galdor centre. 52 Brighton Road. Surbiton. Surrey: 01·3991300. They·ll be pleased to hear any good ideas.


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Just Plain Windmills A summer holiday in Crete led to the discovery of the Plain of Lasithis. A bumpy 3hr bus ride from Heraklion, and 4000 ft up in the Cretan mountains ... before us lay a 5 mile plateau, covered in a forest of 10000 windmills. ,Was this AT heaven ... or hell? The Lasithis plain is dis·tinguished from similar areas of Crete by diversity of farm·ing. These were small integrated units; women with goats picked their way amongst apple trees. The windmills, used for irrigation, c:seem responsible for the flourishing agriculture. Each m ill pi ac ed over a well was exactly alike·the ·Mediterranean type·. Each was mounted on a similar Lasithis·the windmills go for miles iron frame·prompting us to wonder at their origins. Was there, dare I ask, a windmill factory ... or was each machine constructed by individual farmers? These questions elicited little help from residents of Lasithis. The increased produc·tivity of the area is obvious, so why hadn·t the revolut·ionary devices been adopted elsewhere on the island? Was their r adoption due to the foresight of some wily Athenian entrepreneur, a long dead AT freak? Perhaps there is something to be learnt from the plain of Lasithis. Small scale technology can obvious·ly improve the productivity of land. By utilising rather than dominating natural processes, greater diversity is also possible.

Red Bishop·s Move Hypocrisy is an attitude of mind that comes naturally to both Anglican bishops and Communists. So it is no surprise that on the very same day that ·Red Mervyn·, the fellow travelling Bishop of Southwark, put down with his left hand Arch·bishop Coggan for his total neglect 9f the problems of class and inequality, with his right he killed off ·Beginning Now·, a promising shoot of the growing radical environmental movement. ·Beginning Now·was a two year project set up by a group of radical Christians at Dartmouth House,


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an adult college in the diocese of Southwark, led by Mark Collier. What bugged the Bishop was not a disagreement over doctrine but over diet. ·Beginning Now·wanted to focus on the Politics of Food·who eats and who doesn·t, and why. So they set up a vegetarian restaurant to bring home to their (mostly fairly straight) visitors the iniquity and folly of our high protein diet in a world of starving people. The cus·tomers, according to Mark, were "happy and intrigued", Not so the Bishop. He thought that not to serve meat was to deprive people of their right to ·a choice·. ·Beginning Now·refused to compromise, so he disbanded them. Just like that.

ECO·HOUSEWORK Construction work on Granada Television·s almost·autonomous house is well advanced and most of the insulation and exterior effort has now been completed. The production team have been tripping around the country collecting film footage of people, places, and bits of gubbins, and they are beginning to assemble the components of their programmes. Up till now, most of the effort has been directed to coming to terms with the coach·house·s transformation to ecohouse. They seem to have stuck fairly closely to their desire to keep the exercise at an almost DIY level. It was always thought that a good part of the work would be done by Geoff Grant, the wood·and metal·work teacher whose family are to live in the ecohouse, and it has been good to see that contractors have been brought in only for major work like strength·ening the roof. The problem of course, is that the situation is a little unreal. Building a house to go with a tv programme means that manufacturers will be much more helpful and will embarrass .. you by offering cavity insulation and the like for the house (which has no cavities anyway), for the house of anyone on the programme and for anyone who happens to be related to anyone on the programme. In terms of hard construction work, nearly all the insulation has been installed-underneath the floors, and beneath the new timber clad walls. The solar roof, which is the BRAD model, arrived in beautifully machined sections which nearly refused to go on because of the irregularity of the roof. A good deal of bodging was required. Brian Trueman tells us


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that the BRAD roof may not operate well on all buildings. The Granada ecohouse is loftless .. ·the bedrooms are in the eaves·and in those circumstances the BRAD roof needs a venting system below its main body to transmit away excess heat. If metal pins are used to secure the roof, in hot weather heat will be trans·mitted right through to the eaves·if really hot weather, the wood may become scorched and the whole structure unstable. Venting (or a loft) may cure this. So watch out. Trueman is also a Iittle anxious that he is using too much high·energy material, like aluminium. The next task is the heat sink which was originally to be a couple of tanks of water, but they are now looking at rocks and salts (we hope not Glauber·s, which, despite its fame doesn·t seem all that effective). They have a location for their windmill, which will either be a Cretan type or be a prop developed by UMIST. Trueman says he wants the windmill to be used for heat generation as heat is more readily stored than electricity. We have explained this against AT’s Conventional Wisdom, but he is not impressed. The garden/allotment is being ·thought about·.

Nuclear Noose Latest body to join the burgeoning nuclear protest movement in the US is the American Civil Liberties Union which has provided an attorney for the hearings into the licensing of the Wolf Creek plant near Burlington, Kansas. The ACLU will link up with several environmentalist groups including the Mid·America Coalition for Energy Alternatives, a Kansas City based group, co·ordinating anti·nuclear activities in five states, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma Oklahoma. The ACLU is involving itself on the basis that nuclear power is a threat to civil liberties in the future because of the strict protective measures necessary to safeguard the material throughout the fuel cycle. Coalition tactics include lobbying for moratorium bills in the various various state legislatures. Political support in the midwest is reckoned to be strongest in Kansas where the farmer·s union has come out strongly on the anti·nuclear side. Opposition has been aroused by both safety fears and the rather tactless business antics of the utilities. At


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Wolf Creek attempts were made to acquire the land cheaply by condemnation and in Missouri, while the local farmers got a good price, they thought they were selling the land for a nudist colony.

MANSON Already reeling under the combined pressures of inflation and environmentalist opposition, the nuclear lobby has received a body blow (literally) from another, rather less expected quarter ·Charles Manson. "Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the people who are building nuclear power plants, the people that are polluting the air, the people that are poisoning the water, the people who are killing the wildlife, the people who are falsely advertising to the public ·all of them will be butchered in their bedrooms because they are living off the blood of the little people ... So said Sandra Good, disciple of Manson and roommate of Lynette ·Squeaky·Fromme, recently indicted for the attempted assassination of President Ford_ In a radio interview in New Orleans Good named six businessmen on the assassination list of the ·International People·s Court of Retribution·, who she described as "several thousand people throughout the world who love the earth, the children and their lives". In a later interview the list was enlarged to 72 people. NUCLEAR PATTERSON Friend of the Earth and certain FOE of the nuclear industry·Walt Patterson recently mingled with the electro nuclear industry in Switzerland. A believer, if in nothing else, of bearding the nucleon in his den, Walt was in Basle for Nuclex 75, the big European nuclear exhibition, billed as the event where nuclear power would demonstrate its ·maturity·(sic). Patterson·s contribution to Nuclex, where the predominant mood was far from the confidence one would expect from a mature industry, was a lecture given to about 400 people, industry figures as well as critics. His main target was not safety, which has had a fair airing in Switzerland as elsewhere, but a topic which was much less familiar to his listeners, the


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overall economics of nuclear power. It is not simply a question of reactor economics, where premature aging, unexpected failures and licensing difficulties have exploded the optimistic cost forecasts of only a few years ago. The biggest question marks hang over the rest of the fuel cycle. In reprocessing spent fuel there is no plant in the world capable of handling uranium oxide fuel, the commonest type. Three commercial US plants which were supposed to be working by now are unlikely to get going before the end of the decade and British Nuclear Fuel·s plant at Wind",le will not be ready before 1981. Meanwhile the fuel has to be stored ·and available storage space in the US will be used up well before 1980. Uranium compounds added to false teeth to make them fluoresce could result in mouth and gums receiving a radiation dose of 2 rems a year say the British National Radiological Protection Board. This is more than the 1.5 rems maximum recommended by the International Commission for Radiological Protection StrikesAutarky Strikes! Cambridge University·s Department of Architecture Autarkic House group recently made a new application for government funds to the tune of £400,000. They want the money to develop their house to the stage of a production line unit, and seem totally opposed to readily accessible ·do·it·yourself·technology. In a document describing their proposal, one useful type of solar collector (used at BRAD) is dismissed as "not commercially exploitable for reasons of simplicity". The entire_ philosophy is directed towards an ·integrated unit·which will roll off some production line. The design of the Autarkic House, which is being developed by a proposed team of 14 led by Alex Pike, the Department·s Director of Technical Research, has been described as "the result of rampant commercialism and academic opportunism." The house is generally known as ·Alex Pike·s Box·, and seems rather small for the design family of 4. The document speaks glibly of ·widespread applications·for the house, and hopes that production line techniques may enable it to be ·u universally adopted·.


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But the estimated cost was revealed at a Solar Energy Society meeting to be over £50,000 per unit. The mind boggles at the thought of men on the autarkic house production line monotonously tightening nuts on the same solar collector panel day in, day out ·while bosses and academics tell them about ·widespread application·. Astoundingly, the design for ·customary patterns of living·with ·generally acceptable standards·is based on material from the Reader·s Digest. This middle·c1ass dream home includes a dishwasher as well as TVs, toaster and electric can·opener. Why bother with an ·alternative·house in order to reproduce current consumerist living patterns? The group accept that ·complexity will be unavoidable·, and the house may be very difficult to live in. Their application does not both·er to discuss basic issues of energy and resources. The house still has several likely design problems. A windmill on the roof is likely to cause noise and vibration, while the house only has one door. What the design does not lack, however, arc computer models, simulations, and wind tunnel tests. But it probably doesn·t have enough ambient energy systems to make it self·sufficient in energy all year round. Better financial support for alternative technology may generally be a good thing, but not here. Perhaps the Autarkic House will eventual! eventually go into production ·with its £400,000 and 14 researchers ·but to us it is likely to be useless. A misbegotten daughter of high technology, created on an alienating production line, it will be financially inaccessible to most people. Th is type of ·alternative·technology is an academic toy which may one day be used by the trendy and wealthy ·but has little relevance to people·s technology. Unnatural Habitat For students of UN conferences the idea of yet another major conference on mankind·s predicament must come as no surprise. Identify a problem ·give it a title and organise a conference is by now the all too familiar response of the UN. So was born the Stockholm Con·ference on the human environment, the Bucharest conference on population, the Rome conference on food ,the Mexico conference on the status of women ·and now the Vancouver Conference on human settlements. It all conjures up an idea of permanent in·transit diplomats waltzing from one cocktail session to the next to the strains of the world·s problems. But perhaps


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there is a point. After all, Stockholm led to the creation of the UN Environment Program, Rome to the World Food Council and so on. Nobody is thinking seriously yet of a world settle·ments agency but there is still time. Governments are by now well advanced in their thinking for Habitat and major themes begin to emerge. The principal problem is the fantastic drift of rural populations into urban conurbations. Discussion, ideas and solutions to the many planning, financial and human problems that this migration causes arc the major point of the exercise for two·thirds of the world. However, the West, fully aware of this priority, are left wondering just what to do. The UK is no exception. So far HMG have put together a film on ·habitat·in the UK and, under the guidance of the ex·DOE chief road planner, are writing an historical analysis of planning in the UK ·including citizen participation. We shall sec! Governments are not the only ones who are asked to join in the fun. Non·govern·mental organisations, to adopt the jargon (that, for the uninitiated, means clubs, societies, pressure groups, non·government research establishments, industry groups, etc. etc.) are also an important ingredient and Vancouver is laying on a truly remarkable array of facilities for them. Aircraft hangars for AT demonstrations and exhibitions, a vast meeting place, workshops, talkshops you name it they have got it right down to a wire TV service to all hotels on what is going on. All of this is under the co·ordination of two units ·ACSOH (P.O. Box 48360, Bentall Center, Vancouver) for the Canadian facilities and Mr. van Putten (International Union of Local Authorities, 45 Wassenaarseweg, The Hague 2018, Netherlands) for the organisational arrangements. Interested parties should unhesitatingly contact either. Back home a few things are being planned. The first event is a conference, co·ordinated by the National Council for Social Service (Sue Forrester, NCSS 26 Bedford Sq., WC1) provisionally called ·Settlements and popular participation·. The conference in January plans to discuss public participation in housing, transport and strategic planning. Many groups are involved ranging from Shelter to the RIBA and from FOE to the CBI. In April John Turner of the Architectural Association hopes to hold a seminar on the Chilean experience in housing. All being well some inter·mediate/


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alternative/appropriate technology group will hold a meeting on their ideas for the future and the development interests (WDM ·Oxfam etc.) will pull together some event to emphasise their point of view. All in all the habitat conference in Vancouver (end of May-June 1976) could turn out to be a useful peg for discussion of what we ·rather than our bureaucrats ·can do to shape the future. Richard Sandbrooke

TINKERBELL·S FAERIE FORTUNE It will be interesting to see how the new United Nations publicity organisation, the International Institute for Environment and Develop·ment (liED) resolves its directors·apparent conflict of interest. The liED is part of the United Nations Environmental Programme, and the unit, based in London, has the task of "commissioning features on key global environment problems and then placing them in leading world publications." The director is environmental journalist and leading environmental person, J Tinker. But Tinker·s capacity to do this public relations job for UNEP seems likely to be hampered by his part time membership of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. As a con·dition of joining this august body, his lips are firmly sealed on the topic of air pollution. Important topic of environmental concern, you would have thought. To add to the confusion, Tinker is also the press officer for the British Ecological Society. But the most disconcerting juxtaposition appears in a recent issue of the magazine New Scientist in which the II ED was advertising. Accord·ing to a list in the magazine, Tinker is their ·Environment Consultant·, and is paid an extremely substantial retainer to be available for comment·ing on news and develop·ments. And when he writes an opus for New Scientist extolling the works of UNEP, he demands considerable sums not unadjacent to £200 (Froth overhears in Long Acre bars). This multiplicity of interests must cause New Scientist readers some concern. What


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is to be done, for example, when a significant environmental story conflicts with UNEP·s interests? Can readers expect the same dispassionate and penetrating analysis? Or c will the same happen to Tinkerbelle as to other journalists who tread the unholy path of PR? See the next six months issues of IPC·s scientific trade journal.

TRANSCENDENTAL MYSTIFICATION? ONE FEA TURE of today·s mystical and ·enlightened·cults is a certain secrecy about the inner processes of the cult. Once initiates are admitted, on payment of a a not insubstantial fee, they are instructed not to reveal the ceremonies of the inner sanctum. Spiritual processes must retain their mystique. Some will accept this as legitimate behaviour; others, cynical like Froth, suggest this is an important element in the cult marketing strategy. New initiates must reinforce their beliefs in the cult and be enticed into further costly courses to higher levels of consciousness. For outsiders, the secrecy may likely encourage beliefs that there is something worthwhile to hide. Either way, some dissidents have come away unsatisfied, ready to blow the gaff. Dave Jackson of Manchester recently took the initiation course in Transcendental Meditation (TM), and decided it wasn·t worth his £25. TM consists essentially of repeating a simple word ·the Mantra ·in your mind. Your own personal, totally secret Mantra is given at a quasi-religious ceremony involving you and your personal teacher only. You must swear to secrecy over what takes place. Dave thinks this is probably to keep the £25s rolling in, and he didn·t take it too seriously. So what happened? First, he took his shoes off. He entered a darkened room sweetly smelling of joss with his teacher. An altar like table covered with a white bed sheet displayed the Maharishi·s portrait eerily lit by two candles. The teacher started chanting in an "obscure Indian dialect". Then, just as Our Person In The Darkened Room was wondering what all the crap was about, he was told to participate in the chanting now consisting of only one word ·the Mantra. He then meditated thereupon. Curious, though, that everyone else he knew was given the same personal Mantra. Perhaps there·s only one mantra, or maybe all his friends have


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the same psychotype when it comes to Cosmic Consciousness. The Word, folks, is ·Ein·gar·. See you in the Higher Realms Of Conscious·ness.

TRANSPORT WELL·OILED The total lack of imagination in liberal environmental thinking was demonstrated at a conference ·Transport without Oil?·in Newcastle at the end of September. Local environmental groups organised the show of transport planners and others with the clearly significant if little-known Tyneside Branch of the Light Railway Transport League. But the so·called experts had no ideas except whether cars were to be in or out in their dream futures. The most startling contribution to the conference was the effective demonstration of the same idiocy with added irresponsibility from the head of the Tyne and Wear Road Users Group ·a Mr John who lives in Kent. The one·day conference didn·t actually get round to discussing alternative means of transport or organisation of production and distribution to achieve this. Well done the clearly significant if little-known Tyneside Branch of the Light etc, etc. Undercurrents/NewcastIe

PROGRESS WITH the Undercurrents/LID Wind Generator has been a bit slow lately. The main task at the moment is to try to arrange for the relay to "cut in" at voltages which only produce a small charge to the battery. The relay system we·ve been using, based on an old Ford Popular 6volt ·control box·, is not sensitive enough. One or two readers have suggested an alternative approach to the problem namely, to connect the field and armature terminals together and connect these in turn via a diode to the battery. This arrangement is known as a ·self·excited·generator. Unfortunately, as we found when we tried this system out, the self·exciting effect does not begin to work until the armature is turning considerably faster than the highest propellor speeds we·re likely to encounter. In bench tests, with the dynamo turned by our lashed·up electric drill (see last issue). there was no output at all at 900 RPM ·though at 2400 RPM, a speed far in excess of the maximum likely propellor speed, the system worked beautifully. Of course if we were gearing the


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propellor, then this would be an ideal solution. We hope to report on the results of our attempts to use toothed rubber belts for gearing the dynamo (or an alternator) in our next issue. Meanwhile, for those readers who are really keen to rewind their car dynamos to make them operate at slow speeds, and who were dis·appointed that we didn·t give enough details on rewinding in the last issue, we·ll be happy to send photocopies of the original Practical Mechanics articles on dynamo re·winding to anyone who requests them, for just the copying cost (between 25p and SOp). We still think that a geared system, especially if an alternator is used, is likely to generate more power, with less effort, than a re·wound dynamo. But the Undercurrents/LID wind generator is an on·going co·operative project. We·re very grateful for all the feedback readers have provided so far, and would be delighted to hear from other readers who have alternative suggestions or who can give us the results of their own practical experiments. Godfrey Boyle

Oiling the Dollar Mills The United States may decide to base its legislation concerning exploration and production of the Con·tinental Shelf on British ideas of government control, according to fearsome rumours now passing round the oil industry. And renewed proposals for the dreaded FOGCO may be on their way (FOGCO = Federal Oil and Gas Corporation). The Outer Continental Shelf Bill is now passing through the US senate and congress, and clauses requiring 60% of all net profits to be paid to the US Treasury seem likely. The Labour government here is to obtain at least 70% of net North Sea profits. However, ideas of state participation and control of oil companies working in US offshore waters are still anathema in the land of free enterprise. But other types of control over exploration and production are on the cards such as the timing and number of wells. The senate committee which is considering the legislation recently visited the North Sea. Will the Tories continue to attack ·state grab·now that the idea is seen to


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have profitable export potential? Gusher ·Metrication Madness Failure to meet published schedules, from trains to installing telephones, is a charge that has been levelled more than once at our nationalised industries. Undercurrents is pleased to report one schedule, which has been strictly adhered to by one state industry, the CEGB ·which is why it·s in trouble. The CEGB took, folly of follies, the word of another group of bureaucrats, the Metrication Board, that Britain would be more or less completely metric by 1975. Well, give the British 25mm and they·ll take 1.61 km and even now the average man doesn·t know a kilogramme from a killer whale. I Why should he?·EdJ But the CEGB, when they ordered the isle of Grain power station specified metric. The rest of British industry dragged its feet, and although the building was 100% metric, the electrical equipment was less than 500,A; and the mechanical engineering less than 40%. That·s quite a mixed bag to operate for the next 30 years especially if the British unit spares dry up. Worse was to come when the coal gas and petroleum industries and British Rail tried to lay down a coordinated metric programme, with ·M·day·designated for you·ve guess·ed it ·April 1st 1974. All the fuel programmes were deferred but the CEGB found it too difficult to halt its own metrication programme and went ahead. The result was that the coal was delivered in tons and consumed in tonnes. Measurement of supplied calorific values was in Btu/lb but in use kJ/kg was employed.

The Regional Network In the last issue, we related the changes in Undercurrents which follow the readers meeting at COMTEK. In particular, the regional network of ·correspondents·was discussed and the way local news of interest might be gathered. We haven·t got it off the ground yet, in time to report for this issue. But the people are still there. So if there is something of interest


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going on in your area, please get in touch ... CORNWALL ·Jon Campbell. Lucastes, Lerryn, Lostwithiel, Cornwall. GLOUCESTER ·Godfrey Boyle, II Shadwell, Uley, Dursley, Gloucs. (Uley 636) POWYS ·Bob Todd (NCAT), Llwyngwern Quarry, Machynlleth, Powys. (Machynlleth 2400) CARDIFF ·Paul Downton, 139 Wyverne Road, Cathays, (Cardiff 43485) BUCKS ·Kip Handling. Signal Cottage, Bledlow, Bucks SUSSEX ·Duncan Campbell, 31 Franklin Road, Brighton, Sussex. (Brighton 686822) ESSEX ·Jan Wysocki, Hams Cottage, Back Road, Kirton, Ipswich YORKS ·Leeds Future Studies Centre, 15 Kelso Road. Leeds 2. LANCS ·Nigel Ferguson, 21 Chatsworth Road. Lancaster NORTHUMBERLAND ·Geoff WatSon, Church Cottage. Chollerton, Hexham, Monica Frisch, EGIS Information Service, North Lodge, Elswick Road Cemetry, Newcastle 4. EDINBURGH ·Michael Tribbeck, 10 Cannon Lane. Edinburgh 10. (03t·447 4908) WHAT·S ON ... The Institute of Contemporary Arts at Nash House, Carlton House Terrace, London SWl, are having a series of meetings on Communica·tion and Community Action, at 6.30 pm on Tuesday evenings. Each month there will be a different topic, with four lectures per month. Topics are: November ·video, December lobbying and PR, January ·film, February tapes and slides. The Farm and Food Society is taking part in the First World Congress at The World Exhibition of Survival at the International Rogier Centre, Brussels, November 21·24. This is being organised by Universal Survival whose declared target is Quality of Life. There will be sessions on Soft Energy, Biological Agriculture, Nonviolence, Nuclear Power, Healthy Food and Natural Medicine. Details from the Farm and Food Society, 37 Tanza Road, London NW3, 01·4550634. Should Britain Feed Itself! is the title of a conference organised by the Conservation Society and UK and Ireland Agricultural Students Association on Saturday November 22, at the Palmer Building, Reading University. One of the speakers is Kenneth


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Mellanby. The conference will discuss whether Britain should feed itself, on the assumption that it could do so, given a drastic change of diet (see review of Mellanby·s Call Britain feed Itself? in this issue). Registration £ 1.00, lunch £ 1.00, payable to Conservation Society. Indicate your requirements and enclose a large SAE with the money, to Stephen Mottram, Sibley Hall, Redhatch Drive, Earley, Reading, Berkshire. Turning Point is an all day meeting at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square on November 29 at which activists, thinkers, and other concerned people will discuss where to look for a solution to the present crisis ·towards ecology, politics or technology. Speakers will include Jerry Ravetz, Colin Hutchinson and James Robertson, author of Profit or People. For details write to Alison Pritchard, Turning Point, 21 Phillimore Place, London W8 7BY. 01·9379766. Tickets are £1, pay your cheque to Turning Point. The first European Sarvodaya Conference A Vision For a Communitarian Society ·will be held on Saturday December 13 at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WCI. "The conference aims to gather and express solidarity for a new set of principles and a programme for action. All those who believe in a decentralised society, an ecological life·style and a humane economy should gather and uphold these values." The conference is jointly sponsored by the London School of Nonviolence, The Ecologist, Christian Action, the Free J.P. Campaign and Resurgence and participants include E.F. Schumacher, Geoffrey Ashe, John Seymour, Leopold Kohr, Lanza del Vasto and many others. The Friday and Sunday meetings will be at Eastbourne House. For details write to Satish Kumar, Eastbourne House, Bullards Place, London E2. Tickets are £ 1 each, payable to the London School of Nonviolence. Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Assessment (NA IT A) is holding a two day workshop at the Open University, Milton Keynes, April 3·4 1976. This is aimed at bringing together groups involved with com·munity technology development, AT, grass roots industrial struggles, environmental lobbying, social audit, technology assessment etc, to exchange experiences and compare strategies. Contact Dave Elliott via Under·currents. ORGANISING AN EVENT?? Please send any information for inclusion in this section to Barbara Kern at Undercurrents.


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• • • • • • • • • • • • Partridge Rise Up, Ye Noble DiggersREADERS WITH LONG MEMORIES may recall the Diggers·brave attempt to seize Cambridge in the February 74 general election, (see Undercurrents 6). A lost deposit having finally confirmed their distaste for Parliamentary demo·cracy the scene of the struggle has shifted a long way from Westminster .... right down to earth on far·off Bodmin Moor. During the summer Poltesque Farm, an 80·acre site near the village of Temple, was taken over for people·s use and now houses a population of fifty souls, making it the largest agricultural commune in Britain. The farm had been left unwanted since the original owner fled the country owing a large amount in death duties. Until recently the land was used unofficially by another local farmer, but faced with economic crisis he has cut down the size of his stock and is now helping the settlers to develop more direct methods of food production. Much hard work had preceded this move; an old stone barn was transformed into a cooperative dormitory using material liberated from derelict sites all over Cornwall and work has since begun on a second building. The community aims to have all the land under intensive cultivation within two years and thereafter to become a high·production unit assisting other groups with a similar ideology. Although the community is very recent the framework of its constitution is based on the teachings of Gerrard Winstanley, as laid down in ·The Law of Freedom in a Platform·. The objective is a situation in which leaders and committees are unnecessary. The principal activity is spontaneous work; anyone finding a job which needs doing either does it or lists it on a blackboard for others requiring direction. A general meeting of all concerned sets down standards for the way in which each job is done, and these are reviewed regularly as more people acquire the necessary skills. The community intends to prove that a sharing system is not only spiritually better, but can also lead to greater material comfort through intensified and sensitive use of resources. The latest news from Cornwall is that two more derelict farms have been found, one with very fast water nearby_And Trago Mills, the local out·of·town shopping centre, is running a special offer on fibre·glass waterwheels this month.Information from Nathan Moran.


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GERRARD WINSTANLEY was a 17th century English revolutionary whose ideas deserve to see the light of day again. Radical history, with its more recent exotic heroes, has rarely paid much attention to the original home.grown product, but there is no doubt that Marx himself was quite familiar with Winstanley·s writings. The Civil War and the English Revolution were cornerstones of his historical understanding ..... basic examples of the transformation of society from feudalism to capitalism. The Civil War, (1642·1650). was the point when the old established aristocrats were overthrown by the rising merchant class. But it was a long exhausting struggle and, as in most wars, the bulk of the fighting fell to the lot of the ordinary folk of the shires and the country towns, who also contributed to Cromwell·s cause by raising heavy taxes and giving free quarter to his troops. With the execution of the king and the proclamation of a republic (commonwealth" therefore, they naturally expected to be relieved of the old feudal burdens of high taxation and unequal ownership of land. But they were disappointed., for the victorious Parliamentarians merely appropriated the privileges of the vanquished Royalists for themselves without doing anything to ease the condition of the poor. The levellers were the ultra·leftists of Cromwell·s revolution; they were not satisfied with a simple change in the personnel at the top of the tree ..... they wanted society to be made more equal throughout. And to the left of the ultra·leftists came the True levellers, led by Winstanley, who aspired to a complete common·ownership of the land and the introduction of a social system based on wider community objectives instead of the narrow personal interests of its separate members. Thus the bourgeois concept of individualism was being challenged right at the inception of the bourgeois state. _ ... a fact which may come as a surprise to many who regard this current of opinion as a much more recent phenomenon. In April 1649 a number of men armed with spades arrived on St Georges Hill in Surrey intending to till the common land and grow food for the needy. They were mostly poor residents of neighbouring Cobham and Walton·on·Thames, landless labourers of a class dispossessed by the enclosure system and subject to tremendous hardship in that period of economic chaos. Their leader was Gerrard Winstanley, who had expressed the aim of the project in his

p


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pamphlet ·The New law of Righteousness·published in January of that year. Their intention was to ·work together, eat bread together·. They were opposed by local property moguls who were jealous of their grazing rights. The ensuing months saw widespread political unrest, as the bourgeois government·sought to contain the efforts of the poor to take the land for themselves and their own needs. Although the number of participants in this insurrection was at all times few, Cromwell and his generals were not slow to perceive the serious threat which lay behind their socialist ideas. The news·sheets of 1649 contain accounts from many parts of England of conditions bordering on famine and pestilence ... all this in a country in which, as Winstanley himself remarked, "there be land enough .... to maintain ten times as many people as are in it" Eventually the True levellers were defeated .... the courts, the army and the enraged local bourgeoisie proved too powerful for a small band of men with scant leisure for litigation and politics. All that remains of 5t Georges Hill is a slick housing estate where the private swimming·pool class are currently entrenched. But of Winstanley there remains a remarkable body of communist writings many years ahead of their time, expressing a perpetual disillusionment with movements that begin revolutionary, rapidly become reformist, and end up reactionary. The most important of these is ·The law of Freedom in a Platform·addressed to Cromwell at the height of his power, detailing the misery to which the people were returning under their new overlords, and outlining the theory of a just, sharing society. In 300 years it has lost none of its relevance or its elegance. The most accessible collection of Winstanley·s writings is entitled Winstanley. The Law of Freedom, edited by Christopher Hill and published by Pelican at 75p.

A Full-length FILM about the leader of the True Levellers and the events on George Hill, 1649·51 has been directed by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo, two exponents of a peculiarly British variety of non·establishment cinema: the low·budget feature·movie with amateur actors, shot at weekends, yet striving for, and often surpassing, the technical standards of the big·money boys. ·Winstanley·will be making its British debut at the London Film Festival in November. Great political issues of the period haunt the action, though for the most part unobtrusively. The film does not set out to make abstract statements ·it is simply a record of events with a commentary taken from


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Winstanley.·s writing .... an account of turbulent ideas as they find expression in people·s behaviour. particularly towards each other. It doesn·t say that Diggers are good, or that landowners are bad; it merely observes the individuals that inhabit broad stereotypes and tries to come to terms with their particular identities. Thus the ambivalence of General Fairfax, setting the needs of state against the stirrings of his conscience. Or the inconstancy of Mrs. Platt, with her passion for Winstanley·s democratic vision, yet her refined abhorrence of the common people. The Diggers failed to achieve their aims, and they failed abysmally. After less than two years on barren heath land, harassed at every turn by the authorities, their spirit was broken and the movement crushed. The film sets out to show the human elements that underly this short. sad fact ..... how the unity of the movement was imperilled by lunatics, (Ranters ·self·ended spirits·), and by the simple pragmatism of those with families to support, who could not live up to Winstanley·s standards of self·denying honesty. And. more than anything else, it demonstrates the cruel reality of living by the land ..... the dirt, the hunger, the unremitting toil, set against a back·ground of ever·changing weather. The most memorable scene is the recurrent prospect from the hilltop, a leitmotif depicting all the seasons, sometimes assailed with storms and at other times shimmering beneath the hot sun. Anyone who wants to live closer to the earth must learn to love it in all its moods. Winstanley is a didactic movie of great importance ..... a typical piece of our history featuring property, poverty, gentleness and power. It asks questions which were put into cold·storage in the 17th century and are, this day. still waiting to be answered. The words of Winstanley, and Miles Halliwell·s remarkable voice, still linger: " .... here I end, having put my arm as far as my strength will go to advance righteousness. I have writ. I have acted. I have peace." How many of us will be able to say as much? Martyn Partridge


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FOOD for PEOPLE: The Land for the People Food Event at Leeds, Oct 18 & 19. IN AN IDYLLIC GREEN FIELD with two horses, among miles of deserted farmland but close to the London·Leeds railway, is a horrific sign: TAYLOR WOODROW BUILD EVERYWHERE. This wooden structure is itself the only evidence of building in the whole area so far, and appears all the more threatening when there is no·one around except the occasional solitary tractor·driver. The fields themselves are. beginning to look visibly unhealthy as the tractors become bigger and better machines. But you can·t eat tractors. In Leeds almost all discussion was actually on some aspect of communication and exchange of information itself: A Land Registry ·People living locally could most easily check out each piece of land to find out details about the condition of the soil and who owns it, etc. Many local groups could usefully exchange accurate knowledge of possibilities in each area. There was already a lot of commitment from people at Comtek (sec Undercurrents 12) to look but for usable land nationally. A Catalogue of People ·their skills, interests, commitments, resources and present requirements, something which the Futures Centre is trying to do already. land for the People has produced a rough list for people to make contact with each other locally. (In the Bit library there·s an amazing 1 50·page directory of people who attended a conference on Alter·native Agriculture last year in America, where the movement back to the land is obviously growing very large_)

A Land for the People Handbook ·Some people offered to write on particular topics such as ·the cities·exploitation of the countryside·. We still need articles on subjects like Agribizness and its dangerous practices. agricultural ·science·. reclaiming waste land, building regulations and ecodesign, alternative technology, the ecology of human settlement and so on. Information is badly needed in such areas as: setting up collective organisations. legal frameworks and how they work in practice, organisation of meetings; up·to date statistics, facts and details on land ownership in Britain; radical methods of land (or swamp?) cultivation, game farming, wild foods etc; nutrition, planning laws, Community Land Bill, squatting land, alternatives to industry, alternative economics, village co·operatives, compost, recycling waste _ .... the list is probably endless. We can·t ignore the tremendous amount of land that now lies waste in small and large plots all over the country. Every spare bit of land will become important to grow food sooner or later ..... who can tell how soon? Action to create community gardens and to secure more allotment


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space will be a necessary part of our campaign as they will be essential to the food·supply of city·dwellers. If people want to find themselves small rural plots this can be useful, too, and we should aid and work with them also, but not in a way that detracts from our main aims. The greater part of our work will be the creation of whole new agriculturally based villages. This necessitates a cam·paign to change our restrictive planning laws, setting up of a co·operative society housing association, acquiring land, building new eco·houses and community work·shops and the setting up of learning exchange centres where people can learn from the experience of others about farming, crafts or whatever. For a bit of practical experience I suggest contacting WWOOF (Working Weekends on Organic Farms). c/o Veronica Phillips, 39 Somerset Avenue, london SW20. There arc plenty of squatable houses with large gardens available in the Yorkshire area. There·s even a farm, but it would require a great deal of dedication and hard work from many people. Contact Leeds Future Studies Centre, 15 Kelso Road, Leeds 2, or land for the People, 8a leighton Crescent, London NW5. Steve Hobbs


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• • • • • • • • • • • • Leach From Stone Age to Supermarket: ENERGY AND FOOD PRODUCTION The rise in agricultural output of the developed West has been almost entirely due to massive inputs of energy, putting agriculture in the UK, for example, on a par in energy intensiveness with industry. The result, as Gerry Leach of the International Institute for Environment and Development points out here, is a highly energy·inefficient system, comparing very poorly with pre·industrial and present third·world methods and entirely inappropriate to the needs of the vast bulk of mankind. To increase yields, quality and reliability, without high costs, environmental damage or massive unemployment, the way forward must be through self·sustainable and renewable resources. This is a shortened version of an article appearing in the first edition of FOOD POLICY. Thanks are due to the author and IPC for permission to publish and to Geoff Tansey for help with editing. A much fuller treatment of the same subject is Energy and Food Production bV G. Leach, obtainable from the International Institute for Environment and Development, 27 Mortimer St, London Wl. Price £1.00. SOLAR ENERGY alone is not sufficient for food production; other energy inputs are necessary, While most traditional farmers achieve high food yields for each energy unit invested, the industrialised food systems of the West have raised food yields and quality and cut labour usage, but have done so by heavy consumption of ·and dependence on ·fossil fuels. Most developed societies now use 7 to 8 units of fossil fuel energy for each food energy unit consumed, or an annual 0.8 tons of oil equivalent per person. These energy subsidies have helped transform working conditions and living standards in modern societies, especially on the farm. They are also a natural response to a period of high wages and cheap energy. Their emergence is easily explained. Yet they do raise several important questions for the future. Not least of these are whether recent trends in the energy·intensive food systems of the West need to be reversed, or can be without harm; whether they are a possible model for the developing world to copy; and if not, what energy·food strategies can do most for the energy and food·hungry majority of the world·s peoples. The input range


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Table 1 show, that energy requirements for a unit of food energy or protein vary by roughly 10 000 times as one spans the entire spectrum of food production systems. For the subsistence and hunter·gatherer communities of the first three entries the Energy Ratio (the ratio of food energy produced to energy ____________________________________________________Table 1. Range of energy ratios for food production systems Energy in Energy out Farm gate or dockside Protein out

Energy in (MJ/kgP) Chinese peasants 1930s 41 3.6 Tropical crops, pre·industrial* 13.38 4·13 Tropical crops, semi·industrial· 5·10 15·80 Wheat, UK 1970 3.4 42 Maize, USA 1970 2.6 62 Potato, UK 1970 1.6 96 Allotment garden, UK 1974 1.3 58 Rice, USA 1970 1.3 143 Milk, UK 1970 0.37 208 Eggs. UK 1970 0.14 353 Poultry meat, UK 1970 0.10 290 Shrimp fishing. Australia 1974 0.06 366 All fishing fleets. Malta 1970·71 0.04 420 Fishing. Adriatic 1970·71 0.01 1770 Yeast on methanol 1974 · 170 Yeast on N·paraffins 1973 195 Winter tomatoes, Denmark 1134 mj/kg 0_004 14900 Winter lettuces. UK (230 MJ/kg 0.002 26100

All Agriculture UK 1952 0.46 251 1968 0.34 326 1972 0.35 315

USA 1963 0.87 158 ·L·ND 1900 Ml

Total food system to shop door UK 1968 0.20 796 USA 1963 .0.22 616

1960 0.19 1970 0.15

AUSTRALIA 1965·69 0.14·().20

____________________________________________________* Pre·industrial systems have more than 95% of energy inputs in the form of muscular work


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bV men or animals. With semi·industrial systems the proportion ranges from 10·95% but is usually 40·60%, the remainder being fossil inputs mostly for fertilisers but with some machinery and fuels. All other systems shown are full·industrlal. with muscular effort accounting for less than 5% of the total, and usually less than 1%.

____________________________________________________consumed) is consistently high. achieving a traditional aim of agriculture, which is to secure a net energy flow to man. With industrial systems much more energy is needed per unit output. with animal products and sea fishing requiring consistently higher amounts of energy than crops. as one might expect. This last_ fact does much to explain why for the total farm systems of the UK, USA and Holland the Energy Ratio is always less than one and as low as 0.3. The Table also shows for the UK and Holland a strong trend towards greater energy intensity in agriculture in the last 20 years. When one includes the entire food production and delivery system to the point where food is sold in shops the Energy Ratios in developed societies drop to around 0.2. giving an annual fossil energy requirement of about 24 GJ (1 GJ is 10·Joules) or 0.56 tonnes oil equivalent per capita. In most developed societies a further 5·10 GJ per capita is used in transporting food to the home and in the home for cooking, refrigeration etc. Many rural communities in the Third World consume much greater quantities of fuel in the home than this, bringing their overall energy consumption for food close to the Western level. Energy and labour An important consequence of the high energy ratios of primitive·farming systems is that labour requirements for food supply are not abnormally high, despite popular mythology. With an Energy Ratio of 25 a subsistence farmer need spend only two hours per day on average in order to feed a family of four with a combined food energy intake of 40 MJ per day. This figure is comparable to those of Western societies, where roughly 25·30% of household incomes are spent on food and drink. Table 2 makes this comparison more explicit by comparing food energy yields per man hour of labour. Most nonindustrial cropping systems achieve 10·50 MJ per man hour for raw food delivered to the home. With full·industrial crops this productivity soars to around 3000·4000 MJ per man hour of on·farm labour with food delivered to the farm gate. But these high outputs arc then dissipated in two ways. Much of the crop is fed to animals. which reduces the productivity enormously. It is down to 50·170 M J per man hour on most average UK livestock farms, for


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example. The second loss occurs when one includes all the other sectors of the food system. The total direct and indirect labour force in UK food production and supply is estimated at close to three million workers, with probably a further one million providing food and feed imports. On this total the labour productivity is as low as 35 MJ per man hour. This is a notable figure in view of the frequent claims that modern methods allow one farmer to feed 60 or more people. These methods depend on, have allowed and indeed largely caused the vast social changes ·including urbanisation and the factory system ·which have put large distances between the field and the mouth in every sense and greatly swelled the ranks of non·farm workers in the food system. In fact a food system worker in the UK feeds ·only·14 to 16 people ·a figure that is typical of the middle to upper range for preindustrial farmers when one counts actual working time. Energy and land Figure 1 compares energy inputs and outputs per unit of land for a wide range of farming systems. It confirms two important relationships. The first. demonstrated by the sloping diamond of the pre·industrial systems, is that hard work can provide large yields. The highest point of this group, for example, is for traditional Chinese small·holdings of 230 m2·with labour inputs of 7064 hours per hectare·year and outputs as rice and beans of nearly two tons of protein and 280 GJ per hectare·year. Most of the labour was for collecting dung. Allotment gardens in the UK, with an estimated 14000 hours of labour per hectare·year yielding 60 G J and 788 kg of protein as mixed vegetables, also score outputs almost as high as any full·industrial cropping systems on record. In both cases high outputs are achieved mainly by virtue of labour intensity and small scale, which allows intensive fertilisation, weeding and double and inter·cropping. However, it is crucial to bear in mind that high yields and high labour intensity are rarely a recipe for wealth; for example at 1974 prices the UK allotment produced a return of only £0.2 per man hour. The second relationship is the more conventional one that large fossil inputs in the form of fertilisers and mechanisation can also give high yields. The cluster of full·industrial crops (cereals, rice, potatoes and sugar beet) have energy yields of 30·80 GJ per hectare·year, roughly three times higher for temperate climates than the majority of pre·and semi·industrial


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tropical systems. However, energy inputs are also much higher while ·at least on these data there is a sharp tendency to diminishing returns. As before, the effective yield is greatly reduced by feeding the crops to animals ·a shown by the plots for UK livestock farms and animal products. ____________________________________________________Table 2. Food energy outputs per man hour of farm labour Output Agricultural system (MJ/man hour) Pre·industrial crops !Kung Bushmen, hunter·gatherers 4·5 Subsistence rice, tropics 11·19 Subsistence maize, millet, sweet potato. tropics 25·30 Peasant farmers. China 40 Semi·industrial crops Rice, tropics 40 Maize. tropics 23·48 Full·industrial crops Rice. USA 2800 Cereals, UK 3040 Maize, USA 3800 Full·industrial crops plus animal Sheep, cattle, pig and poultry, dairy farms, UK 5l>170 Cereal farms. UK (small animal output) 800 UK allotment garden, approx. 4·3 UK food system, approx. 3l>35 (all labour)

____________________________________________________The UK farm system A greater insight into food·energy relationships can be gained by looking at the changing patterns of one country. As late as the 1920s UK farming was a pre-or semi·industrial system, with only 10 000 tractors compared to 410 000 today and an average fossil energy input of a mere 100·150 MJ per hectare year compared to 9000 M J in 1970. Only 6% of farms had a power supply and their combined consumption was less than 1 % of present levels. The transition to full industrialisation occurred very rapidly and mostly in the 30 years since World War Two. In England and Wales the number of farm horses declined precipitously, releasing 10% of the total farmed area for food production; wholetime farmworkers fell in 50 years from nearly


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700 000 to 260000; and the tractor population rose to about 350 000. At the same time, while crop yields rose to roughly double their 1900 level consumption of energy intensive chemical fertilisers soared. In the same 1900·70 period the total output of animal products roughly doubled, but since the effective area of farm land increased by 28% (largely due to the decline in grazing land for horses) and feed imports also increased, the increase in animal yields per hectare was probably more like 50%. The effects on energy consumption were substantial. From a very low level at the start of the century, by 1968 the energy input to UK farming had risen to 378 million GJ or .76 million tons oil equivalent, equal to 4.6% of UK primary energy consumption in that year. For this investment, among others, farming delivered 130 million GJ of food energy and 1.16 million tonnes of protein for human consumption ·enough to feed exactly half the population in energy terms and 62% in terms of protein. A l*"breakdown of these energy inputs is given in Figure 2, while Figure 3 shows rather more approximately how the main classes of energy input changed during the 1952·72 period. The most notable changes were in the substitution of energy for manpower. By 1972 each full·time farm worker was backed by a direct energy input of 502 GJ or 11.6 tonnes of oil equivalent per year. Counting all part·time workersl directors and the like reduces this to about 180 GJ per man year. Even this lower figure puts agriculture, on this measure, well into the category of heavy industries = in the UK the direct energy per manyear is about 130·140 G J in engineering and 310 GJ in motor vehicle production. Equally significant, the marginal energy cost of replacing labour appears to have soared. In the early stages of farm mechanisation it often took only 10·20 MJ of energy to save one hour of labour but by 1965·70 this quantity had risen to around 230 M J. The UK food system In a developedl urban society such as the UK farming accounts for only a fraction of the total energy required for food supply. Food has to be transported p(processed, packed, stored and sold in shops, and in the UK it has to be imported in large quantities. Figure 4 gives an estimate for 1968 of the energy flow for the whole UK food system to the shop door. The total input of nearly 1300 million GJ or 30 million tonnes oil equivalent for a population of 55 million was 15.7% of national energy consumption ·though of course a good deal of this energy was


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·spent·abroad. These figures do not point to a very energy·efficient food system. Nor is this a viable system for all people for all time. Copied on a global scale it would demand prodigious quantities of energy ·4000 million people each consuming 23.6 G) per year of fossil fuels in order to cat (let. alone cook) gives an annual fuel bill of 2185 million tonnes oil equivalent or 40% of global commercial fuel consumption in 1972. This figure might be reasonable if other efficiencies were especially high. We have already seen that they are not for labour usage. Each Briton depends on at least 0.71 hectare for food ignoring all imports of food and feedstuffs. This is little less than the global average of 1.1 hectare per person counting crop land, permanent meadows and pastures. Why are these efficiencies so low? The overwhelming reason is the high propor·tion of animal products in the diet and in farm outputs. The UK farm produces exactly equal amounts of dietary energy in the form of animal products and of crops fed directly to man. Vet while the latter are grown on 1.55 million hectare, animal production requires 10.25 million hectare of crops and grassland and 1.52 million hectare approximately for imported feedstuffs. Thus the crop sector is seven to eight times more efficient in its use of land to provide food energy than is the animal sector. This is a minimum estimate since it ignores a further 6.65 million UK hectare of rough grazing suitable only for animal raising. As for fossil fuel efficiencies, a dramatic demonstration of the energy·profligacy of animal production is given by Figure 5. This compares the Energy Ratio for a variety of (average) farms in the UK, all of them producing some crops and some animal products. As the proportion of total energy outputs accounted for by animal products rises from 2% (large cereal farms) to 93% (small specialist diary farms) the Energy Ratio plummets almost 10·fold. Indeed, with data of this kind it is possible to show that relatively minor reductions in consumption of animal products can give dramatic reduc·tions in the energy inputs and the land requirements for farming, giving for the UK 100% rather than 50·60% selfsufficiency for temperate foodstuffs. Energy conservation Many minor opportunities exist for energy savings that do little or nothing to alter the structure of farming or other food production sectors. The really important routes to fuel economy, however. lie through the


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production of fuels and power on the farm by converting organic wastes and byproducts or deliberately growing fuel crops. The theoretical potential for agricultural fuel production or ·biomass conversion·is enormous wherever population densities are relatively low, and solar inputs reasonably high, as in the USA. A recent US Government study has shown that a ·practical·development programme for biomass conversion, mainly of farm and forestry wastes, could provide an annual 15800 million GJ (366 million tonnes oil equivalent) for the USA in the year 2000. This quantity, 24% of 1971 total US energy consumption, equals 60% of the energy output of the largest nuclear programme proposed by the late US Atomic Energy Commission which called for 1400 GW (electrical) installed capacity in 2000_ The more modest USAEC target of 850 GW installed in 2000 would produce rather less energy than bioconversion. In more densely populated high·energy societies such as the UK, West Germany and Japan the potential for agricultural fuel production is much smaller. The conversion of all 40 million tonnes of dung from housed cattle produced in the UK would in an efficient system provide around 44 million GJ. leaving nearly all the manure residues for returning to the land as fertiliser. However, high costs (especially for gas storage to match output to demand) appear to rule out wide·scale use of this source at present. The global challenge In the underdeveloped world the imperatives of agricultural development are to increase food yields, quality and reliability ·and hence the wealth of agricultural communities ·without high costs, severe environmental impacts or reduced employment. Carbon copies of Western methods are mostly irrelevant or at worst dangerous. New strategies are needed and in these energy plays a peculiarly important role. Table 4 shows how energy is supplied to six ·prototypical·villages in the Third World. These are farming communities . Almost all the human and animal energy is used in food production, including irrigation, and much of the wood, dung and crop wastes are used for cooking . Several striking points emerge: When cooking is included energy used in the food system is comparable to that in the West. With these fuels, per capita consumption for cooking is about 5·7 GJ compared to 1·2 GJ for modern gas stoves and three G J for electric stoves in the USA. The cooking fuels are precious resources ·dung as fertiliser, crop wastes as


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manures or animal feeds, and "wood as ecological capital. Energy supply is overwhelmingly from food or biological sources (the Mexican village excepted) with extremely low efficiencies of use. With draught animals the conversion of fuel to useful work is about 3·5% compared to 25·30% for a tractor. Similarly the conversion of fuels to useful heat in cooking is about 5% compared to 20·25% in a modern gas or electric stove. In all such communities, adequate power to work the fields and to pump irrigation water (where available) is crucially important for raising yields and /·" avoiding the ravages of drought ·and hence for increasing the wellbeing of people. Apart from the costly solution of providing more energy from outside by commercial fuels and electrification, the single most urgent need in the food-energy equation is to find cheap ways of harnessing more effectively the energy that is locally available, ie, using it with higher efficiencies. It is becoming increasingly obvious that bioconversion (and the direct use of solar power) provides the way out of this trap. The skills and technologies are simple, and the fuel sources are widely available, forever renewable (with care) and ecologically inoffensive (with care). Perhaps above all, they are ideally suited to small·scale. self·help, decentralised development which is so relevant to the great majority of the world·s poor who still live in scattered rural communities. Consider what a favoured technology ·the conversion of organic matter to biogas (approximately 60% methane) would mean in general terms for the villages of Table 4. In most of the tropics the year·round solar insolation is in the neighbourhood of 80000·90000 GJ per hectare per year, (260·290 watts/m·). Many tropical crops can capture on a year·round basis from 0.5 to 1.0% of this energy without heavy irrigation or fertilisation and about 2% with them. Assuming a low energy capture (0.5%) to allow for energy used in growing and harvesting, and a typical 55·60% conversion efficiency for biogas plant, one arrives at a net yield of about 245 GJ of biogas per hectare year. If this also allows a five·fold rise in the efficiency of using energy for tillage, cooking etc. it would theoretically provide all the gross energy needs for 80 people in Mangaon (India falling to 25 people in Quebrada (Mexico). At these levels there would be little competition with land for growing food. In practice, more land for crops would probably be made available. Most or


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all of the organic matter feeding the biogas plant would be crop wastes (and dung) and by eliminating the need for draught animals (let alone much backbreaking human labour) some land would be released for food production. At the same time better tillage methods and irrigation could both increase crop yields and the production of biogas fodder. It is not hard to see how powerful synergistic effects can occur once the stranglehold of the present low energy, low production system is broken. A similar argument applies to other renewable energy sources which provide concentrated fuels or power. These include liquid fuels obtainable from plant matter by fermentation, destructive distillation or pyrolisis for powering machines such as cultivators or small tractors; electricity from biogas or fuel forests·; conventional solar panels to provide hot water and space heating in colder mountain regions; and solar-electric devices such as that proposed by the Meinels of Arizona University for concentrating sunlight onto pipes, storing the energy in molten salts or rocks, and extracting it as required (day or night) to drive turbines to provide electricity at overall conversion efficiencies as high as 25%. The development and diffusion of energy devices of these kinds throughout the rural areas of the Third World is an enormous challenge. Many of these devices have been cos ted by conventional economics and have been found either to be wanting or only marginally attractive compared to more conventional supply technologies. The question is whether economics. with its high rate of discounting the future and its failure to catch many of the most relevant factors in its net, is the most appropriate guide. No one has yet thoroughly explored the multitude of consequences and transformations that developments of this kind could bring about ·not least on food production, on rural incomes, on personal wellbeing and self·respect, on the invigoration of village life, and on the mass migrations to the exploding cities of the Third World; in short, on the whole development process. ____________________________________________________Table 3. Summary of energetics of UK food system, ca. 1968 Biological flows 106 GJ per year

Solar radiation incidence 610000 Primary production harvested from plants 1 116 Imports of animal feed 104 Edible farm output: crops 65 animals 65


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Total edible farm output 130 Food energy consumed by population 261 Primary conversion efficiency (S/A) 0·18% System efficiency [E/{B+C)] 10·7% Overall efficiency IG X HI 0·02% Food energy self·sufficiency IE/F) 50% Food protein self·sufficiency 62% Food energy output/ha of crops and grass in UK 10·6 L including rough grazing 6·7

Industrial energy flows Energy input to agriculture (and % all UK) 4:6% 378 Energy input to food system (and % all UK) 15·7% 1300

. P. 0 counting home·related energy use (22%1 1 820 Energy ratio of agriculture (E/N) 0,34 Energy ratio for whole food system (FlO) 0:20 A including home·related energy (F/P) 0:14

GJ per year Energy input 101 on per capita basis 23·6 Agricultural input/ha for crops and grass in UK 30·7 U including rough grazing 19·5

____________________________________________________Table 4. Energy use in six Third World villages Gross energy (GJ per capita) Village Wood. dung crop wastes Commercial fuels Human labour Draught animals Total Mangaon.lndia 4.2 0.2 3.2 7.9 15.5 Peipan. China 21.1 3.6 3.2 5.3 33.2 Kilombeo, Tanzania 23.2 · 3.2 · 26.4 Batagawara, Nigeria 15.7 0.05 3.0 0.75 19.5 Quebrada. Bolivia 35.4 · 3.5 10.6 49.5 Arango, Mexico 15.1 38.9 3.8 7.6 65.4

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• • • • • • • • • • • • Elliott Soft Technology for Hard Times: Back To The Drawing BoardA conference on Industry, the Com·munity and Alternative Technology has been organised for November 15th and 16th at Bradford University by the Futures Studies Centre, Leeds. Amongst subjects for discussion will be the Lucas initiative ·described in UC12. This series of articles looks at the conference, some possible contenders for AT production, and some aspects of the US arid UK industrial context. Industry, the Community & AT. The Bradford Conference DISCUSSION WILL aim to explore some of the implications of the Lucas initiative and ask just how (and whether) alternative technology can be brought to the community by this type of industrial diversification. It is deliberately broadbased ·there will be trade unionists, managers, futurist and alternative technologists present. and, potentially, some lively debates. The conference will be organised around a series of workshops or, ·commissions·on specific topics, leading up to plenary sessions at the end of each day. In addition to discussions centred on initiatives like that of the Lucas workers, it is planned to have sessions dealing with other aspects of the campaign against redundancies ·for example the idea of community works programmes, and the various retraining schemes, together with more general sessions on strategy and goals. What follows is a guide to the sort of topics the conference will aim to tackle. Problems and implications of the development of Alternative Technology by industry The problem of organising the shop floor around the campaign for the right to work on appropriate socially useful technology; experience of study groups/project teams; industrial relations aspect·extending collective bargaining to include issues of technical choice, design and control; spreading the idea to workers in other industries. Managements response to this initiative. The attitudes and ambivalent role of the middle manager. The response of industry in general ·will it absorb AT and market it like any other commodity? (Undercurrents readers will find some ideas on these issues in UC10 and 12). The Meaning of work A more general discussion on the nature of work, leisure, production and consumption roles ·should we be campaigning for the right not to work? What is the role of techno·logy, e.g. automation, AT, etc? Can we shift to a non·work society or a society in which work and leisure are fused? The role of women in present society as a case


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study they do unpaid work, but it is not socially accepted as true ·work·. The role of long range planners and futurologists Can and should these experts help groups like the workers at Lucas? How should they relate to management? What is the position of the various long range planning groups set up by industry and government? Community Works programmes and unemployment Can and should unemployed workers be offered socially useful work on community projects of various kinds ·or is this likely to lead to.exploitation of cheap labour? Implications of the various ·emergency·schemes for jobless youth currently being developed. Alternative programmes of com·munity work, devised by and for local communities, rather than run by the state, Le. self help. (See UC 11 for a discussion of landsettlement ideas). What is Appropriate Technology? Can we say what is appropriate without relating this assessment to a social context? Are the traditional AT·s necessarily ·appropriate·? What other options are there? General analysis of the options available to firms like Lucas; assessment of the desirability and viability of various examples of AT and a general discussion of strategy. There could also be specialist workshops on specific technologies ·windmills, solar collectors, heat pumps, solar cells, fuel cells, etc. Training, retraining and detraining If shop floor workers are to generate and sustain AT projects they may need training to help them. Technical training is probably less urgent than training in how to choose and manage technologies and programmes. There are a number of relevant courses in ·design·and ·choosing appropriate technology·. Can shop floor workers (and others) be released to do these? Can retraining grants be used for nonvocational training of this sort? With rising unemployment, can some workers be sent on retraining and further education courses rather than be put on the dole? Can the temporary employment subsidies be used to fund this? Investment in education is an intelligent response during a recession. With the ever increasing pace of technical change, retraining is a vital need even without recession ·as successive governments have realised. There is also a vital need for access to technical and general training for women, if the provisions of the sex-equality legislation are to have any meaning. If the provisions of the Industrial Democracy legislation now being framed are to be implemented, then many shop floor representatives will


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need access to ·management·skills, like accountancy, planning as well as ·trade union·skills, like negotiating. If collective bargaining is to be extended to cover a wider range of issues then shop stewards will need to develop their skill over a wider range of areas. What role should be played by the various trade union colleges, WEA, Open University, local technical colleges, evening institutes, the Government training schools and the voluntary community organisations (such as the ·Community Industry·project in Liver·pool)? Can direct links be forged between workers and firms pursuing ·AT·projects, college based research and the AT programmes being undertaken by local authorities and some community groups? Long term aims and strategy What do the various groups see as the ultimate objective of the activities discussed at the conference ·just easing some environmental problems by producing some items of AT for mass consumption, or the beginning of a move towards a decentralised self·managed society? What should be the role of producers, consumers and community control in the future? Can we move towards a participative democracy based on small·scale units? Is this desirable or feasible? What are the obstacles to the transition to this type of society? Alternative economic systems Discussion of the various possible alternatives to market·based economics ·can and should Consumer sovereignty be re·established? Can planning be made more responsive to individual needs? How can autonomous self·managed units co·operate economically with other such units without competition? In our present economic set up ·consumer needs·are meant to be reflected through the market. But this mechanism may not be an appropriate (or even effective) way of articulating real needs. If people are daily bombarded by messages from the advertising world telling them what they should want it is not surprising that this colours their aspirations and behaviour. Many real needs are glaringly obvious ·housing, medical facilities, access to leisure facilities, education and so on ·and arc not met by the present mode of resource allocation. If we are seeking to meet these real needs, how can we proceed? Through ·consumer·organisations? Or better ·market re.search·? Or by relating production much more directly to the needs of local communities? Since most ·producers·are also ·consumers·it seems possible that democratic control of production by producers, coupled with com·munity interest groups, could provide a possible mechanism. This


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implies having ·community representatives·sitting alongside ·worker representatives·on some form of ·management board·established in each firm. In immediate practical terms how can production be geared to meet urgent need? Can one rely on the needs expressed by local communities ·community groups exploring alternative technologies, local authorities, amenity groups, environmentalists etc? Or can this sort of community control only exist when industry and the economy generally has been decentralised? i.e. Can it only apply to small firms who can react to local needs quickly?

Saving Jobs AND the Environment Some of the alternative products that the Lucas Aerospace Combine are considering were outlined by Mike Cooley, one of the members of the Shop Stewards Committee, at the recent Institute for Workers·Control and Socialist Environment and Resources Association conference on ·Jobs and the Environment·, One idea was to explore the feasibility of a dual purpose road·rail vehicle, possibly running on rubber wheels of the sort used on the Paris Metro, and powered by a hybrid internal combustion/electric motor unit (see section on Electric Vehicles in this supplement). Tests had indicated that pollution levels would be loweredJ noise decreased considerably, and fuel consump.tion dramatically reduced. Existing Lucas technology ·power units, electric motors, batteries etc ·could be integrated to provide a completely new form of public transport. Another idea was to develop a medium sized wind·electric unit for community power generation ·possibly using a ducted windmill and drawing on the expertise already developed by the aerospace industry in devising auxiliary wind·electric generators powered by aircraft slip streams. Other contenders were brake retarders for heavy vehicles, various aids for the disabled, including kidney machines, artificial limbs and the Hob cart unit (these arc all described more fully in the New Scientist article of July 31975). A variety of Telechiric machines (as opposed to Robots) were also being considered ·including remote fire fighting units and aids for oil rig undersea engineering and maintenance, the aim being not to replace operatives but to remove them to a safe distance. But it was emphasised that the Lucas engineers and designers were not


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necessarily committed to advanced technologies. The main aim of the exercise was to find ways to meet social needs, and in many instances this might imply fairly simple technologies. This might also mean that some of the workforce had to develop J very different design philosophy and learn new skills. However, the experience of designing the Hob cart (a simple tricycle for children with spinal bifida) had indicated that given a concrete situation engineers could very successfully turn their skills to finding original designs. The experience had also been very rewarding for the engineers involved ·they could actually relate to the ·customer·and sec the relevance of their work_ The Lucas workers wanted to avoid patenting their ideas, even though they realised that their work might be exploited for commercial gain. They felt that it would be more appropriate to use their collective strength to resist this sort of co·option. At the same time they would be campaigning·to obtain funds from government (perhaps utilising temporary employment subsidies, or money for retraining schemes and job creation programmes, or even from the National Enterprise Board) as well as from Lucas Aerospace itself. As more and more Lucas workers face redundancies the demand for the right to work on these socially needed technologies is likely to increase. One of the aims of the conference was to discuss how the Lucas initiative could be taken up by other groups of workers in other industries and how it could be linked to other struggles in industry and the community, such as those concerned with workplace health, pollution, community and environment problems. All too often working people are faced with a loaded choice between ·jobs·and a decent environment ·i e between the dole queue and working in hazardous conditions, producing useless products and pollution and environment. Employers claim that they cannot afford to improve conditions or products without going broke and/or cutting back on labour or wages. But, as the conference showed, through their collective strength, workers and their communities can organise to oppose this false trade off, and challenge a system which condemns many to the dole while there are obvious and urgent social needs to be met.

What Is To Be Made? AS PART of their campaign for the right to work on socially useful technology, the Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards Committee


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have been considering a wide range of alternative technology options. Discussion groups set up at each site have been exploring new product options and recommending new development programmes for inclusion" in the combine·s corporate plan. As reported in Undercurrents 12, suggestions have ranged from fairly conventional (but urgently needed) technologies like eddy current break retarders for heavy vehicles, to fairly original technologies (at least as far as large scale engineering firms are concerned) like wind electric machines. A number of questions have been thrown up in the process of selection. What type of technology shouId the Lucas workforce focus on in order to safeguard their jobs and make maximum use of their talents? Should they aim at meeting urgent and obvious social needs by emphasising fairly technically complex medical technologies, (home dialysis units, artificial limbs), safety systems (break retarders, remote fire fighting equipment), cheap conventional heating units and other domestic electrical services? Or ,should they explore some of the more long term needs and problems for example by developing equipment for undersea farming, telechiric machines for use at work, robots to relieve men of boring jobs and so on? Should they opt for some of the large scale alternative energy technologies (solar farm equipment, hydrogen electrolysers) that are likely to be in demand in the future? Or should they follow the AT enthusiasts·advice and concentrate on small scale AT systems for the domestic market? The Lucas workers are certainly interested in the potential of AT, but even here there are problems ·quite apart from whether there is yet a sufficiently large market to be a viable proposition. AT Feudal? If they focus on the classic small·scale, alternative energy technology, solar collectors etc, under present conditions these might just enable a few wealthy individuals to attain self(ish) sufficiency, thus simply shoring up the existing structure, and perhaps even laying the technical base for a type of feudal society. Would it not be wiser to focus on technology that enabled people to explore the idea of collective, rather than individual, autonomy, at the small or medium scale community level? The AT purists would of course argue that only small scale, simple technologies are suitable. But surely ·appropriateness·depends on the social context ·on the mode of development, production and use? Some items of advanced technology could under certain conditions be highly appropriate.


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The crucial issue is not technical complexity as such, but its social implications. Complex systems usually require specialists to produce and maintain them ·so that the average individual is frozen out. But in order to ·gain control·one doesn·t have to become a jack of all trades, or reduce all technologies to the ,imp lest possible. If we are to ask ·What is alternative technology?·or ·What technologies are appropriate?·we must keep a fairly open mind and consider a wide range of options, including some that may not appear ·appropriate·when judged by the standards of the AT enthusiast. The ideas that will emerge from the process under·way at Lucas may be very different ·for they will relate to the experience of a highly skilled workforce and to the communities to which they belong. I have selected a few examples from the more technically complex end of the alternative energy technology spectrum in order to illustrate and explore some of these implications. The Lucas plan is likely to include some of the more conventional low technology AT ideas-windmills, solar collectors etc: but here I am trying to assess whether there are any other alternatives that should be con·sidered. The Lucas alternatives I have chosen to look at possible alternative energy and transport systems, consisting of combinations of existing pieces of hardware. Most of the basic items already exist, the central problem for the future is integrating them together so as to obtain the best possible use of natural energy inputs. It is this sort of engineering effort that Lucas could supply. Fuel cells, first proposed in the 19th century and used on the Apollo flights can operate on a wide range of gaseous, liquid or solid fuels ·including coal gas, methane, ammonia, methanol. hydrogen peroxide and hydrazine. Fuel cells work like electrolytic cell, in reverse, fuel is fed in and produces dc electricity_ Some of the more advanced cells, using liquid or solid electrolyte, operate at high temperatures and are not dependent on platinum or other rare metal catalysts. But as yet, despite $100 million or more spent on develop·ment, no commercial unit is yet widely available. However the situation is changing fast. One reason has been the rise in conventional fuel cost; another is the fact that centralised production and distribution of electricity is inefficient. Maximum energy conversion efficiency in a ·power station, is around 40% (coal) 33% (nuclear). Transmission losses drop this a further 5·10%. A small domestic fuel cell, fed by locally produced methane or hydrogen would be much more efficient. Fuel cells effi·ciencies of 70·95% have


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been claimed, although most existing units installed give 50·70% at present. Waste heat inadvertently produced is not lost, it provides space heating. For example a gasfed 1 OkW fuel cell running an electrically serviced house (e.g. electric lighting/heating/a heat pump/etc.) with a 60% efficiency would produce 4kW ·waste·heat for domestic use. Hydrogen, for use in fuel cells, can be produced on a small scale by electrolysis using de electric power (from a windmill perhaps); or by chemical decomposition of water or the conversion of methane, or from hydrocarbons by ·steam reforming·. A number of exotic biological (photosynthesis) techniques for producing hydrogen are also being investigated, and it is possible to ·thermally split·water at high temperatures (15OO°C), which can be obtained by focused sunlight. The hydrogen must be separated by pumping the mixture through a palladium metal membrane, but even so the overall costs are fairly low. For example, one estimate, using a plastic Fresnel lens, is $33 for each square metre of sunlight collected. Such a system couId produce 160 gms of hydrogen per day per square metre of lens area. Fuel cell, could also be run on methane generated by anaerobic digestors, on natural gas or even perhaps on organic matter. They are small, compact, noiseless and they do not pollute ·they produce water vapour as the only output. Their main drawback is the low power output per unit volume and the sensitivity of the electrode/ catalysts to impure input gases. They are claimed to give 20·25% more useful energy per unit fuel than conventional power sources. Heat pumps have already been accepted as members of the AT club. Several electrical powered heat pumps, with ·coefficients of performance·of around 5: 1 have been operated and typically can pump heat at an overall (output) cost of about 5p/kWh. Interestingly, Lucas has considerable experience in heat pump technology, although it withdrew from the area some years ago. Power could be provided by a fuel cell, or a windmill. Two basic types of heat pump exist, vapour compression and absorption systems. In the first, gas is compressed in a pump which must be electrically or mechanically powered. In the other the gas is absorbed and then re·emitted by heating ·which can be by electricity, or more efficiently, gas (as in the standard modern ·silent·gas fridge).


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One possibility investigated by the Cambridge University Autonomous House Team, is to drive the compressor of the heat pump directly from the windmill. This may require some gearing and compensation for variable speed, but it is a highly efficient use of windpower. Overall costs are estimated at 0.9p/kWh (output heat). Heat pump engineering is not particularly complex ·they are identical to fridges in most respects. As with fuel cells they could be used to provide heating for individual houses or for district heating. Solar cells Solar energy can be converted directly to electricity by photo·voltaic devices selenium or cadmium sulphide cells with efficiencies ranging from 10·20%. The cost has been prohibitive up to now ·despite the widespread interest in solar cells for satellite power applications. $70/watt is a good figure for a cell. However, new fabrication techniques (borrowed from the electronics industry) are altering the situation and it is estimated that with mass production, cost can be reduced dramatically. (Remember transistor costs have dropped by a factor of 100,000!) The cost of installed power producing units is still fairly high, although one enthusiastic estimate is that:, given mass produced thin film devices used with focussing lenses, using $125/w cells it would be possible to produce power which would compare well with conventional power sources. Thin film vacuum deposition is not a particularly sophisticated technique although it is hardly a backyard craft But it may become so cheap that we will be able to buy ·solar blankets·for 50 cents/sq ft. The cadmium sulphide fabrication technique developed by Westinghouse is currently expected to produce cells at $14 per watt. Although the energy conversion efficiency is low (10% being the best available), silicon is a widely available material. Solar cells do not pollute in operation ·although their fabrication is energy intensive and may generate some chemical pollution. Lucas Marine, in conjunction with the Solar Power Corporation of America, market a small unit ("·$30/w) for auxiliary power for boats, caravans and remote sites . Electric vehicles over which considerable enthusiasm has been expended are nonpolluting, quiet, and have a good fuel economy. Battery power is ideal for ·high torque·starting up situations and SCR·s can provide loss·free control of power transfer. Overall efficiency (taking into account the low thermal efficiency of generating electricity by conventional means) is 14% comparing favourably with petrol engines (13·22%), and


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they are about 20% cheaper to run. Top speeds are fairly low ·around 50 mph ·and typically the range is 100 miles. The General Electric DELTA has a top speed of 55 mph and an accelera·tion of 0·30 mph in 6 sec. Several electric cars are now available including the Enfield. Lucas nave also developed an electric delivery van, are testing a 34 passenger bus and the Lucas Taxi has recently been demonstrated in London. They have also developed a light weight 12 volt power unit for an electric bicycle. The battery operates a small electric motor to give boost power when going up·hill ·it is triggered by any abnormal pressure on the pedals. A prototype has a top speed of 17 mph, and a range, from each battery charge, of about ten miles ·depending on the terrain. And in theory it is possible to regeneratively recharge the battery when going down hill. Hybrid transport systems, like the electric cycle, seem sensible. They are also intrinsically attractive since they make intelligent use of muscle power without discriminating against old or infi rm people. Weather·protected pedal-electric systems could become wide·spread, particularly in cities. One general problem with electric powered vehicles is that at present they would need electrical power from the grid and grid electricity is inherently polluting, lossy and inefficient. Generation/transmission efficiency is below 40%, and rectification and battery charging is only 80% efficient. The overall system would be something like 25% efficient, but remember that petrol vehicles have typical efficiencies of only 10·25%. National generating capacity would have to be increased, by about 50%, assuming current use patterns, although this does not take into account the fact that charging could occur overnight, off·peak. A more optimistic estimate is that we would need 43% on top of our existing capacity to meet current transport needs. We should not however be worrying too much about centralised energy production but instead use local generation of de electricity. Wind charged systems would obviously be ideal, there is no need for rectification or current stabilising, just trickle charging at the local community wind·plant overnight. Steam powered vehicles, like electric power vehicles, have suffered at the hands of the petrol engine lobby. Despite the 20% lower fuel consumption and decreased pollution associated with external combustion systems the i c engine still reigns supreme. Ec engines can use a wide range of fuels, methane, hydrogen, petrol, all burnt at


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optimum temperatures, minimising consumption and pollution. British Leyland were reported to have been working on a steam powered Mini, but in general steam power has been seen as a threat to internal combustion engines, in which so much has been invested. As a US Senate Committee said in 1969: ·Without the myopic persistence of the automobile industry in devoting most of its research funds to the i c engine, a reliable, low polluting Rankine cycle engine could probably have been developed 20 years ago.·Stirling engines are the ec engines showing the greatest possibility potential so far. Thermal efficiency is claimed to be 40% compared with 25% for petrol, and they use 30% less fuel, but the power to weight ratio remains lower and capital costs higher. A unique small·scale solar power stirling engine pump has been devised by West ·rated at 1.7w using solar power input of 530w: efficiency is 0.3%. It would be ideal for third world agriculture use-for slow pumping for irrigation or animal watering in remote areas. The shape·memory effect, in which some alloys which have been mechanically deformed will return to their original shape when heated, can provide useful work. One system has been devised to run off solar heated hot water. The cost is around £200 and the unit would, again, be ideal for remote pumping. A question of scale Given a ·community·context medium scale energy technologies can be highly attractive. As the Energy Primer (Portola Institute 1974, p180) indicates, most AT systems (solar collectors, windmills etc) are fairly expensive if used for individual·domestic units. However if costs are spread by sharing the service in a medium sized group (they estimate 40 or so people as optimum) then economics of scale apply. So it may be possible to have community generated power from a fuel cell, fed by wind generated electrolytic hydrogen, or methane from the community digestor plant. I t is part icularly important to keep emphasising that the ·new·technologies should not be used simply to replace the existing technologies, so that the present system can go along as before. The new technologies must imply a new pattern of consumption, production, energy and resource usage and social organisation: but these changes are not automatic, they must be fought for. The process of choosing and developing suitable technologies is part of the struggle. If we leave it up to the corporations-and there is no question that they are


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interested ·we can expect large scale centralised units to emerge, designed simply as substitutes, to shore up the present system. Large windmills; huge solar farms, large tidal plants, satellites beaming microwaves to the earth and all the rest. At the very best they will try to sell AT as a commodity to those few who can afford it. A vast amount of money is currently being spent by governments and industrialists on alternative energy sources·. The danger is that they will come up with ecologically inappropriate and socially undesirable, expensive, complex and large scale ·technical fixes·which will doom yet another generation of workers to alienated labour and another generation of consumers to the tyranny of centralised control and exploitation. It is foolish to ignore the possibility of rescuing the situation by getting involved with those who are capable of opposing these trends at the point of production and further, helping them in their attempt to re·direct production along more viable lines. Dave Elliott

Where Is Lucas Going? SOME PEOPLE argue that the many environmental problems that advanced societies face can and will be solved by technical fixes devised by the big com·panies in response either to market pressures or public opinion backed up by government legislation. In Undercurrents 12 I tried to show that at least in the case of US Aerospace industry this did not appear to be the case. The race for profit dominated. Is the same likely to be true of Lucas? The various divisions of Lucas (of which Lucas Aerospace is part) are exploring to a limited degree some alternative ideas-electric vehicles for example. Obviously it is hard to predict in advance the outcome of these developments, but some idea can be gained by reading Counter Intelligence Services·latest ·Anti·report·on Lucas ·Where Is Lucas Going? which documents the management policy of Joseph Lucas and its various divisions (Lucas Aerospace, CAY etc) over the years. It is not a flattering report. Lucas won its monopoly power by energetic takeover bids during the ·30s depression. It is now one of the world·s major suppliers of electrical accessories to the motor industry. At present, although making many of its workers redundant ·because of the recession·it is maintaining healthy profit margins. CIS document examples of mis·management in the industrial ball screw section of Lucas Aerospace ·a situation which has recently led to 160


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redundancies, loss of orders despite a thriving market, and the threat of a work·in. They describe some of the health and safety hazards faced by the workforce ·and by school children who happen to attend a school alongside the Joseph Lucas lead·acid battery factory at Formans Road, Birmingham. They also relate Lucas·over·seas activities to its domestic policy. Finally CIS takes a look at the work·force·s attempts at resistance, illustrating that trade union organisation is fragmented between the different sites and divisions, which can be played off against each other. Only in Lucas Aerospace is there any significant inter·site co·ordination. The Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards Committee provides a basis for organisation and solidarity and has proved to be invaluable in defence of jobs, winning improvements in conditions ·sick pay and safety and so on; and a focus for the campaign for the right to work on socially and environmentally appropriate technologies. CIS·s latest propaganda offering has caused storms of protest and charges of ·bias·from the business press. Certainly CIS seem increasingly to be opting for a more polemical·treatmenL But it makes better and more informative reading than the company·s report to shareholders ...


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• • • • • • • • • • • • Elliott Solar Power Politics ALTHOUGH there is obviously a social need for cheap alternatives to the existing range of energy technologies, there is as yet no major demand in market terms for these items. Indeed it's hard to see how there could be. A basic problem of capitalist economics is how can consumers show a preference for goods or services until they are offered on the market? It is no use asking the CEGB to provide you with windpower units; they are in the business of central power pro·duction. Fords will say that there is no demand for electric cars (you can have any sort of propulsion unit as long as its a petrol driven internal combustion engine). In theory it is up to small entrepreneurs to take the risk of putting a radically new product on the market and thus begin to create a demand. Unfortunately the big monopolies are often antagonistic to any rival product and will buy up and bury the patent ·or absorb the new company and it usually takes a lot of capital and considerable R&D effort to put a new product on the market. It also requires a massive marketing campaign to educate' the population. So normally only the big firms can introduce new ideas. There are exceptions of course ·hovercraft, dexion, letraset are examples (cherished by the small entrepreneurs of this world) of original ideas which have broken through from small beginnings. The marketing dilemma Given this it is interesting to see that in the US considerable thought has gone into how best to bridge the gap between need and demand in the field of 'solar heating and cooling'. There is obviously a potential market there ·one consultant has estimated it will be worth $1.8 billion annually by 1985. But the market forces are sluggish and dominated by the interests of the monopolies. The Govern·ment however is concerned to get solar power off the ground ·for it is faced by a major energy crisis. Consequently it must try to compensate for the 'imperfections' of the market, by offering incentives to firms through government research contracts. When it comes to military technology or space technology, this is not too difficult, the state just pushes cash to the relevant agency and the defence firms snap up the contracts. The arms economy' and the associated military·industrial complex acts as the major economic flywheel, independent of market forces. The space effort followed a similar pattern. To a degree the US no longer has a free market economy ·it has introduced a form of planning ·but planning


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geared to the needs of the big monopolies and managed by the state. The emphasis has shifted to programmes of public works ·poverty projects, pollution control technology, recycling systems and so on ·all of them highly profitable. The state, through legislation, has aided this process, making pollution control mandatory and creating a vast new market. Priming the solar pump The problem now is to stimulate interest in solar power. The government can fund some projects itself ·though this is usually only pump priming. As in the UK, government agencies do represent a fairly large consumer of public techno·logies but the real market is the domestic and commercial sector ·more so in the US since there are few state controlled services Of industries. The result has been a spate of new legislation both to encourage government agencies to investigate solar power and to stimulate the wider market. The 1974 Housing and Development Act is designed to encourage lending institutions to accept the additional costs of solar heating and cooling systems as part of the mortgage on a home, while the Solar Heating and Cooling Act (1974) is intended to stimulate acceptance by the private housing market. A national 'demonstration' programme is aimed at spreading the idea. Of course, Federal funds can only act as pump primers ·but coupled with tax incentives, prestigious research projects, public demonstration projects and new legislation they can help create a lucrative market for the big com·panies to exploit. Now this may be all to the good. For a start it is amusing to see the US explor·ing the idea of a planned economy, and it certainly will get AT off the ground. Whether such a process can produce the sort of low impact technology that is needed is far from clear. In Britain of course, we already have a considerable amount of planning by the state ·with all its bureaucratic con·notations. Firms can obtain funds or grants or tax concessions from govern·ment if they comply with government priorities ·for example, regional develop·ment grants. The National Enterprise Board, the brainchild of Tony Benn, is meant to take this a stage further ·in the hope of stimulating socially needed industrial developments. One of the more progressive ideas ·which has been watered down since Benn was removed ·was that long range corporate plans should be aligned more to national needs through the 'planning agreement' system. Corporate plans would be discussed at a tripartite meeting of management, unions and government officials. The state would seek to ensure that the firms plans fitted in with longer term


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national planning needs, and would induce accept·ance of these by offering tax incentives and grants. The unions would be able" to bargain over and try to change aspects of the plan which they did not find accept·able. Resurrection To some extent the Lucas Combine's Corporate plan is an attempt to resurrect the planning agreement idea ·although in this case it is the combine that is intro·ducing the plan unilaterally. Whether it wIll be possible to get government support for their programme of alter·native technology development, and whether management will concede to this sort of pressure from the workforce remains to be seen. But the possibility does exist of attracting state funds·whether in the form of temporary employment subsidies for workers who would otherwise be redundant, or retrain·ing grants, or just straightforward capital from the National Enterprise Board ·and thereby putting flesh on their proposals. If, under the pressure of public opinion, incentives from government and the threat of collective action by the work·force, the management were to accept such a programme, the result would hope·fully be a range of products that more nearly met the needs of the community.


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• • • • • • • • • • • • Saunders: ALTERNATIVE ENGLAND & WALES SUPPLEMENT 1NOT fully corrected

NW:: North West. NE = North East, W = Wales. WM = West Midlands. EM = East Midlands. E ::: East Anglia, SW = South West. S:: South, L = London. Page numbers and headings correspond to Alternative England and Wales. Impressions and Contacts NW Changes (p.6·B) CoIne·Somewhere has finished. NW Additions Horse Fairs: Appleby Fair goes on for a week from the second Wednesday of June·basically a gypsies·scene with up to 10.000 people. 1.000 trailer caravans and still quite a few horse·drawn living wagons. Free camping. Shipley Fair is held on Easter Tuesday on the road from Bradford to Ilkley·one day with no camping. NE Changes () Hebden Bridge. I·m told the freak population is now much more settled and there are less free loaders (who got them a bad reputation). The contact point is now Community Press and WISH (Well of Info on Self Help) at 35 Market Street·an advice centre and book·shop. Also a local community paper comes from there. Barnsley. lifespan got muddled with another project I apologise deeply. It is in fact in a row of railway workers·cottages, established over a year, growing their own veg and educating their kids. They take both long and short term students to live and work with them (by arrangement only·don·t turn up without writing). Their aim is depth education in alternative life styles. NE Additions Lee Gap Horse Fair is held twice yearly·24th August and 17th September, at a site near Tingley on the road from Dewsbury to Leeds. Others are held at Yarm, Brough and at Brigg·no details. W Wales·changes (p.l() Boncath: Meigan Fayre. Much bigger and better in ·75, drawing a crowd from London and elsewhere though still mainly the local South Wales freaks who organise it. Still free, though donations are asked for, and runs for several days with camping. It·s the nearest equivalent to Barsham but has amplified bands and a ·freaks only·atmosphere. Not now organised


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by Roger the Dentist (who·s now moved to Morfa)·the organisers·date and place vary: hopefully details of next one will be in a further supplement. Cardiff. The Quebec (pub), Crichton Place, city centre is recommended in preference to those mentioned. The Montmerence Club now has a ·real live music benefit·for Cardiff Peoples·Paper, Cardiff Community Concern and the Women·s Aid Group. It·s held on Wednesdays from 1().2 for 35p and is recommended the best ·alternative·meeting place. WM Additions I·ve been told that Oxford is far more active than the impression·I·ve given with 10 community centres, 13 playschemes and 2 adventure playgrounds. The East Oxford Community Centre in Princess Street is particularly alternative ·in that it aims less to provide ready made services than to be a place for local people to create their own activities·. Above info from Uhuru who also mentioned several projects not included in this supplement because they don·t fit in (like theatre groups) or weren·t definite. Newcastle·under·Lyme. Grapevine, 27 Well Street is a headshop with noticeboard open 1 O.3()·6 except Thurs and Sun. Books, records. local crafts and info. SW Changes (p. 16·18) Glastonbury. Nearly everything in this piece has changed! Tore hasn·t been seen for a while and has a new address; Renaissance headshop is gone and the Beltane ceremony isn·t really a freaks·event. And someone says you·re no longer likely to be busted on the Tor. The main freak event is simply to spend the midsum·mer solstice on the Tor·no one organises it, it just happens. Geoffrey Ashe who·s written books on Glastonbury lives at Chalice Orchard, Well House Lane (G.32485)actually just off Well House Lane beside the path that runs up to the Tor. He·s acted as contact point last summer and offers a welcome, information and a place to leave baggage to visitors, but not accommodation. For anyone interested in the Glastonbury legends he is the best contact you could hope for. Truro. There·s now an Earth Centre in Tabernacle Street opposite the market·see under Help·which also acts as a contact point. Blandford Forum. Seed Cafe closed·Dorset Bookshop, 69 East Street opened.


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Brighton. Bright Times and The Garden have finished, also The King and Queen has been first burned then cleaned up for a smarter clientele. Southampton. Swan Crahs closed. Housing Rent Allowance (p.31). Easy to get and applies to anyone with a lowish income. A couple in Norwich wrote to say they get half their rent (£11 pw) paid now they earn £1 OOOpa; when they earned £1700 they still got £2.50pw allowance. A Birmingham reader earning £14pw now gets all the rent and most of the rates paid, and though it took over 3 months to come through it·s now automatic. Communes (p.34). The Communes Movement is being revived by its founder (in 19651 Tony Kelly who·s sent this piece: Commune Movement, Cymdeithas Selene, Can y Lloer. Ffarmers, LIanwrda, Dyfed, was founded to create a federal society of communities concerned to help each other and others to each·s chosen ideal of communal living, by shared work, money, resources and people. Frequent newsletters. theoretical, practical and for contacts. Now in collaboration with Communes Network (which see). Subscription about £3 and some big envelopes, but variable. Information 20p. The Communes Network is as described plus members get monthly newsletters consisting mainly of news from com·munards. They had a gathering in September and will have others every six months at least Home Making (p.48·66) Building Repairs·Materials (p.49) Whistons, New Mills, Stockport, Lanes has mail order list (free) of nuts, bolts, screws, electric motors, metal rod, sheet and strip. A reader recommends them, but I once ordered a 141b mixed lot of nuts and bolts·about half were useful, the rest consisted of 3 enormous bolts I never used; so be warned. Bargains (p.48·66) Rayburns .and Agas (p.581 A reader suggests asking central heating installers locally as they often take out old boilers including these when heating goes in. A list of parts and suppliers can be got from Agaheat Appl·iances, Glynwed Domestic and Heating Appliances, Oxford Street, Bilston, Staffs. NW Liverpool. Workshops for the Blind, 1 Cornwallis Street, L 1, are recommended for cheap floor coverings.


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NW Burnley. Gregory & Hephrun, Old Hall (8.25536). Government surplus. NE Doncaster. Ibbotson, Field House. Hopgarth, Haxey (H.3621. Government surplus. NE Haworth. Joe Snowden, Chapel Works (H.3336). Government surplus. HE Keighly. Bridge Supply Co IK.5511). Govt surplus including tools, rope, generators. W Aberystwyth. To...." rubbish dump recommended. SW Bristol. Eastville and Ashton Gate markets are closed. SW Barnstaple. Little Barum Market (later called The Uncommon Marked is now dosed. SW Taunton. ·Priorswood Tip would be marvellous·but the council prosecute anyone taking anything .,d mash up thousands of pounds·worth of good gear every week. But if you take a load of weeds there with a van you can sometimes nick good stuff, but it·s risky: Food (p.72·80) Wholefood Restaurants (p.72J NE York. Aardvark, 108 Fishergate due open Nov 75check with Alligator IY.5452S). Gumbo open Fri, Sat, Sun 10·2. SW Exeter. City Ditch closed. L London. Meandeer, Hanway St, Wl (by Hare Krishna listed), Expensive evenings but cheap Iunch·eat off silver, drink from pewter. Whoktfood4ow profit shops and co·ops Ip.73·761 Natural Foods Union is now called Natural Foods Co·op. NW Lancaster. Food co·op ·Community Foods·has now got premises in the back room of Books and Things, at B6 King Street, near the town centre. HE Sheffield. DOlM1 to Earth Community Supplies have moved to a bigger shop at 406 Sharrowvale Road, S11. HE Hull. Bogus food co·op is closed. W Llandrindod Wells. The Good Food Shop is now open every day (Mon·Sat 1 O.3Q.S.30L They also sell bulk at 12%% on (retail is +2S%1 and 10% on prepaid bulk. Have dropped surcharge mentioned. May start wholesale or do a round of the market stalls·details next


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supplement I hope. W C .. digan (Ceredigion). Now only open on the first Saturday of the month·they sell 2% tons that one day I Their mark·up isn·t 8% ·more like 18%·. Mrs Grisedale, Cledan, Nebo, LIanon (N.222/6581 sells goats·milk, yoghourt and cheeses·a little expensive but cktan and good delivery service·. W Maehynlleth and Newtown. Natures Foods packed up. W Welshpool. Richard and Mandy·s food co·op is no longer. W Hay·on·Wye. Country Stores, 14 Broad Street·whole·foods and home·baked breads. WM Binningham. Sunrise·s phone number is now 021·454 0435. WM Newcastle-under·Lyme. Food co·op can be contacted through Grapevine, 27 Well Street·see above under Contact. EM Leamington Spa. Cornmother has moved to 42 Bath St. EM Shrewsbury. Crabapple Natural Foods, 16 St Mary·s Street, due open now·run by Crabapple Community mentioned on page 34. HE Lincoln. See below under Mystical·Buddha Maitreya Sangha. E Cambridge. Arjuna is now an independent wholefood shop. E East Anglia. Dakota doesn·t operate through all centres now·main activity is at Prue Campbell·s near Norwich. She says it still handles as much as before. E Norwich. Food co·op run by Judith Dauncey, c/o Bristol·WS Bookshop, Bridewell Alley. She also makes up a good muesli (8Sp for Sibs). E Chelmsford. Marriages (p.7]) also sell retail. SW Bampton. I·m told a wholefood shop is being set up at 19 Fore Street. SW Barnstaple. Barnstaple Whole food Supplies now have a stall in Barnstaple Market on Tuesday and Friday and will soon have a shop in Boutport Street. S Brighton_ Simple Supplies due to open in George Street run by Whole Earth Group. S Reading. Reading Wholefoods, 1A Merchants Place. A


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wholefood stall in the Reading Emporium which gives info. Also wholesale, and sells herbs. L London. Wholefood bakery and food co·op at 39 Doynton Street, N19. Co·op on \weekly order basis; bakery sells bread and cooked foods like granola ... and in·edible fruit and nut flans. Address is a squat but should last another year at least. Wholefood·bulk suppliers (p.76·781 NW Crewe. Morning Foods, North Western Mills. Recommended as friendly oatmeal ,millers. Jumbo and Porridge Oats. Min 56lbs, delivery most places. W Cardiff. The Wholefood Shop (see p.74) is starting a wholesale business in new premises nearby. Hopeful details next time around·meanwhile phone C.395388. E NoroMch. Read·Woodrow, King Street. Very cheap (and fresh) wheatgerm. Minimum 56lbs. Duffields, Newton Flotman. Stoneground wholemeal flour recommended as better than most in 70lb sacks @4%plb. Allen and Page, Quayside. Bran in 1 cwt and porridge oats in 561b. SW With tel. Withiel Valley Wholefoods·phone is Lanivet 526. Peter Dearman MO:; :eh; it is developing as a cooperative. ·Y7·Wholefood·granola (p.791 You don·t need all the ingredients listed·just 8·10 cups of cereals and nuts (even just porridge oats to half cup oil and half a cup of honey·or golden syrup. If you like it extra crunchy, use more oil.,d honey/syrup; cook longer and slower turning several times. Money·<:credit (p.82·831 NW LiverpooL.High Park and District·Credit Union, 176 High Park Street, L8 (OSl·727 20521 has started and are interested in helping others set up Credit Unions. There·s also one at 13B Granby Street, LB.

Work (p.90·94) Agencies (p.9,1 Ann Sales no longer finds work. for people in the Newtown area. Remember that the new Employment Agencies Act which is expected to come into force in 1976 will stop agencies from charging a booking fee or a fee at all to staff looking for work. W Meigan Workforce, Mark <rid Mary. Morfa. Blaen·ffoss.


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Dyfed (Boneath 459). This agency has about fifty people on its books. representing about thirty different trades. They put an advertisement in the local paper and in the space of a few months received about a hundred jobs ranging from an £800 building job to burying a dead horse. Common Ownership (p.90) Whatworks 178 Oxford Road, Manchester 13 (M.273 11891. At other times phone Mal or Mick at M.SSl 0492. Help (p.l 06·120) Changes Law reform (p.10n NE c.uleford .. Ralph Gook·s new address is 1 Pentlands, Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes. SW Plymouth. John Whitby, 9 Reigate Road, Pomphlett (P.41901l. Local Centres lp.l 09) NW Liverpool. Women and Children·s Aid moved to 1 Smithdown Road, L7 (051·733 6981), NW Caine. Somewhere no longer exists. NE Hull. Bogus does not now sell s/h books, records or run a food co·op. W Cardiff. Cardiff Community Concern has moved to 58 Charles Street and is also open 1Oam·12pm on Saturdays. WM Coventry. Foieshill information and Advice Centre, 436a FOleshill Road. Gingerbread·s phone has been OJt off. Housing Action Group is now inactive. Community Development Project is called the Coventry Legal and Income Rights Service. EM Nottingham. St Ann·s Community Craft Centre has closed. EM Oxford. Uhuru no longer runs a food co·op though it does sell wholefoods. It does not sell locally made crafts any more. SW Truro. City of Cornwall Collective, Earth Centre, Tabernacle Street. The collective has moved to bigger premises opposite the market which will give room for an office, production and meeting place. Shop for books, magazines, secondhand tools, pesticides (herbal only) and herbs. Courses for people wanting to grow their 0·Nn food. Lectures on Diggers every Friday night and on the mystical approach of Diggers (Society of Levellers) every Sunday.


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S Brighton. Open and Bit by Bit. The Whole Earth Group will shortly move to Simple Supplies in George Street·number not yet known. Brighton Rights Centre: the new community centre is open Tues and Thurs 5.30pm·7.30pm. Battered Women·s Refuge is now called the Women·s Centre at 79 Buckingham Road (B.27612 day, and B. 683348 in the evening). Open daily. Come for company, help, play groups, pregnancy·testing, creche and coffee·bar. L West London. Portobello Project, 49 Porchester Road, W2 (221 4425). Gives information on accommodation. employment, education, welfare, legal rights. L East London. East is now at 79 Barking Road, E6 (47.1 2276), but this is a short·life property so may have to move again by the new year. They can phone sympathetic solicitors to give free legal advice any time_ If you want to crash, ring first. East also has a theatre group that performs free for free alternative festivals and political groups. Barking Road is long ... they·re at Upton Park tube end. Additions EM Oxford. A women·s refuge is starting in Oxford. Contact Sue Lee (Abingdon 21668), S Brighton. Simple Supplies, George Street. Wholefood, self·sufficiency and eco centre shop doe to open soon. Friends of the Earth and Transport 2000 will also use the place as an office. Whole Earth van will also do removals and can be hired cheaply for community projects. Enquiries to B.693971. Information (p.121·122) Information Sources (p.121l Art Information Registry (AIR), Oriel, 53 Charles Street, Cardiff will deal with Welsh enquiries which might otherwise go to AIR. Libraries (p.1221 Commonweal Collection, Burntlands, Rochford, Tenbury, Worcestershire (112 Winchcombe Street, Cheltenham up to the end of 1975). Pacifist lending library including books on alternative living. Free, but send stamps to cover postage plus lOp for guide/catalogue. The loan service"";l1 be closed for the first quarter of 1976 while Commonweal moves to new address. Public Health Regulations


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Public Health Advisory Service, Cave House, Bigland Street, El (790 4507). Sponsored by Shelter, they have written We give advice, information and where necessary practical assistance on the law, standards and practice of public health; producing leaflets, explaining step by step procedures to enable tenants to force the landlord (whether private or local authority) to put the house into a proper state of repair.·Publishing (p.124·129) Addition Printing (p.126) Oriel Bookshop will also display and attempt to sell any small press publication or little magazine. Initial quantity should be five copies, discount between 25%·40% and goods sent on a sale or return basis. Bookshops (p.130·133) Changes NW Liverpool. Atticus Bookshop. Alternative Books include self·sufficiency, ecology, education, poetry. Open Mon·Sat 9.30am·6pm. Progressive Books, 12 Berry Street, L 1. October Books, 2 Temple Street. NE Hull. Bogus Books, 21 and 60 Princes Avenue tH. 604441611. Alternative, sci·fi, philosophy. EM Leamington Spa. The Other Branch, 42 Bath Street. EM Luton. Partisan Books. Alternative/community. EM Nottingham. Mushroom. Now open Mon·Sat 1O.30am·6pm. E Cambridge. Last Exit has closed down. Mail Order WM Mail Order Library. See under Libraries above. Additions NW Liverpool. IS Books, 28 Berry Street. L 1. Left. NE Hull. Socialist Books, 238 Spring Bank, Hull. Books, pamphlets, posters on Marxism, trade unions, sexual politics. history. NE Leeds. The Sorcerer·s Apprentice. 4 Burley Lodge Road, Leeds 6. Occult. NE Stockport. The Bookshop, 11 Mealhouse Brow. Alter·native/SF, including s/h. Downstairs: handmade and old clothes. NE Sheffield. UJAM, 259a Glossop Road. Sells crafts as well as books. SW Bath. Mushroom, 94 Walcot Street (B.65738>·Occult. SW Plymouth. Chapter and Verse, Drake Circus, Shopping

Precinct (P .20183). General and academic. .


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Publications (p.134·1391 Changes People·s News Service, new address: Box 1949, 197 King·s Cross Road, WC1. Magic Ink produce a catalogue of alternative and radical publications called News from Neasden. Smoothie Publications has produced a pamphlet. Alternative Technology.

Gay (p.1371 Sappho. 39 Ward our Street, Wl. Local (p.13?) NW Blackburn. Blackburn barker no longer exists. NW Manchester. Mole Express (061·273 5379/65411 is not produced by Grass Roots. SW Bristol. Spam and Tenants·News are no longer being produced. SW Glastonbury. Tore moved to 3 Jacobs Close, Windmill Hill, Glastonbury·n·lt out recently. S Brighton. Bright Times is closed. Additions Information (p.1341 Folder. Titus Alexander, ·free House·, The Public House Bookshop. 21 Little Preston Street, Brighton. This folder, occasionally produced, contains a magazine. ·Ideas into Action·, reviews. information, supplements from alternative papers. Ecology. Food, Survival p.135) Whole Earth magazine. 54 Queens Park Road, Brighton. Ecology and all things wholesome. Head (p.136 New Fapto. 6 Cecil Street, Margate. Kent. Freak magazine. Polittes (p. 137) Bosses Enemy. clo Stuart Daniels. 36 Sandford Road, Moseley. Birmingham 13. lOp. Articles on culture. politics and unions. Local (p.1361 NE Whitley Bay. Mutant. The Used Dromedary Co, Apple House. 8 Waterford Crescent, Whitley Bay. Tyne and Wear. Published occasionally. 5p. Alternative comic magazine. local news. gig reports. record and book reviews. EM Nottingham. NottIngham Voice. People·s Centre, 33 Mansfield Road


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(N.411227/41 1676). Monthly. lOp. Community paper. EM Oxford. East Oxford News. 4 Bullingdon Road (0, 44078), Monthly community paper. EM Luton. Luton Street Press. Box A. 34 Dallow Road. Monthly. 3p. Political news and views. SW Bath. Bristol Voice, 46 Richmond Road, Bristol 6 (B.404911. Monthly, lOp. Community. politics. what·s on. S Brighton. Queensparlc, 14 Toronto Terrace. Paper for Queens Park area. Media (p.140·146) Changes Centre for theatre and dance workshops, video, photography. film·making (p.1421 W Cardiff. Transitions, contact them at One·O·Eight. 108 Salisbury Road. Cathays (C.289081. L London. Association of Video Workers, 18 Wyatt Road, N5 (359 2516). Non·profit video work in community development. communication. education and art. Monthly business meetings and monthly newsletter. Subscription £3. Ra,Ho (p.1461 Script is now called The Rad;o Guide_ London Stereo is also on 96.4 VHF (stereo) and 49 shortwave, Radio Invicta is on Bank Holiday Sundays starting at lOam for ten hours. Radio Jackie is sporadically broadcasting on Sundays. Radio Kaleidoscope. Every Sunday lOam·2pm, 226m. Radio Concorde. Saturday nights. 1 Opm·l Dam. 225m. London Music Radio. Friday nights about midnight, 225m_ Additions Video (p.14l) Video equipment can be loaned free from Oriel, 53 Charles Street. Cardiff. C e n t r e s f o r t h e a t r e a n d d a n c e w o r k s h o p s , v i d e o . photography,.film·making (p.1421 NW Liverpool. Play on Wheels, 23 Roscoe Street. L 1 (05170881361. Inflatables, disco. video. workshops for children. Contact Fred Brown. S Brighton. Brighton Film Theatre, 64 North Street, Brighton (B.29563). Recommended as showing good films.


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L london. Photography Workshop. 152 Upper Street. N 1 (2260367). A collective which wants to promote social change through workshops, information and advice. Bibliography and newsletter, 25p. Mystical (p.148·171) Changes Centres L Forum, Joyce Purcell (9472626, 6am·10am) or Hilary Ricketts (2786379 evenings). Courses in astrology, chromatherapy, sufi dancing and philosophy. Christian mysticism. etc. SE Aquarius Tapes has moved to 78 Fairhazel Gardens. NW6. Jim Adams (not Dale) is the name of the guy who runs it. Buddhism NW Tibetan Buddhist Centre (Kanpo Gangra Kagyu Ling) has moved: clo David Stott, la Reynard Road, Chariton, Manchester 21 (061·881 5220. Emphasis on Mahamudra teaching or the direct experience of the enlightened state innate in each being. Meditation classes every Thursday. lectures and seminars at weekends. WM Tibetan Buddhist Centre. Weekly meetings for studies in Tibetan Buddhism, meditation. practice, chanting and puja. Public meeting quarterly. Information and newsletter available with sae. Newcomers welcome. WM Cheltenham Buddhist Society moved: 34 Park Place, Cheltenham (C.32902). SW Vipassana Meditation Group moved: Carn Entral Farm. Beacon Camborne. Cornwall. S Buddha Maitreya Centre moved to 75 Farmyard. Brighton. Meeting .. on the first Sat of each month. Hindu NW Ananda Marga, 8 Ullet Road, Liverpool 8, now have a phone (051·726 62421. NE Divine Light no longer at 9 Coltman Street, Hull. WM Ananda Marga moved to 9 Willows Crescent. Birming·ham (021·44023651. W Beshara·Radnor. Mujib (not Mijibl. WM Crossington farm is not an open centre. LIS The Dicker. Other !Toups can be contacted through the Secretary of the Down and Weald Society at the Dicker·s address. Please don·t phone.


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L Druid Order. Public meetings alternate Fridays. L Emin Earth no longer exists, according to a man who said he taught there and considered it outrageous that I got my information anonymously without asking for their own description to publish. SW Aquarian Centre no longer exists. Pagan Movement_ The Waxing Moon is no longer pub·lished. Starchild has moved from Luton to The Sign of the Black Bull, 147 Church Street. Whitby. Yorkshire

(W.41581. .

L College of Psychic Studies offers facilities for study and research in the psychic and allied psychological fields with a programme of lectures and courses in meditation, esoteric teachings and transpersonal psychology workshops. L Astrological Association now at 36 Tweedy Road, Bromley, Kent. Additions L Friends of the Western Buddhist Order have moved into an old fire station in Roman Road, Bethnal Green which they are renovating and turning into a community centre with accommodation, crafts workshop and yoga, karate and meditation classes. There will be a shop selling books and crafts and a printing press. L British UFO Society, c/o Richard Lawrence, 47 Bel·size Square, NW3 (794 34031. For details of membership and meetings write to the society enclosing sse. L Agui Yoga Group, Kenneth Archer, 91 Fitzjohn·s Avenue, NW3. L Krishnamurti Group, Richard and Kay Henwood, 3 Kemplary Road, NW3 (794 5030), Krishnamurti tape played every Wednesday evening. L Hakurenji, 40 Deansway. N2. Centre for integrated study of east and west. Speakers on medicine, astrology, herbalism and Japanese mystical groups. Information centre for Japanese groups. NW Universal World Harmony, 1 St George·s Square, St Annes·on·5ea, Lancashire. Meditation, prayer and the power of positive thinking.


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W Tyn·y·fron Farm, Rhiw, Pv.IIlheli, Gwnyedd, North Wales (Rhiw 255). Run on similar lines to the Inter·national Academy for Continuous Education but using art as the vehicle for self·aWareness. Courses run for six months starting from January 1976. EM Buddha Maitreya Sangha, New World Centre, Trent Lane, North Clifton, near Ne\Wrk, Notts. A new permanent centre open always with a course for the last week of every month. They intend to open a wholefood shop in Lincoln called Pulse. Buddha Maitreya·s teaching is an expansion of traditional Zen Buddhism involving "4 Truths": Original Perfection of all creation. Illusion of the human mind due to its ego. The possibility of extinction of that Illusion. Pure Land·universal perfection·attainable now. E Transcendental Meditation, 90 St Clements Hill, Normch (N.48717). m Shrine of the Sacred Wisdom Pearl, the Golden Rosary Hermitage, 11 Grenville Road, Lostwithiel, Cornwall. Instruction in Lam Rim, Sanskrit, Tibetan, iconography and ritual. SW Ramala Society, Chalice Hill House, Dod lane, GlastonburY, Somef"Set. A ·school on earth teaching the truth of the heavens·_ Continues the work of the disbanded Aquarian Centre. S New Renascence, Weald, Loughton, Lewes, Sussex. To discover a higher consciousness, the next step in evolution proclaimed by Christ·s rebirth. Numerology: see Chairo·s Book of Numbers. Palmistry: Hakurenji, 40 Deansway, London N2. Private beginner and advanced classes based on Dr Benham and Dr C. Wolffe. Therapy (p.172·177) Changes S Ramana Health Centre. Treatment also includes hydro·physiotherapy. The Self·Health Centre is now called The Community Health Foundation based at the East West Centre which is temporarily c/o Sunwheel Foods Ltd, 8 Orpheus Street, London N7 (3521836). Co .... ses in natural childbirth, natural foods, massage, yoga. ARICA, 57 Marlborough Mansions, Cannon Hill,


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NW6 (4356902). No courses in this country at present but may restart. They can book you for courses in France and USA. Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP), 62 Southwark bridge Road. SEI (92871021. Primal·type therapy Atlantis, Burtonport, Letter·kenny, Co_ Donegal, Eire. Additions E British Natural Hygiene Society, "Shalimas", First Avenue, Frinton·on sea, Essex. A centre for drugless therapy, diets and fasting. S Healing Research Trust, Field House, Peaslake, Guild.ford, Surrey. Promotion of healing and natural ther·apies. _ S Scientific and Medical Network, George Blaker, Lake House, Ockley, Surrey. Communication between doctors and scientists within a wide spiritual spectrum. They have a centre in Sidmouth for meetings, conferences and summer accommodation. L Hakurenji. 40 Deansway, N2. Acupuncture, herbal medicine and shiatsu treatment. Health for the New Age, fa Addison Crescent, W14. Theory and practice of roads to positive health, conventional and unconventional. Consciousness Training and Research Group, 143 Talgarth Road, London W14. Workshops in trans·personal psychology. £10 per workshop. Institute of Transactional Analysis, 52 Cranley Gardens, Palmers Green, London N13 (886 5330). English branch of San Franciscan group. Institute of Psychosynthesis, High Wood Park, Nan Clark·s Lane, Mill Hill, London NW7. Seminars and workshops on psychosynthesis and counselling tech·niques. Herbalism (p.l83) Changes Toothpaste: Bicarbonate of soda mixed with salt is also effective. SW Bridport. Dorwest Herb Growers, Shipton George, Bridport. Additions NW Blackburn. Amamus Bookshop, 1·3 Market Street Lane (B.610061 puts people in touch with herbalists and a herb doctor. NE Bishop Auckland. Margaret Bruce, High Rigg House Farm, St Johns Chapel, Bishop Auckland, Co Durham sells herbs, perfumes and incenses privately. Catalogue 30p. Retreats (p.189) Changes


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SW Vipassana Meditation Group, Carn Entral Farm, Beacon Cam borne, Cornwall. Drugs (p.192·2041 Psilocybe (p.l961 Information correct, but should be more prominent as this is an uncultivated hallucinogen which grows all over this country from August till December. It is safer (being unlike poisonous varieties) and without unpleasant side effects. The mushrooms can be dried·thread on cotton·and stored until used. Beerlp.1971 CAMRA, The Campaign for Real Ale, is at 34 Alma Road, St Alban·s, Herts. Membership is £1. They publish strengths of beers (among other information) in their newsletter the strongest in order are Eldridges Pope·s Hardy Ale; Whitbread Gold Label; 5t Austell Princes Ale and Courage Russian Stout. Rehabilitation (p.203) ROMA·s address is 65 Talgarth Road, W14 (not 43). Commonly called liberty Caps their tops are about Y.," across and a . little k:Jnger on long straw·like stems 3"·6" according to the grass. Gills pale brown ""hen fresh. h..·ning to nearly black; spores purple·brOW·n. Cap varies: pale beige/yellowish/ grey/dirty white. Most distinct feature is the little peak which is u5Ulll1ly off·centre. Best guide: Wakefield & Dennis lout of print. but in libraries!. lThar1ks to staff of Natural History Museum.

Sex (p.206·214) Changes VD Clinics (p.2071 E Cambridge·a reader writes that the Cambridge Clinic is friendly and efficient and he would rather be treated there than at his local clinic in Hull. london. One.reader complained that a doctor at the Marie Stopes Centre subjected him to a series of humiliating questions when he applied for a vasectomy ·though it might just have been a personality conflict. Law (p.2131 Two doctors must recommend an abortion although neither doctor need be the one to do the operation. Who to Approach (p.2131


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WM Co.,entry: SPAS should now be contacted through the Birmingham branch. Brighton: SPAS, Wistons Site, Chatsworth Road (8.5097261. Additions Abortion Organisations (p.213) NW Chester: SPAS, 26 Queen Street IC.271131. NE Sheffield: SPAS, 160 Charles Street {S.738326I. WM Sandwell: SPAS; appointments made through the Birmingham branch. Open Mon·Wed. EM Bedford: 8PAS (8.465741. Open Mon·Fr;·S Bournemouth: BPAS IB.421859). Open Mon·Wed. S Wiltshire: BPAS (022 14 5378). Open Wed·Thurs. L LorwJon: BPAS, 2nd floor, 58 Petty France, SWl (22209851. Crafts (216·228) Changes Craft Shops (p.2161 WM Stroud. Cotswold Craft Centre, 5 WhitehaIIIS.2220). General mail order. S Winchester. Country Fair, 5 Market Street. General, especially beads and je..wllery supplies. Also sells finished crafts. Workshops, Info, Classes (p.224) NE Pete Scon has moved from Hebden Bridge to 45 Boundary Street, Colne, Lancashire where he is creating a workshop. L SPACE finds studios for artists only and not for crafts·men. Selling Crafts (p.225) SW North Devon. little BatUm Market, Rackfield, Boutport Street, Barnstaple has dosed. S Brighton. Garnda·s is closed. Additions Cushion Fillings (p.219) Polyether Foam If you write to Dunlop (Dunlopillo Division), Coronation Road, Cressex Industrial Estate, High Wycombe, Bucks and ask for a booklet called Foam and a list of foam converters they will send you lots of information. Converters supply foam cut to a specific size.


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Weaving Ip.221) Hedgehog drum and hand carders, spindles and spinners can be obtained from T J Willcocks, Wheatcroft, Itchingfield, Horsham, Sussex (Slinfold 346). Workshops, Info, Classes (p.224) NE CeoIfrith Arts Workshop, 17 Grange Terrace, Sunderland is part of the arts centre and, among other things, has silk·screening equipment for use. L Classes in Japanese brush drawing are given at Haku·renji, 40 Deansway, N2. Selling Crafts {p.2251 NW Margo Robinson, 23 Mason Street, Colne, Lancashire has opened up a local community craft shop. NE Whitley Bay. Bolinski Bros Big Bonanza Booklet (mail order catalogue) can be obtained from the Used Dromedary Co, Apple House, 8 Waterford Crescent, Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear. The catalogue includes foods, records, cards, herbs, T .·shirts, pottery, comix, alternative publications, posters, etc. S All Sorts of Things, High Street, Codford, Wiltshire is a local shop selling all sorts of things including crafts. Community Action & Community Projects (p.230·2361 Changes Advice and Information (p.233) Community celebration. A film is available about last year·s Granby Festival from Merseyside Visual Communications Unit, 83 See I Street, L 1 (L.709 9460). For hire or purchase the charge will depend on what you can afford. Food Co·ops (p.2341 Down to Earth Community Supplies wrote to say that their kind of shop does not have a mark·up of 50.60%; it·s more like 33%% of cost price. (The higher figure refers to chain health food stores.) Additions NW Liverpool. Chris Elphick, 176 High Park Street. L8. He is a member of the Community Arts Panel of the Arts Council and a member of the Merseyside Arts Association executive and will help any group with information and applications, especially community groups. EM Oxford. Uhuru, 35 Cowley Road (0.48249). A meeting place for


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stimulating and helping local community action. Produce a report on how to set up and run a cooperative shop and cafe from their own experience. L London. Earth Exchange Project, 213 Archway Road, N6 (3407634). A new group which runs a Common Interest Registry and mutual help exchange, a craft shop (Third World and local), a kitchen crafts section (food), book shop and coffee·and Soup bar. Involvement (p.237·2401 L London. Richmond Fellowship. The centres cater main·ly for short·term ·rehabilitation·, and the staff are well paid (not just £6.50 as previously described). Husbandry (p.252·258) Goats (p.2531 A reader says they give more milk than cows for the same amount of food. Also, you get as much cream (·more cream from Anglo Nubian goats than Jersey cows·), but because the fat globules are smaller the cream doesn·t rise to the top readily. It can be separated, though,..and used for butter. Ireland (p.254) Several people who·ve done so have said that it·s not difficult to settle in Ireland with a self Sufficient smallholding so long as it·s less than 5 acres. In fact, Ireland is probably the most popular area for settlers now·more info wanted about anything relevant for future supplements. In particular, about a Smallholders Union. Organisations (p.255) The Organic Federation, PO Box 8, Malvern, Worcs, has written to say they can give info on any of the following organisations: 1. The Organic Research Association, PO Box 8, Malvern Wares. Encourages research and avoids duplication by maintaining contact with orthodox research bodies and others. Their basic aim is to produce food of the highest nutritional value without use of harmful substances. Subscription (including reports on 100 or so projects a year) £2.50. 2. The Homesteading Association·teaches basics of self·sufficiency. 3. Mother Earth·organic gardeners/consumers·environmental action group. 4. Organic Farming Association·for small·scale commercial farmers: helps with problems of producing and selling organic food. Membership £4 p.a.


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5. Rural Apprenticeship Programme·practical educational scheme like an employment agent for organic farmers. At present would be apprentices have to wait for vacancies. The Organic Federation also represents other organisations.

WOOF (p.2541 The list of farmer; wanting helpers is only sent to WOOFers; who have already been on 2 ·Weekends arranged through WOOF, so as to protect farmers from unsuitable people. For info send an S.a.e. at least 9")(4". Self·Reliance Newsletter Ip.2551 This has folded. but Practical Self·Sufficiency has started (November 75), It is intended to cover organic food production and preservation; keeping livestock, whole food cooking; low·cost energy sources and practical home busi·ness ideas. Subscription £3.50 p.a. from Broad leys Publish·ing Company. Widdington. Nr Saffron Walden, Essex. Farm and Food Society (p.257) want it made clear that they are a pressure group for ecological agriculture ·based on sustainable methods. with respect for natural behaviour patterns of livestock, nutritional produce for consumers, and a fair deal for farmers as opposed to industrialists in farming·. W Centre for Living is the name of John Seymour·s Self·Sufficiency school·now 15 or so people camping, but planning permission is through for a dormitory. Visitors pay £1 a day or 50p if self·catering. Book, The Backyard Dairy Book is back in print in an improved revised edition from Prism Press, Stable Court, Chalmington, Dorchester, Dorset (Maiden Newton 5241 at £1 plus postage. They are due to publish The Backyard Poultry Book also by Andrew Singer in the Spring. Technology (p.260·266) Conservation Tools and Technology have moved to 143 Maple Road, Surbiton, Surrey 101·549 58881. National Centre for AT has a lot of working exhibits now and a bookshop. They charge visitors for a tour, but it·s good value. Liberation (p.268·279) Changes


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Othen (p.2751 The Hunt Saboteurs Association is now PO Box 19, Ton·bridge, Kent. Anglian Diggers no longer exist at that address. No new address. Additions Radical Traditionalists, c/o John Michel, 11 Miles Buildings, Bath IB.28925)·Publishes In Defence of Sacred Measures, In Defence of People and Population and The Fall of Babylon, available from Cokaygne Bookshop in Cambridge. Others (p.2751 Paedophile Information Exchange, BM PIE, London WC1V 6XX. Paedophile Action for liberation, c/o BM Gaylib, London WC1 V 6XX 1274 9590), For a sensible article on this subject see Peace News, 10 October 1975. Women (p.280·282) 0 0 Addlt·m t 9 9 t 9 9 Women·s Centres (p.2801 NW Blackburn: Contact local women·s group through Amamus Bookshop, 1·3 Market Street Lane (8.610061. Meets every Monday night at different places and gives free pregnancy testing and advice every Saturday l1amlpm. Information and AdvM:e lp.2821 Feminist Books, PO Box HP5, Leeds. Publishes and distributes literature on the women·s movement. Send for catalogue. Changes Pressure Groups (p.282) Abortion Law Reform Association does not organise the National Abortion Campaign. The Campaign is a selfcontained grass roots group with eighty·five local branches. The Reform Association says they do the demos and the activist stuff. Gay Women·s Groups (p.2821 Sappho magazine address is·now: 39Wardour Street, Wl. Homosexuals (p.283·285) Changes National Gay Organisations (p.283) Sappho Women·s Group, c/o Sappho, 39 Wardour Street, Wl. Local Groups (p.2841 W Cardiff. Friend, c/o 7 St Mary·s Street.


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S Brighton. Brighton Gay Switchboard (B.27878). Wed, Fri, Sat, 8pm·12pm. Meets at 7 Victoria Road on Wednesday evenings. L Centrepoint also gives emergency overnight accommodation for any young person (not only homosexuals) new to London. Additions Local Groups (p.2841 S Sussex Gay Liberation Front, Marlborough Hotel, attic room, Prince·s Street. Meets 1st and 3rd Tuesday each month at 8.3Opm in the Saloon Bar. TV·, and TS·, (p.2851 Transvestites·National Group in Cardiff no longer exists at that address. Transport (p.288·292) Community Transport (p.2921 NW Liverpool. Wheels, c/o Walter de Costa Miller, 19a Beaumont Street, L8. WM Wolverhampton. Community Transport, 21 St Marks Road, Chapel Ash. Going Away (p.294·300) World Passport Terranian Nationalist Association, 13 Tyne Street, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia (29 2908). This is an attempt to unite humanity under one democratic world government and one common world language. You can register as a Terranian National Money (p.2971 Access and Barclay cards can be used abroad. A reader writes that slot machines in Germany, which usually take one deutschmark coins (worth 2Op) will also take 5p coins. Other Official Schemes (p.298) World Expeditionary Association, 45 Brompton Road, SN3 (58905001. For £3 a year you book cheap flights all-over the world plus magazine and guide. Ovenand (p.2991 Eurosave, 359 Oxford Street, London Wl (6293476), lifts arranged all over Europe between people with cars wishing to take passengers to save petrol costs and passengers willing to share costs. There is a £1.75 linking fee (returnable). Magic Bus, 637 Holloway Road, N191272 55531. Very cheap bus service


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to Europe, Morocco and India. Sample prices include £9 to Amsterdam and £60 to Delhi. Legal Frameworks (p.302·3201 Book·keeping and Accounting (p.3131 The Intermediate Technology Group at 9 King Street, WC2 publish 3 booklets at 45p the set. (Anyone interested in cooperating in producing a comprehensive handbook on bookkeeping for alternative projects please contact The Public House Bookshop in Brighton (p.1321. Strange" (p.322·331) Wo,k (p.J241 MOSt foreigners from non·EEC countries are now given 6-month unrestricted visas. If you have one of these, you are allowed to work here. An agency which specialises in placing black races is International Personnel at 154 Balham High Road, SW12 (6750941).

o A1t.rlWltiv. England and Wales 1[2.50) This is an information book for people looking for altematiwn. It is not a tour·ist guide. It·s written for tre individual seeking prKtical information whether It>9alor not on the following subject: H o u s i n g _ C r a s h p a d s , c o m p l e t e I q U i l l t t i n g g u i d e , communes,tenants·rights. Home Making. Building repairs with illustrated plumbing and wiring guide; how·to furnish cheaply. ENrpiM. Auctions to cheap record shops. Food. Food CO<lPS and low profit shojl5; bulk wholefood suppliers; macrobiotics. Money, A simple guide to social security·what you·re entitled to and how to get it. Abo a guide to borrowing money. Work, Ahematin WOfk to casual jobs. Uw. What to do if you·re arrested; how to sue; O·I·Y divorce. Help. Organisations giving free help all over the country including 189&1 advice. Information. How to get it and where. Publishing. A do it yourself guide with listings of alternative printers, PublicatiOns. National and local alternative Pipers and magazines; bookshojl5. Media. Film making, video, illegal broadcasting and theatre workshops.


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Mystical. A guide to Buddhist, Hindu and other groujl5 throughout the country; Hatha Yoga, I Ching, K&b.lah, witchcraft. Therapy. Alternative medicine, psychiatry iind encounter. Martial Arts. Aikido, Karate, Tai Chi and others. HertNIlism. Treatments and wholesalers. R.treat •. Drugs. Guide to illicit use; hallucinogenic plants; law; facilities for addicts.

Suo VD, contraception and abortion. . Oahs. A guide to suppliers of materials and tools, grants, sales outlets. Community Development. Organisations needing help; ecology. Community Projects. Organisations giving helD; forming charities, finance. Children. Playgroups and free schools. liberation. Left Ktivist group; women·s centres; homosexuals. Transport. CM, moped and bike. Going A_y. cnyP tranl abroad; visas; black market. Strangers. Visas; work permits; studying; deportation. Husbandry. OrganiC growing; hydroponics. Technology. Solar, wind and water po_r.

Each section contains general inlOfmation with listings of people and organisations concerned described from the user·s viewpoint, often critically. There are no paid entries and no one is listed because they asked to be. In addition there are descriptions of each area, mentioning the most inter·esting oIlterrutive activities and listing places to milke contact Iocally. Finally there are two thorough indexes. The first is categorised by towns and IXlStal districts, so that wherever you are you can find everything local in the book listed together. The second index is by subject with over 5,000 entries. The book is by the same people who did Alternative"" London. It took 17 months to make including eight months and 13,000 miles of travelling. The information was kept up to date and checked before going to press. It is the size of a Iarge phone book weighing 1% Ibs. It is printed on cheap paper but 01 a tyJM·which absorbs the binding glue well so it won·t fall apart. The cower is except Wlally wrong·like the AA books but


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tougher. The price is the minimum it can be sold tor in bookshops to give us back wttat has been spent on producing the book ·full details of costings are on page 368. But to nuke it available cheaper, you can buy direct by post for £1.50 each for 8 copies or £1.75 for 4. Single copies arlO £2.50. These prices include post and packing besides a 25p donation to CLAP, yet we still get as much as by selling through bookshops. You can borrow a copy through your local public library ·see opposite side. Or, if you get a copy for £2.50 by post and re1\lrn it unmarked in the padded bag it was sent to you in, we will refund your money less postage. You c .. look at or buy copies from aU branches of Virgin Records besides bookshops and some headshops. PI .... sell capias by buying direct. You can make £1 profit on each or PiSS on the savi··CUT OFF HERE AND RETURN ·Please indicate your order and return with payment. All prices include post and packing. Books are IlO(mally posted the same morning that prepaid orders are recEived. Alternative England and Wales 1 copy £2.50 Alternative ErY,and and Wales 4 copies@£1.75 .. £7.00 Alternative England ;n:t Wales 8 copies@ £1.50 · £12.00 Alternative England and Wales , hardbound

library edition £8.25 Alternative England and Wales poster. A3 116" x 12") Alternative England and Wales poster, A4 (8" x 11") Alternative England and Wales supplement 1

included free with books, otherwise s.a.e. or lOp Alternative London 4th edition £1.50 Self Exploration·a guide to groups involved 85p Love, Siri and Ebba £1.00 Survival Guide 50p

Foreign cheQue (see note below) 50p ·I enclose banknotes/cheque/POs for , . . • . . . _ • £ _


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made payable to N SaurJ:lers, 65 Edith Grove, LorJ:lon SW10. NAME ADDRESS o Alternative. london 4 (£1.50) This 1974 edition is similar in content and layout to AtnNnarivlI England and Wales described on the other side, except that it·s half the size, does not cover Husbandry. Technology or Legal Frameworks and of course only has London listings. The book currently sold is a reprint with a new cover·and higher price. This was done by Wildwood House (who co.published this book) without my collaboration. Every other book I have produced has been published by myself alone). I have no intention of revismgA/ter·rive London. o Alternative.,.london·. SURVIVAL GUIDE fOt·Itrangan to london (45p1 This second edition Imid·731 is pocket size in small type. It·s equivalent to AL for complete strangers either visiting or intending to settle, who want to avoid being ripped off as tourists. So it has sections on good cheap places to stay and eat a buying guide and a large section on free entertainments. It also includes the strangers·section from AL4·immigration, deportation, work permits, studying. o Alternative. England and Wales SUPPLEMENTS I intend to publish the first supplement by November 1975. It will consist of char·.ges, corrections and additions toAIfW7Mtive EnglMld MId Wales, It will be included with books distributed; those who·ve contributed will be sent it free and anyone else can have it who sends an s.a.e. or lOp. later editions will probably take the form of a magazine about new and changed things of the sort included in the book. This may include Scotland and Ireland also to form the basis for a new edition after a year or two. The later supplements will be sold at whatever they cost. Information and feedback is always wry much appreciated and contri·butions will be rewarded by a free copy of the supplement. But siflCP. I don·t have any assistance between editions please don·t expect acknowledgement . o SiIIIf ExPOrlti·... id. to poupe irwolqd lSSp) This i. 01 Penguin size boc* .lltractlld from Alternative England and Wales with minor revisions. It is a guide for people looking for groups and


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organisations c:onc:errwd with self·exploration by means of the following paths:

Mysticism Retreats Yoga and Meditation M_ti. Arts

The Occult Encounter and the N_ Therapies Spiritualism Alternative Medicine Divirulion Herbalism

o loore, Siri Md Ebb. 195pp This is an elltfavagarllly produced book made from the letters of two women who hitch·hiked around Africa(Ct and lived with wild nomads. Not only their amazing adventures. but also their incredible enthusiasm and freedom come through in these personal letters to friends, illustrated with their o·l draw;"lJS. photocard.,d scrapbooks. Printed on Y·W1<coloured cartridge .. "". Orders without .. payment will be forwarded to a distributor, so don·t expect immediate response. Who .... prien are available to anyone. All pre·paid Orders of at least £20 book value will be sent carriage free at 40% discount·50 £20 worth of books cost you only £12. Owefleas orders sent for the same price surface mail, double by airmail except Alt·efmtj"" England and Wales which is £7 airmail! The Iower prices for bulk and wholesale do not apply abroad. Payment. All banknotes and international money orders are acceptable, but since my bank charges 50p to pay in foreign cheQues THIS MUST BE ADDED.

Thanks to all those who sent in information for this supplement: Robin Ellis, John of Crabapple, C Newman, Vivian Milroy, Richard Larkin, David Ormandy, Paul Thompson, Helen of Colne, Judy Cottam, Diane Mundy, Jim Adams, Lewis Creed, Ian of Lancaster, Mario Rin··IOlucri, Woof of Alligator, BhasluJra, Michattl and Frankitt Woods, Fnmce$ Emelttus, John Grey, Stuart Danittls, Primr0s6 PtISCOck, Pat H·y, Chris Prr.;cott, Uhuru, t·at Cwm M,,;gan, Tom Hood, Geoffrey Ashe, T Willcocks, W Menzies, K Mulf!$, Lyle McQueen, Jeff Gale, E Hatvany, Jim Fowfer, Martin Shaw, Richard Ellen, Chris Elphick, Tony of Anicus, Da"" ClKJdy, D."" Foulkes, Van and Janet of Llandrindod Wells, Tony of ToadstoOl, John Sa)", J BoWflf·, Mi*Don,


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Jampa Gendun, Walter Lloyd, Joe of Bogus, David Eno, Maron of Uncareers, Joyce Pu·II, Alan Roberts, Alistair of Whole Earth Group, Titus of Free House, Colin Spooner, Zena Eaton, Oaw Gourlay, Garry and Joan, SUtI of WOOF, Robin Simmons, Jim of The Other BrllnCh, ChrisMJd Kttith of Mushroom, John Guitar, Tony of Communes Movement, Cliff of Communes Network, Sue of Amamus, Ralph Crooks, Ian of Helxien Bridge, Horace Henry, R Wei!, Richard of Public House, Liz and Brian of Partisan, Ian and Sonia of Magic Ink, Coliil Richardson, Ginny Ralitz, Judith Dauncey, Peter of Orittl, Wendy of RamatliJ, Mike DN/, M Plan, R Tyley, M Turpin, Pru Campbell, Sally Harrison, John Whitby, Chris Walkttr; thanks also to Sheila and R·miITY who helped put it all togttthttr. That information has not been thoroughly checked. Next Supplement will be prepared during February 1976. So please _00 in infOrmlltion for it by the end of January. It should b6 out by March and all who contribute will be sent a copy free (as with this OM/_ It helps a lot if you can refer to page numbers in the book and write on one side of the paper, so I can file items. Any comments or ideas about more general things (like how to produce and distribute this supplement) are welcome, but please don·t expect a reply as I work on my own and want to ha"" time to do other things. Thanks also for everyone Valhi ordered AE&W from their library. Unfortunately for both you and me the plan misfired·most libraries got the paperback through bookshops·but at ItJilst most libraritls now haVtl it in stock making thtl informlltion availabltl to those who wouldn·t buy it. Also thanks to everyone Mf·)o·s bought a box of 8 copies to distribute. They make good Christmas presl1f)f$ and you get them at £7.50 insttlild of £25O .… Nicholas Saunders Printed by Graham Andrews, Reading Typeset by Nick Lumsden


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• • • • • • • • • • • • Day & Edwards Communesense A Guide To PlanningAn Englishman's home may be his castle but if you want to so much as extend a battlement in this sceptred isle of ours you need planning permission. Undercurrents, in its customary role of provider of information to the sublimely ignorant, gives here a few words of advice on defeating the bureaucracy. As usual with our brand of anarchistic good intentions there are differences of opinion. Chris Day, as a sound practical man, says never appeal against a refusal, while Michael Edwards, in detailing the difficulties of communes. merely advises caution. Now read on ...

SOONER OR LATER, anybody who wants to build something themselves runs into planning problems. Everybody knows somebody who has had an application refused. The stories, as related, make the refusals seem wholly unjustified, irrational. and unfair in that worse has been approved. This sense of outrage tends to magnify the belief that all planning is corrupt, unjust, and unnecessary. Fortunately it is rarely quite so bad. About half the refusals you hear of are planning refusals and half are failure to comply with building regulations. These are quite separate fieldsJ and require separate applications: the tactics required for success are also quite distinct. Of these, building regulations are the easiest to deal with because they are all in a book (The Building Regulations obtainable from HMSO). The building regulations are designed to protect the public from shoddy, unhealthy, dangerous buildings (e.g. houses that are unsound, damp and have high fire risks). They specify performance; they do not compel the use of particular materials (except for specific jobs like chimneys and even here there is a choice). In the USA the regulations can be framed to benefit manufacturers; fortunately this is not so here. All the regulations are in the book and they mostly only stop you doing things that are inadvisable anyway. (You can get around the nonessential regulations - e.g. rooms in tiny roof spaces - later, by incon·spicuous work after your final inspection and approval). With a rule book, you know where you stand. Although you may meet narrow·minded local officials who interpret building regulations strictly, they generally have some discretionary powers. The regulations, for example, specify rather elaborate standards for a healthy earth-closet; ours is just a hole in the ground and is quite adequate. But there is no guarantee that they will let you build a new house with an E.C. For improvements of old buildings (avoiding grants) a helpful building inspector may waive certain regulations (e.g. ceiling heights and window


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sizes, and even approve existing E.Cs). but at his discretion. Let outs There are some good let-outs in the regulations: for example, ceiling heights for 'habitable rooms' must be 7ft 6ins; however, in a room in a roof, only half the floor area must have that ceiling height. This makes most lofts convertible if you narrow the room with built-in cupboards (which could be removed after the final inspection). In rural areas, most building inspectors are only strict about ceiling heights, window sizes (glass area not less than %0 of floor area and ventilation, not less than '1'0 - habitable room~ only), and drains. Ceilings are no problem, because if joists are exposed, you wouldn't want a much lower ceiling, not if you want to avoid brain injuries, Windows do not have to be new picture-windows; any old hole in the wall or roof-light will do. Inspectors' (free) advice on drains can be quite useful. In short, the building inspector may be petty, but he thinks he is helping, and furthermore, he works by the book. Buy the book and you may well be able to out·book him. Planning Planning is not in a book. It is almost wholly discretionary. The nearest to a book of rules are the various Town & Country Planning Acts which tell planners (and anyone else who can understand them - I can't) their powers. However, we are only concerned with planning applications for buildings. Your application goes before a committee (mostly elected, worthy citizens). The planning officer recommends and the committee vote. Unlike the building regulations-where you can stretch everything to the legal limit - with planning you take your luck. Why do we have planning controls? Countries with laxer controls - such as the USA - demonstrate what happens without it. Overnight, untouched wilderness areas can be transformed into suburban lots for long-range commuters or vacationers. Planning is intended to control the damage inflicted by man on the environment. In the face of pressure for more houses, offices, factories, and roads, not even the most conservationist planner can say "no" all the time. So some people get the "yeses". Who are they? Needless to say, the bigger an operation the bigger its potential damage to the environment However the bigger it is, the more money is behind it-how else could the oil companies build oil refineries in national parks and property companies demolish cities? Money can exert power without


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recourse LO corruption (though this is not unknown). Offering employment in areas of high unemployment is the greatest bait. Shopkeepers - who tend to get on councils and committees-often find the prospect of more wage earners appealing. The fact that such employment has been cruelly misrepresented in the past doesn't seem to alter its appeal. (The work usually turns out to be temporary and high wage, bringing non-local workers to flood small communities and drawing local people from farm and other jobs that they will never return to. Permanent work often turns out to require less people and particular skills that locals do not have. The planners have got to say "no" to somebody. If you are small you have no leverage and if they don't like you they are delighted to be able to refuse. It's like exams - if everybody passed, why have them? Three cases in our area are not untypical - 1) An application for 90 new luxury houses in a village of perhaps 50 houses (and short of water, sewage disposal and especially housing for local people: Approved. 2) An application for a house on the farm for a son to help his widowed father farm 30 acres. (There are no other available houses in the community - the second-homers get them first): Refused. 3) A farmer who built his (permissionless) house on his parents' farm so that he could run the farm: Order to demolish. We all know what happens to mining companies that dig holes in national parks when told not to. They get away with it. If you are big enough, you can; if small, you cannot. Since the individual has got to try to wriggle through planning, what is the best way to go about it? To be fair, planners and planning committees believe that they are good people, doing good things. If they think something is good, they will pass it .. lf we can see our applications through their eyes, we can begin to get a fair idea of what their objections may be, and try to refute them in advance. These are the sort of stumbling blocks you may encounter. The master plan:- The zone is residential and your workshop will be light industrial: try to call it something else (honest of course). Pragmatic refusal:- Will the council have to provide water, sewage, subsidised bus service and so on if they permit development? Such considerations are a great worry to planning officers. Change of use:- "We don't approve of this change of use". However, if the previous building was disused they might be more amenable. Non.existence:- "That existing building is not an existing building (and we


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do not permit new buildings here)." In our part of the world, a building empty for four years or longer no longer counts as existing and needs a new planning application. Don't tell them it's been empty for four years; they don't ask, and thanks to administrative size, they don't know. In some areas, four walls but no roof, one wall and a chimney, or even old foundations are assets; find out anonymously what the local policy is. Sporadic development:- "No new isolated buildings in rural areas". Try to show off its least-isolated aspects i.e.. its relation to other buildings. Aesthetic:- Here they have got you. But actually, as the details in most architectural drawings are so minimal, they assume that your application is for another bungalow. It is worth presenting full and flattering drawings of what it will look like - and, if need be, views of it set in its surroundings, photo-montages and so on. If refused, never appeal. It is slow, expensive and final. Reapply, modifying your design and refuting their reasons for refusal. (and incidentally, you can have a caravan on your land so long as an application is in, or you are building). If you are in a rural area - and this is where so many planning problems occur - you probably intend to grow your own food. Tell them. Agriculture and horticulture are approved of. A smallholding - or farmworker's bungalow - are usually OK. If your land is already a farm or a smallholding, it has a holding number - quote it.

These are some things you can do without needing to apply to the planning authority (they do, however, need building regulations approval): Houses: -Enlargement of a house by up to 50 cubic metres or '/10 of its volume (whichever is greater) up to 115 cubic metres, so long as it does not project above or in front (towards road) of the existing building. -A porch not exceeding 2 square metres area, and 3 metres in height. It must be 2 or more metres from a boundary fronting a highway. -A shed (not a garage, stable, loosebox, coachhouse or dwelling) of up to half your garden area, but not in front of the house (towards road) nor exceeding 4 metres height at ridge or 3 metres, if other roof shape. -In the case of farms, small holdings etc., in excess of 1 acre and for agricultural purposes: you may erect a building up to 465 square metres ground area, not exceeding 12 metres in height (3 metres within 3 Km of


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an aerodrome). Precise details can be obtained from your local planning authority. The last point is quite significant. In addition to the advantage of simply being allowed to build, it would seem that all sorts of 'unsightly' stuff (such as lashed-up solar collectors), if they are part of an agricultural building, need only to comply with building regulations. which should be no problem. In short, what all this means is that if you play their game and watch the rules carefully, you can get away with quite a lot. Good luck. Chris Day

'Go out and see what they're doing .. . . And tell them to stop!' COMMUNAL HOUSING projects can run into all sons of planning problems wherever they are and rural locations present some special likely difficulties. The Planning law requires permission to be obtained for any 'development' - and this is widely defined to include changes of the use of land or buildings as well as actual construction work.. If your project is purely agricultural, on an existing agricultural holding, involves no new building and if the communal living pattern is construed simply as ordinary residence,then planning permission probably won't be needed. Usually, though, the problem won't be that simple.

Dilemmas in rural planning British rural counties tend to be confronting pretty severe problems. In almost all country areas (beyond the commuting range of conurbations) population has long been falling, led by the decline in farm employment. As the population becomes sparser it is less able to support adequate services. The per capita costs of providing many services probably really do rise in those circumstances: all forms of visiting social and health services, water supply, sewerage, emergency services, libraries, schools and so on. This is reinforced where traditional technology (e.g. sewage treatment), professional received wisdom (e.g. hospitals) or genuine economies of scale (e.g. school science labs) raise the minimum sizes at which services can be provided. The declining population then needs to do more travelling - to shops, schools, doctors and often to jobs, creating a demand for extra transport service, but not enough to offset the enormous bus operating problems which flow from the sparseness of settlement. Cars become a high spending priority for those who can


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possibly manage to get them - and who are able to drive and that further reduces the custom supporting bus services. This picture is a simplified generalisation, but elements of it are to be found in virtually all parts of the countryside. Trouble Local planning authorities are in pretty severe trouble. The clarity with which the problems are understood, and the relevance and energy of the response, are very variable. The most common type of rural settlement policy is one which tries to concentrate new housing and employment in a small number of 'key settlements' where public and commercial services are also encouraged to congregate though it's not unknown for some public services to operate in bland defiance of such schemes. The 'key settlements' are usually at nodal points on the transport network and this strategy thus serves, among other things, to'concentrate demand for bus services where it can most easily be met - though often at the expense of the services to the sparser areas. This is sometimes the real rationale of rural planning policies, and at other times a rationalisation for measures which derive their real impetus from a kind of 'conservation' which is basically trying to keep new people (especially poor people) out of the bulk of the countryside and sustain landscape and property values there. As a result many rural authorities more or less prohibit scattered development in rural areas, including their 'non-key' villages, and they can usually count on being backed up in appeals by the Department of the Environment. Counties in England and Wales are responsible for the main planning policy formation and for embodying the results in structure plans. Subsequently the counties and/or the district councils have to prepare detailed local plans. In fact most rural counties have yet to prepare structure plans and those which have seem, for the most part, to have paid scant attention to the countryside. In the meantime policies set out in the Development Plans of the 1950. and 1960s, as amended, are the ruling ones. Whatever plans there are provide the basis for the system of development control - the process of giving or refusing planning permission - and the responsibility for this control falls to the district councils on most ordinary proposals. Dealing with planning machine The planning machinery can be tackled head-on or avoided like the plague. The head-on approach is often risky. slow and expensive - unless you can establish by discreet enquiries that a favourable decision is going


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to emerge. If a refusal is issued various problems arise. Numerous reasons for refusal are usually given and it is not always possible to detect the real logic underlying the decision. If you do get a refusal and decide to appeal you should (i) give positive grounds for appealing as well as resisting the given reasons for refusal (and do so in a short letter), and (ii) seek an inquiry. For the inquiry prepare a full written statement describing all the positive aspects of your proposal, try to use language and arguments of a kind civil servants may accept and. in the process, rebut all the grounds given for the refusal. The law requires the decision to be made in the light of 'the Development Plan and all other material factors' so it is important to seize the initiative in defining what is 'material'. Don't release this document until the last minute and if you can produce some of it through the mouth of an accredited 'expert' so much the better. Avoiding the planning process is best if you can do it, so be very discreet with your local council in case you decide not to seek permission: once they are alerted to the possibility of anything unconventional taking place they are likely to err on the side of watchfulness and caution. If you have land and buildings where you want to make no alterations to structures or use there is no 'development' and thus no permission is needed. Even if you are going to do some building work it may fall in a category which is exempt from control - such as repairs and. up to a fixed limit, extensions to a dwelling. Some agricultural building is also exempt from control. But even in these cases you will probably need approval for the structural safety and correctness of your building under the building regulations. And if you have the misfortune to be in a conservation area,a national park or an area designated as of special landscape or scientific interest you may find that the ordinary exemptions do not apply. What next? One of the great difficulties in all this is that ordinary planning permissions. once given and taken up, endure for ever with the land - even after it has changed hands. Thus the planning authority justly take account not only of how the permission would be used by the applicants but of what a subsequent buyer might do with it. For example one London Borough, confronted by a plan for an 18 person commune, was resistant-because if and when the building came to be sold its obvious use would be as a rooming house or hostel - though they fully accepted that the group applying for the permission were going to be quite


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unexceptionable. The best you can hope for in this sort of situation is to get a 'personal' permission - one which is for you and you alone to benefit from and which provides for the use to revert back to what it previously was if the property changes hands. A second best expedient can be to seek a temporary permission which comes up for renewal after a period of years. In both these cases the special permissions are only really feasible for changes of use, not for substantial building since it is not very practicable for an authority to require building work to be reversible. When is a commune . . ? The planning permission under which one London commune operates is subject to a condition that 'The premises shall be used only as a commune' which suggests that someone in the town hall has a clearer idea of what that word means than most commune dwellers. In that case the authority decided that communal living was a use of land distinct from private residential use and thus required permission whether there was any building or not That situation is certainly one to avoid if you can - by moving in, and generally behaving to the authorities, as distinct households or operating under the co-ownership housing association rules and subsequently introducing whatever sharing arrangements you have in mind. Breakthroughs in rural planning In the long run there is great scope for struggles to break the hold of convention in rural planning thinking. Sewage, water supply and the other main services are an obvious target Policy is based on the premise that most households should have the right or at least the expectation of connection in the long run to main services. As the alternative technologies of waste recycling and energy generation improve they should gradually be able to loosen the hold of this premise. Similarly small scale water purification methods could break the dependence between wholesome water supply and high cost pipe networks. It is harder to see how to pierce the arguments for settlement concentra·tion which are based upon the needs of schools, shops and social services for compact service areas. In some districts it may be true that, so long as there are any people living scattered in the countryside, there should be more of them rather than fewer. More generally, demands of professionals and businesses for ever larger facilities need to be scrutinised and the arithmetic of rural living and survival costs must be gone over as carefully as the assumptions on which it is based. The


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technology and the management innovations needed for new settle·ment patterns will probably run far ahead of the social and political changes which would make them feasible_ But the battle is certainly not a hopeless one.Further Reading On communes in general there is a great deal of ephemeral material of slight value. Still unbeaten as a treatment of the legal and administrative snags and possibilities is BROIDO, Mark (ed) Communal Housing. a report by a Chimera working group, 1971, published by the editor at Magdalen College Oxford (mimeo). A research project financed by SSRC is under way and its final report is awaited. An interim report appeared as a paper by ABRAMS, Philip, et al in the proceedings of a British Sociological Association conference on Sex Roles in Society in 1974. While much of the paper is devoted to disproving the rather ludicrous hypothesis that communal life causes a radical change in sex roles among participants. there is a great deal of interesting data presented for the first time. On planning law the authoritative guide is TELLING, A E,Planning law and Procedure, London, Butterworth. which is regularly revised to reflect legislative changes. Those interested in the way in which technology and policy interact in rural planning might enjoy WARFORD, J J, The South Atcham Scheme: an economic appraisal, HMSO, 1969, which is extremely explicit and has the temerity to suggest. at the end, that one of the sacred cows in rural water supply should be desanctified. Summaries of environmental powers and obligations can be found in LAYFIELD, F H B. Powers for Conservation in Journal of the Town Planning Institute, March 1971. and a more up to date synopsis in a series of reference sheets published in the Architects' Journal between August 1974 and February 1975. Of interest as a reference source on organisations directly or remotely concerned with the countryside and on ways of pursuing environmental campaigns is the Friends of the Earth Campaigner's Manual, FOE, 1974 Could any UC reader involved in a community living project or who knows others who are, please write in to Michael Edwards, c/o UNDERCURRENTS with news of successful - or failed - negotiations with rural authorities, or with any other comments which may be helpful.


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• • • • • • • • • • • • The View from the Quarry: A letter from Gerald Morgan·Grenville The National Centre for Alternative Technology at MachynlIeth. now in existence for over two years, has been one of the more con·troversial recent developments in A T. Follow·ing reports in Undercurrents 8 and elsewhere. and frequent criticism of the centre at AT events, they have asked for space in Undercurrents in which to discuss their;r ideas, and to give news of developments at Llwyngwern Quarry, NCA T·s home. Below, Gerard Morgan·GrenviIle slates his views on the centre·s role. The article is not in/ended to reflect the collective views of NCAT. or of Undercurrents or its members.

Of the numerous things of which I have at one time or another been accused perhaps the most paradoxical is that I have sold out AT to the Establishment The means by which some suspect that this has been done is by having set up a focal point for AT which, by an insidious process of big company and big name involvement, has subverted the original aims of AT to the profit based interests of Big Business. Remarks to this effect made at Comtek and some other AT venues have prompted me to amplify the happenings at the National Centre for Alternative Technology ·NCAT ·better known as the Quarry. Anyone who has read the attempts of others to encapsulate in a few words the central ethic of AT and from this to pontificate on the social and technical means of its establishment, will know that it is a dangerous task, since the range of its individual interpretations is limitless ·so the things which I say are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of those at the Quarry, past or present. Any ·foreigner·taking a look at the Alternative scene in Britain (or Europe) could be forgiven for failing to see any consistency or continuity. Projects come and go leaving scarcely a ripple, and the ideological casualties are almost as frequently encountered as the wreckage of AT windmill prototypes. In this general context I cherish the ambition of trying to create some kind of Alternative bastion, which can provide some element of stability in the highly fragile situation in which most AT types find themselves. I conceive that this nucleus be sufficiently large and cohesive to develop its own internal dynamic ·philosophical, social, technological and financial. The Quarry is now a small part of the way towards this goal. Readers of ·Undercurrents·will mostly subscribe to the ideas that society could be fairer, that it is possible to live with greater regard for environmental con·siderations, that small is frequently beautiful, that unnecessary or dangerous technologies should be avoided, that land


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should be for people, and all the rest of the AT creed, which is so platitudinously intoned and so little exemplified ·for the simple reason that exemplification is extremely difficult. How do you, when it comes to the point, become self·sufficient on almost no money, prevent a nuclear power station being built, ground Concorde, fix a solar collector on the 17th storey of a high·rise block of flats ·or fight a faceless bureaucracy? You don·t, because you can·t. But what you can do is to select those areas where you can do something, enlist the co·operation of others who share your aims, produce a plan capable of realisation, stick to it, and win small battles one at a time, thus improving the climate for others to do battle. The something which you choose will depend on your particular view of AT. The winning ·or losing ·of such battles should be reported more frequently in ·Undercurrents·if we are to profit from the efforts of others. To me, AT is not too much to do with drawing the dole, telephone tapping or getting stoned. To me it is rather more to do with the energetic development of a sustainable and better life, in which people work together for the common good. NCAT reflects this ideal. Such a life presupposes independence from those whose policies are antagonistic, and some of the technology at NCAT provides a means to this end. To me the pursuit of such an ideal is now a matter of urgency, faced as we are with a bureaucracy employing one in four of the workforce. I believe, passionately, that man should have the fullest possible personal freedom ·so long as he respects the tribal codes of behaviour. I suspect that most people who subscribe to an alternative society cherish the same belief. Yet I am fre·quently astounded by the political naivety which may almost be said to characterise the movement. Whether or not we are political escapists or activists, whilst we indulge in such notions as Kropotkin anarchism, the fact is that we are all being pushed towards a totalitarian regime by an unholy but concerted alliance of power seekers. If they have their way, NCAT, Undercurrents, and other corporate and individual freaks will be swept off the board ·make no mistake about this; individualism and real personal freedom are absolutely irreconcilable with the totalitarian state: you need look no further than any such state to see the living proof of this. I believe that a far more militant role is now required of those who claim to uphold the basic human rights. If the AT movement is to make a lasting and worth·while impact it must be prepared to defend its cardinal


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principles with action. We.live in a fool·s paradise whilst others, capitalist and communist alike, conspire to force us into conformity. So, if you come to the Quarry, apart from the possibility of seeing lumps of slate being hurled at suspected bureau·crats, you will by next summer also see a great many working devices which will help you to be independent of the system and to live more self·sufficiently_ Wind·mills a·plenty, solar collectors by the dozen, water turbines and a methane generator which has actually been known to generate methane. (Both commercially available and DIY units are shown: a range of DIY pamphlets is already available). We are also getting into organic horticulture and carp rearing. (Food for the inmates is vegetarian whole·food). If everything goes according to plan, you may even see a house which provides for all its own services. There will be a much enlarged new exhibition hall with many new things, an informa·tion office and an AT bookshop, where, if you haven·t already done so, you can take out a subscription to ·Under·currents·. We are also planning some AT discussion weekends this winter: please contact us if you are interested. To enter you will probably have to pay SOp by next summer. It is not a rip·off: it is the least we can charge if we are to realise the project ·as it is most of us are virtually or entirely unpaid. (We need more money ·subscription forms available!) I f you would like your views on the )development of NCAT to be pondered and perhaps incorporated, please write to us: Gerard Morgan·Grenville National Centre for Alternative Technology. lIwyngwern Quarry, Machynlleth, Powys (Machynlleth 2400).


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• • • • • • • • • • • • Dauncey Nuts In October? THE 1975 MAY LECTURES were organised by the Franklin School in London on October 15·18. They are struggling to become a regular feature in the paranormal scene, though not quite annually, hence the misnomer. This year·s theme was ·Frontiers in Science and Medicine·, with particular emphasis on the areas where science merges into mysticism ..... Wednesday The opening night was very d,disappointing. The hall was packed with about 400 people, but Rick Carlson didn·t manage to say anything new and what he did say was simultaneously simplistic, vague, and over·verbose. Dr. Louis Kervran, who has written a book called ·Proofs of the T transformation of Energy in Biology·, spoke in French, and was poorly translated by Dr. Costa de Beauregard, who also passed comment on Dr. Kervran·s work, which endeavours to show that cosmic energy is absorbed by the body and transmuted into life energy. He was saying some interesting things but they were almost impossible to follow in any coherent way. Confusion, instead of con-fusion, I·m afraid, and no chance for any questioning or audience feedback. Thursday Better. David Tansley, a radionics man, talked about the chakras in the ·subtle anatomy·, and about auras, and showed some very pretty slides. But it was all at the metaphysical level, which was disappointing, especially as there is some good evidence that there are scientifically valid links between the pineal gland, (which is held to be the physical representation of the second chakra, between the eyes), and consciousness. The pineal gland appears to secrete the molecule serotonin, which seems to be centrally involved in the regulation of perceptions, and hence of consciousness. One theory about the functioning of LSD is that it mirrors, and somehow blocks, the production of serotonin from the pineal, and thus interferes with conscious·ness. (See John Bleibtreu·s The Parable of the Beast, Gollancz, ·68). John Taylor, on the other hand, perhaps one should say ·in the other hemisphere·), was at least scientific. Amusing ·he·s got a pretty display of slides too, of everything from levitation to the fracture surfaces of


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physically and psychically broken needles, Very keen to preserve reductionism and to explain some psi phenomena within the known forces of nature. He didn·t elaborate on his theory about very low frequency electro·magnetic radio waves which might carry resonances of energy from the muscles of the body to the spoon, etc., and so bend it. some interesting fragments of information about the interplay between electromagnetic fields and the body. Good audience feedback, showing faith that science will be able to embrace psi phenomena when the new paradigm finally emerges, and showing no great sorrow at the prospect of the wan ing of reductionism. Friday On Friday night we were more philosophical. John Davy, who used to be science correspondent of The Observer, and is now Vice·Principal of Emerson College, Sussex (a Rudolf Steiner training college), gave an excellent talk on the nature of scientific method. To him, the most inexplicable thing was to know how plants grow, and we grow. The molecular biologists, he said, were confident that they could explain it all; but he knew that there were other biologists who are very open·minded, and very puzzled ·in private, anyway. He took us on a mental journey through the ways in which quantum indeterminacy has opened us up to the realisation that we manipulate reality before we even see it, through the ways we impose our prior mental patterns onto our theories. Much as a person can be distorted by a Laing·field of expectations, so reality gets distorted in our minds: the way we think about the universe affects what we will find. And much more ... taking us to the suggestion that we transcend reductionist thinking·and try to get to know plants, life, reality, by letting them inwardly ·school the imagination·, and taking it from there. No discussion, again, infuriatingly. Then Dr. Weihs, who is Psychiatric Consultant for the Steiner Camphill Schools. He was inspiring, in a gentle sort of way, but when it turned into a fullyfledged sermon I started expiring again. En route, he made some ordinary, some out·of·date, (a pre·Popper critique), and some run·of·the·mill intelligent comments on the nature of science, arguing the need for spiritual approaches to life as well. Science might tell us how to do, but it couldn·t tell us what to do, or how to act out of goodness and responsibility. No discussion. Maybe by now I should have got the message that whoever was organising these October May Lectures was more concerned to convey Steinerian and esoteric teachings than to explore the frontiers of


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knowledge, which to my mind involve the interface between science and ·almost·science·. Anyway, what followed on Saturday was to leave me in little doubt. Maybe it was what people wanted ·there were certainly many different paradigms of consciousness in the room; but I think my frustrations were widely shared. ____________________________________________________

"The programme will focus on those energy networks which lie beyond the physical world. It will explore the possibility of man, not only as an energy field interacting with energy fields of all other life forms, but also with those of the solar system itself. Many feel that these exploratory probes across new energy frontiers will ultimately give rise to a new holistic science. A science which will view man as a cooperative and creative partner in the natural order of life and thus as a being with profound responsibilities." ____________________________________________________

Saturday My irritation with Saturday·s whole day of lectures is double; partly because Messrs Milner, Smart and Meredith, from the Dept. of Metallurgy at Birmingham University, spouted so much stuff about the Astral Plane, and the 4 etheric forces, and how we are the Prodigal Sons in the Plan of the Godhead, and how everything ties in to prove the Purpose and Pattern of Existence; but partly, too, because they had without any doubt the most important and exciting experimental results of the lectures, and yet they presented them in an extremely bemuddling, magical, and unscientific way. For three sessions out of four we were treated to their Grand Cosmology, which they presented as if there were no question at all about its truth. lt has some interesting points to it, and I personally agree with the schemata that we are evolving from unconscious matter through to fully realised, self·actualising being, and that furthermore we·ll be needing some thoroughly co·operative social structures to reflect the changes in consciousness. (Not that Milner seemed to recognise anything anarchist about his Plan. In his interpretation it was thoroughly sexist, to boot . ) But scient ifi cal ly, even almost scient ifi cal ly, even remotely·almost·scientifically, it was junk. Their experimental work involves ·etheric force field photography·, which is a cousin of Kirlian photography. They send pulses of electricity of different frequencies, and with different patterns of pulse, through a bare photographic plate, and they achieve remarkable photos of what is


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undeniably an energy·field, and which also, undeniably, exhibits definite structures; patterns similar to ferns, flowers, leaves, feathers, fungi and many other natural forms emerged. When questioned at the end about the relevance of their elaborate cosmology, the three were highly evasive, saying things like "we were forced into the philosophy by the evidence", "we are confused ourselves", and "we have no beliefs" ·which offers scant information as to why they wasted their and our time expounding their beliefs at such length. Meredith accepted that the phenomena they had in their photos were corona discharge patterns ·but stated that they·could also be interpreted in their way. Then one of them said that their way was preferable, since it gave them room for hope, and social progress as well. Strange people, these metallurgists. I completely agree that we need a unification involving science, evolution, consciousness and social and political structures ·but it can·t just be pulled out of the air ·or out of the ether. What they should have spent their time doing was explaining to us just what corona discharge is and why it might be structured the way it is on their photos; the relationships between ionisation (which is what causes corona discharge) and the effect that ions have on our own consciousness (New Scientist 14.6.73); the relevance of serotonin, again; the possible role of breathing in the conversion of air in the body; and the possible link·ups between the esoteric way of seeing things, involving chakras and auras, and a possible scientific way, involving ionisation, the endocrine system, the organisation of matter, and the organisation of consciousness. Instead, they gave us a perfect example of John Davy·s warning that the way we think about the universe affects what we find. Sorry to leave you so frustrated, with so little of substance to grip on; that·s how the lectures left me. Last year·s May lectures appear to have been far better. Milner, Smart and Meredith have a book on their work coming out very soon, called ·The Loom of Creation·, which deserves some hard thinking and review·ing, when it is published. Guy Dauncey


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• • • • • • • • • • • •‘Oon·Yellimon’ To You Too! Positively the last word on Transcendental Meditation ..... Many people who have tried to meditate and failed have succeeded when stoned. For some reason, grass considerably increases the ability to con·centrate on the mantra, and to transcend reality. Although most of the Eastern religions (the Maharishi·s included) claim that you can reach the transcendental or metaphysical state without external stimulation, many Westerners have found that it is much easier with the aid of grass. After having learned how the whole thing works, most people continue meditating but without the grass. For those in a hurry to reach nirvana, we suggest that you attempt meditation (at least the first few times) when stoned. The following is a bastard form of Transcendental Meditation which has worked for us: First, get a mantra, a magical word that is meaningless in and of itself. Supposedly the word should come from the Maharishi or one of his teachers, and should be a word which is very personal and used exclusively by you. Being of a pragmatic nature, we fail to see why you can·t make up your own magical word. Most mantras which we have heard of (and we gained this secret information through the usual methods of kidnapping and torture) have four syllables, with the first syllable stressed. We will give you a mantra, but remember, this is a personal mantra, and you·re not to tell anyone what it is. It·ll be a secret among ourselves. Shhh. Your mantra is ‘oon·yellimon’, with the first syllable stressed. Now, sit on the floor or on your bed, with your feet crossed and your hands in your lap. Sit up straight. Take a deep breath and relax. Let your mind wander for a while like it usually does. When you find a space in your thinking which seems sort of quiet, start saying the mantra but not out loud and don·t vocalise or move your lips. Stress the first syllable hard, and keep saying it over and over. If you have to scratch or move. do so, but no matter what happens in your mind, keep saying the mantra. And concentrate on it as long as you can. After a while, stop saying the mantra, and relax your mind. Let whatever happens happen. You may hallucinate, or you may reach a poignant peak of euphoria, or, and this is more likely, nothing may happen at all. If nothing does happen, keep trying. It may take a few days of work, but it·s worth it. After you·ve gotten where you want to go with meditation when stoned, try it without grass. Grass should be used only as a learning tool. Our friend Ernie used to meditate quite a bit while stoned, but has recently given it up. He said that he finally saw God, and God told him to stop meditating. (From A Child·s Garden of Grass)


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• • • • • • • • • • • • The Gas·Man·s Manual by John Fry Methane Artisan The Practical Building of Methane Power Plants by L John Fry is now generally acknowledged to be the best book on small·scale methane generation yet written. Clarence Goeluke, who with his colleague W ) Oswald at the University of California, Berkeley, has been one of the leading academic researchers into the biology of methane production, reviewed the book recently for Compost Science magazine. His verdict was as follows: "(this book) is highly recommended by this reviewer to anyone intent upon building a digester for biogas pro·duction .... The chapter on the biology of the digestion process is written in a style (that is) lucid and in a language intelligible to the nonspecialist in biology ..... The section on design covers a wide variety of possible designs .... Especially fascinating to this reviewer was the ·inner tube·digester." To give readers an idea of the scope of the book·s coverage, here is list of chapter headings: 1. How it all started 2. Building a vertical drum digester 3. Top loader digester 4. First Full·scale digester 5. Working solution to scum accumulation 6. Gas Holders used on my farm 7. Digester types and scum removal 8. Biology of digestion 9. Raw materials 10. Digester design 11. Digester operation 12. Eco·nomics of digestion 13. Gas and Gas usage 14. Gludge and sludge use 15. Safety Precautions 16. Questions and answers 17. Digesters today and tomorrow. 18. Glossary of terms, bibliography and references, and postscript. Fry·s book has been available in Britain for about a year, in a privately·published edition produced by Fry·s nephew, Tony Knox. Up to now, Undercurrents’·only reservation about the UK edition has been its price, which seemed a little high at £4. But then, as Tony Knox pointed out in a letter to us, "John Fry has let it all hang out in this book ·all the never·before·revealed information he has painfully gathered over the years is there. After a lifetime of trying to convince skeptics, all he wanted to do was get the ·monkey·off his back and perhaps earn enough to ease his retirement." We are pleased to announce that we have now come to an arrangement with Mr Knox whereby we will sell the book at a reduced price to Undercurrents readers. To whet your appetite, here·s a sample from the


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chapter on Building a Vertical Drum Digester: Vertical drum digesters can be made of any two cylinders which fit inside one another such as drums, buckets, coffee cans. etc. The digester described below is made of a 3O·gallon drum fitted into a 50·gallon drum. One of the first steps in the construction of any sized unit is the brewing up of a batch of starter material, unless you are lucky enough to have an operating digester in your area. It takes weeks and even months to cultivate the strain of bacteria that functions best on the manure being used locally. Once you have your starter going, however, you can have it indefinitely like a sourdough bread or yogurt culture. Starter brew can be generated in a one or five gallon glass bottle. Care must be taken to fill the bottle only about 1/4 full with either active supernatant from a local sewage works or the runoff from the low point on the land of any intensive stock farm in your district. Then fill 1/4 more with fresh dung and leave the other half for fresh additions of manure at weekly intervals. Never fill to near the screw cap since foaming could block off the opening and burst the bottle. Of course, the screw cap must be left loose to keep the bottle from exploding except when agitating the bottle. It is a peculiarity at methane brews that occasional agitation is beneficial but that continuous agitation has an adverse effect. Following are step by step instructions on how to build a vertical drum digester: 1) Get two metal drums, one of 30 gallons with an outlet on top, and one of 50 gallons. 2) Remove the top of the 50·gallon drum and the bottom of the 30·gallon drum. 3) Fit a valve into the small outlet in the top of the 30·gallon drum. This will be the gas outlet. 4) The 50·gallon drum is ready to be filled. It should be filled only to the height of the 30·gallon drum with a mixture of half slurry and half starter brew (fig.2). 5) Make a slurry the thickness of cream by mixing fresh, raw manure with warm or hot water at 90° to 95°F (35°C). 6) To this add an equal amount of starter brew. 7) With the valve open, sink the 30·gallon drum all the way down into the


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slurry and starter mixture (fig.2). This must exclude all the air from the 30·gallon drum. Then close the valve. 8) In cool climates, active compost can be packed around the outer drum to maintain a steady temperature of between SOo and 95°F (35°C). After about three weeks, gas should begin to generate. The smaller drum will fill slowly with gas and rise above the surface of the slurry (fig.3). 9) Safety precaution: A note of warning. When the small drum rises the first time, do not attempt to burn the gas. Rather. let it escape to atmosphere, push the 30·gallon drum completely down into the slurry again, shut off the valve and allow it to rise a second time. This is to insure that no air is mixed with the gas. A gas and air mixture is highly explosive between the range of one part in four to one in 14 if ignited. Even outside this range it could be dangerous. Also the first gas yield will probably not light anyway due to a high proportion of carbon dioxide when fermentation first starts. When burning the gas, open the valve only slightly, press down lightly on the 30·gallon drum to create a positive pressure on the gas. Close the valve before releasing the pressure. In rare cases there occurs an abundance of gray foamy bubbles at about the time fermentation starts. If this happens leave the digester alone for a few days. Do not feed any raw material. If the digester is heated, reduce the heat. 10) Periodic supplies of fresh raw material should be fed in to keep the digestion going. This can vary from daily feeds to once every three months depending on the requirements of the user and the digester design. To feed this digester it is necessary to remove the 30·gallon drum, take out about 5 gallons of material and replace it with fresh slurry. Again press down the small drum to exclude air. Drum designs are particularly good units to learn from since they are so easy to build and maintain. 11) To provide smooth movement of the inner drum, guiding pipes and rollers can be improvised to keep the inner drum vertical. From now on, The Practical Building of Methane Power Plants will be available from Undercurrents at £3.00, plus 30p for postage, packing etc (second class surface mail). Cheques or postal orders for £3.30 should be sent with each order to: Undercurrents Books, 11 Shadwell, Uley, Dursley, Gloucestershire, England.

One Man’s Week IF WE COMPARE the six days of creation in Genesis with the four thousand million years of the earth·s age, all day Monday and half of


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Tuesday is just a construction project. At Tuesday noon a living cell appears and undergoes mitosis. All the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and well into Saturday, life expand_ and becomes more diverse, more stable, more beautiful. At four o·clock on the afternoon of Saturday, the last day of creation, the age of reptiles comes on stage. Just before the age of reptiles ends there are redwoods ·and just before redwoods, the pel ican (a 90·million·year·old life form now threatened with extinction by DDT and man·s urge to usurp the earth). At three minutes before midnight man appears. One quarter of a second before midnight a bearded man, anti·establishment, talking of peace and brotherhood, and Christianity is on the planet. Then, one fortieth of a second before midnight, enters the industrial revolution. It is midnight now, and who will dare to propose that we slow it down? So far, growth·and pollution·addicted nations have been asking for still more speed. Overdeveloped, underdeveloped arid normal nations alike believe that some kind of technological magic will stretch a finite earth. There is no such magic. Technology accelerates the liberation of resources, yes, but it is not creating them; it is finding and moving and using them up, then looking for the energy to repeat the process with progressively poorer materials, moving them faster, making them smaller, less recoverable fragments for a diminishing proportion of the earth·s growing masses of people. Wisely used, technology should enable us to do more with less, but the change to such use has barely begun. We have not yet learned to ask, before undertaking a vast project, What does it cost the earth? • From a pamphlet by David R. Brouwer of the American Friends of Earth.


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• • • • • • • • • • • • Woody Woody winds up ... By public acclaim! Positively the last appearance of the inimitable Woody! A must for all alternative power station workers ..... It wasn·t my idea! Having seen fourteen pages of Under·currents taken up with my old, long essay (instead of things I wanted to read!) I have a lot of sympathy with Pauline Stone (UC 12). So instead of another six pages of the same, I·ll try to sum up what it was all about, why I think social theory matters, and what it might have to do with Undercurrents, AT, and you. Gluttons for punishment can probably scrounge a copy of the full essay from one of the Undercurrents gang. By the way, I would like to establish some small working groups on culture theory J so could anyone interested please get in touch? (161 Hinckley Road, Leicester). Right-then:·Why have social theory in Undercurrents? A good question. I suppose the answer is that while some Undercurrents readers want to build solar collectors or keep goats for the fun of it, and others want to be more independent, most of them (I hope) are radicals, i e What they really want is a better, more human world ·and they have a hunch that alternative ways of living will help. Why is theory so boring? It isn·t. At least not for everyone. As with music, it·.s hard to believe that what turns you off turns someone else on. But it·s true. Getting hold of this idea (subject·ivity) is itself an important part of social theory. Why do radicals need theory anyway? Without it, everything they do, all the struggles they take part in, will end in failure ·or will be won without really making us more human, making a better world. Afterwards, the theory can be reduced to simple slogans for living, replacing the slogans of earlier theories, and the mindless slogans common today. Of course there is no guarantee that any theory will be helpful, but at least it puts us in with a chance. When was ·Towards an Alternative Culture·written? Early 1971. Who for? As a discussion draft among a small political group. There were ten copies made. Recently some people have made a few extra copies. Why? Because I was beginning to see (with some help!) that class theory was built on rubbishy assumptions, that its categories (classes) had less and less meaning in the modern world, and that its underlying values were anti·radical. Yet class theory was the best·worked·out social theory,


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and the one on which most action slogans were based. I was also starting to see alienation as the problem of the age, as a main con·dition of society, and not as a side effect of systems of exploitation and injustice. Indeed, the struggle against inequality was increasing alienation. Was the Undercurrents version the original essay? Yes. It was slightly abridged/edited, but not revised. Do you still stand by it? Yes, as far as it goes. I would now say it doesn·t go far enough, especially into human needs and relationships. How many parts were there? Four. The first two (combined in UC 10) were a ·from the heart·description of our sick world, and a look at some attempts to change it. Part three (UC 11 & 12) was yer actual culture theory. Part four was about living it. (Though still in the abstract: I didn·t get my first taste of the problems ·and delights ·until later that year.) Why culture theory? First, because it divides society into sub·cultures instead of just classes. Second, because it is about building alternative cultures slowly instead of overturning the one we suffer from by revolution, or try·ing to reform it. Briefly, what·s culture theory all about? It starts by claiming that the No 1 fact of modern society is that we are all living against each other, that its dominant values guarantee a rat race. The power struggles by different factions ·even the left v right struggles for more or less equality ·are secondary. To make the face ·fair·, or a dead heat; to ·give power to the people·, would be pure alienation. The radical task is to scrap the race. This means new values, new people. So culture theory is about a new radical direction which is neither right nor left. So far there·s nothing very original in this. Except that most people taking this view have seen it as a moral problem (we ·ought·to love each other) and have cut themselves off from politics. Culture theory proper starts by noting that human co·operative values are already around, and a few people are trying to practise them. It puts forward a theory that if groups of these people co·operate in such a way that their social relations interact with their values, then a dialect·ical snowball may start to roll, drawing in new people even as it changes attitudes. At first this will be slow, with as many setbacks as advances, and no effect on the old society. But the later stages will be more like a revolutionary situation. Should the new culture take over? No, because one of the new values is tolerance to other ideas. In any case there may be more than one new culture. So the final political stage is a world of voluntary states, overlapping because they have no boundaries. With love in the air, and people free to choose, authoritarian and alienating states will grow small and weak. Thus natural choice will stabilise the new values if they once become dominant.


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Could alternative cultures grow any·where? No. Only in a so·called liberal climate, I think. Briefly, what about part four? The first main point was: ·stop saying it and start doing it·. Start living the new culture as best you can, instead of per·suading others to join you in doing nothing except persuade others! Since ·doing it·hurts, the phoney radicals will soon melt away. The second point was that all possible physical and nervous energy should be used for the new culture, not against existing society. No more involvement in protest politics, still less in the political games of a State which your heart no longer belongs to ..... Whenever a group of people try ·doing it·together, there are two sides to co·operation, and both must be operating before any ·take off is possible. The first is subjective: building up attitudes of trust, consideration, empathy, tolerance by being together, doing things together, talking out problems. The second is objective: break·ing down a false autonomy by pooling incomes and resources. Finally, the one exception to the no politics·rule (and then only when the culture is strong enough) is a campaign on the democracy question. A series of staged demands exposing its non·existence at present, and leading finally to the demand for right of withdrawal, for the voluntary state. Are today·s communes and collectives part of alternative culture? Yes. They have faced head·on the shatter·ing experience of living with your defences down, and despite the casualty rate they have helped to improve the values climate in the last few years. But I think the critical step will be ·long range·income pooling ·not confined to withdrawn collectives. Where does alternative technology come in? For me, it doesn·t. I see the problems of technology as marginal in themselves. (The nuclear madness is a social problem of insatiable consumption.) What·s more, the strong self·sufficiency undertone of AT reflects a drive towards personal autonomy which is the hallmark of alienation. However, community techno·logy is valuable for its social implications_ And the wider interests of Undercurrents help to replace a rip·off attitude to nature with an understanding of a two·way relationship.


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• • • • • • • • • • • • ReviewsUnilever·s World, C.1.5. Anti·Report No. 11, Counter Information Services, 52 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WI. 103 pp. £1. Unilever is the world·s ninth biggest private company. It has world sales of about £6,000 million per year, makes pretax profits of about £350 million per year and employs 350,000 people_ It sells in virtually every non·Iron·curtain country (and some of them) and has monopolies by the score. Some of the better known are: margarine in the U.K. (70% of the market), Germany (75%), Sweden (70%); frozen food in the U.K. (60%); ice·cream in the U.K. (48%); and detergents in the U.K. (45%), and India (43%). It is also estimated to spend £400·500 million a year on marketing expenditure ·all socially useless. Yet Unilever seems to go almost unscathed by nationalisation, and despite anti·trust investigations in many countries ·U.K., U.S.A., Canada ·it emerges unharmed, and in economies with strong state control, such as India, it is strengthened rather than weakened. One reason for this is Unilever·s public invisibility and the lack of public knowledge about it, a matter of Unilever policy. The CIS Anti·Report tries to counter this with a hundred pages of facts, most of which the company would prefer forgotten. It shows the dominance of Unilever in the world·s oil and fats markets ·35% of the trade ·and its effects on the third world, its spread around the world and its diversity_ In the U.K., a few of its household products are Persil, Gibbs toothpaste, Stork margarine, Bird·s Eye frozen foods, Wall·s ice cream and sausages, Vesta meals and John West salmon. It also has Vinyl wallpaper, Thames Board Mills packaging, Lintas advertising, RBL market research, SPD transport, Crosfield·s chemicals, BOCM cattle food ... and so on to more than 500 subsidiaries. All of these trade under separate names and Unilever tries to hide its ownership of them from the public scan the products in the shops and try to find the name Unilever! This digging out and airing of facts is very valuable and CIS have performed a tremendous task in doing it. CIS has also produced one of the best short histories of Unilever ·better by far than the dry 3·volume ·official·history from which much of the material was drawn. It brings out some of the reality behind the paternalistic Unilever·a quote from William Lever in 1923, "We have been combing out inefficient men, too highly paid men, elderly men ... and I am confident this has produced a state of ·fear·in the minds of the remainder." It manages to show a little of the relationship between Unilever and Nazi Germany, South Africa, Indonesia and India. It shows some of Unilever·s power in dealing with governments ·in getting money out of ·blocked·countries when it wants to and in getting permission for


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new investments. I t also shows how Unilever works with all capitalist governments, no matter how abhorrent ·being a "good corporate "citizen". Finally it gives one or two examples of Unilever·s dealings with its workers ·especially in Wall·s meat ·and how successful it is in the old policy of "divide and rule". Wall·s meat sacks thousands of workers on the grounds that it is losing money, yet also Bird·s Eye sacked 1000 workers in 1970/71 and again in 1975, despite being one of Unilever·s most profitable companies. For all these reasons, the book is a very good pound·s worth and highly recommended. However, its analysis and conclusions ·or lack of them ·are often suspect. It does not distinguish in the report between those areas where Unilever has a choice and those where it has to behave as it does, because of the capitalist system. Indeed, it implicitly assumes Unilever always has a choice. In many instances, it is determined to prove Unilever does wrong whatever it chooses. For example, it condemns Unilever for exploiting the woman who works only at home, yet says "the growing number of women who both work and keep a household going ... plays into Unilever·s hands." On p. 24 marketing expense (including the sales force) is a social waste, yet on p. 42 rationalisation of sales forces is attacked. Unilever is criticised (rightly) for creating waste by packaging yet is also blamed (p. 22) for creating the frozen fish industry ·saving enormous quantities of wasted food. Much of what Unilever does, it is forced to do in the current system. It doesn·t mean we have to admire it, but nor do we have to blame it ·we have to understand it and learn how to attack it successfully. Unilever wastes a fortune on wholly unproductive advertising and packaging. But what would happen if it stopped? If it did it unilaterally, the competitors would just gain the business. If it did so by agreement with its competitors ·or by force of government action ·retailers and wholesalers would gain, increase their own profits, and decrease their efficiencies, wasting a proportion of the gain. If Unilever takes over a company and ·rationalises·it, is it worse than driving it out of business by taking away its market with greater efficiency? At least, in the first case, workers thrown out of a job will get better redundancy terms! We.need to fight to get Unilever recognised for what it is ·but to do that successfully we need to know its strengths. It does waste millions, but frozen food does cut down waste, pre-prepared meals do save time for people who run households and have paid employment, detergents are better to wash with than hard soap (visit Eastern Europe to appreciate this) and margarine based on vegetable oils does use the earth better than butter. These are real benefits to society and we should try to retain them. There is ample scope to do that with raw materials accounting for only 50·60% of Unilever·s costs and much of that being wasteful packaging


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(especially in toiletries!). We need to know what Unilever can change itself, what government regulation might do and where we need to change the entire system. Unilever is not all-powerful and can be beaten. The references in the text to "Unilever·s central computers", "Unilever being sure of its aims", and its "computerised planning" seem very strange to those who work within it and know of the internal quarrels, the conflicts between its parts about objectives, the indecisiveness of its management ·and its lack of computerised planning! CIS mention that the US trade unions forced Unilever out of enzyme washing powders there (and that Unilever would not disclose this in the UK). Since then, the Unions have repeated their success in the UK and enzyme powders have been barred here, too·What is highly revealing is the lack of publicity this has been given anywhere yet it is a leading·example of workers·power. We should also fight for more government control of its marketing practices and its monopoly powers. But finally, we can only tame and control Unilever, by taking over the whole capitalist system Unilever is so much a part of the whole. Despite the weakness of the analysis, we can give thanks to CIS for providing such a useful weapon. It deserves wide circulation and contains lessons to be learnt.

Uniworker·Synerjy, from Synerjy, PO Box 4790, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10017, USA. $4.50 (including postage). Calling itself·A Directory of Energy Alternatives·Synerjy is produced twice a year and July 75 saw its third edition. Most of it is bibliography; it·s quite thorough (I guess), but each edition contains thousands of references without any attempt to distinguish particularly useful pieces from the rest, so anyone who wants to make use of it must be prepared to exercise their own judgement. (No bad thing in itself.) References include books, journals, magazines and reports by various institutions including governments. Subject categories are solar, geothermal, electric, water and wind·power. Most of the quoted sources are American and not readily available outSide the US except in good academic libraries. The raw information·content of all these works could be fairly described as ·all you want to know and more·, perhaps considerably more. In fact, the impression left by Synerjy is that it is really designed for PhD students rather than communards, and one must seriously ask whether, in the struggle to revolutionise society, a screw·driver and some timber might be more useful.

Martyn Partridge . Nick·s Guide ..… Alternative England and Wales, from Nicholas Saunders, 65 Edith Road,


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London SW10, or bookshops. 368 pp. £2.50. This is a gigantic drawing together of information which answers most questions about the alternative as it stands in England and Wales. I t represents a colossal amount of work and much of the material has not been set down before. It bulges with names, addresses, organisations, people, listings topical and geographical and cross·referenced, and more. It talks about who different groups are, what they do, and sometimes what they are and who they do. Apart from details on existing groups, it·s also very helpful on gelling things started, such as transvestite community newspaper ecoherbal media squats, just to give you a glimmer of the comprehensiveness of the beast. It also takes in, en passant, a good overview of the Left, Money, Work, the Law, and lots of other things freaks tend to feel ambivalent about The book compares favourably with earlier guides, from·the Appendix to Richard Neville·s Playpower on, in not being just a guide to a day by day, hand to mouth survival; it covers telephones, .. cars, drugs. alternative technology, mysticism,and more. It also emphasises ongoing, hopefully permanent, projects involving deep changes in patterns of living. Perhaps this is part of the reason why it usually leads one to people rather than tools. In detail, the listings seem very accurate as far as one can tell. Sometimes the detail might be more than the subjects wish; a particular case is the address of a refuge for battered wives which is normally kept secret. Some sections are inevitably less detailed, for instance the one on drugs, which has too little on exotic pills. But no criticism; the problem is going to be using all the information that·s here rather than looking for more. It·s part of the uncomplicated alternative way of life that the non·Metropolitan freak tries to live that he doesn·t need huge lots of information or access to a wide range of tools. But it·s likely that even the simplest liver will find something of value here, and he·ll certainly find encouragement and sure knowledge that parts of an alternative society can and does exist, independent of London, growing painfully and hard but growing nonetheless.

Dave Smith Are Laws Necessary? Anarchy State and Utopia, Robert Nozick, Blackwell. £5.50. and Against Method, Paul Feyerbend, New Left Books. £5.75. Two fairly heady books here, which we are noting for the benefit of people worried that constant bashing of industrial scrap to fabricate AT artifacts isn·t providing quite enough stimulus for their finely trained intellects .... Undercurrents gets criticism for its tendency to link AT with anarchist and libertarian ideas. Well, we are neither a magazine whose sole rationale is the honing of a ·line·, nor a trade journal, but most of us


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associated with it want to work towards a more decentralised and human·scaled society. We also favour a reinterpretation of what science and technology actually are. Whatever our reasons for getting involved with AT hardware, the political advantages and implications seem obvious. But once you have abandoned the holiness of the nation state and party·dominated parliamentary democracy, what do you replace it with? The com·pletely self·sufficient and exclusive domestic unit, even if ·extended·along communal lines, does not provide a satisfying answer. Far too many items ·food, raw materials, middle·range technology like electronics components, processed metals, and even methane digesters ·are simply not going to be available from a diffuse network of small, free, independent communities. So a degree of specialisation and interdependency becomes necessary ·and with it a recognition that this system of mutual aid needs protecting, perhaps from outsiders, perhaps from dissenting members. It is this sort of preoccupation that bothers anarchist theoreticians. We take it as axiomatic that we are free and that authority is to be resented and resisted, yet we know that freedom consists not only in being able to do what we want but also that we should exist in a situation in which certain things can be taken for granted ·the knowledge that we will not be harmed, and that physical necessities (and perhaps a few luxuries) should be available without question. Vet these two forms of freedom ·to·and , from·may conflict. How, then, do we reconcile the clashes of freedom of individuals in the group, and how does our mutual aid protection network stop becoming an authoritarian state with a panoply of bureaucracy and ·law·enforcement? In reality these problems are not actually going to be answered by the conscientious application of blueprints, nor by spiritually uplifting utopic targets, but vision and theory provide spur and inspiration. There, however, you have it the usual anarchist journals and books seem preoccupied with their historic provenance. Who now, apart from introverted scholars, wants to know if Godwin and his followers among the Romantic Poets were ·really·libertarians, whether Kropotkin is too pre·technological to be relevant, who values the confrontation between ·liberal·and ·proletarian·anarchism in today·s almost postIndustrial situation, and who relates to the romanticising of late nineteenth century bombers and shadowy figures from the Spanish Civil War? Hence the value of writers with the arrogance and confidence to state their position overtly. Murray Bookchin, for example, not only reads easily, but his unwillingness to genuflect before his historical antecedents (in his books history appears as events and movements, not as the comments of previous inter·preters of the past) makes it that much easier to bring the technological change dynamic to the forefront and not as an


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awkward updating footnote_ But Bookchin isn·t intellectually tough enough for some tastes ·he is a good seer ·The Benign Environment, an excellent social critic ·Post Scarcity Anarchism (though I am increasingly unhappy with excluding scarcity and its problems from my tomorrow), and not a bad inspirational utopian ·Limits of the City. Bookchin, however, appeals to the guts of the intellectual classes, and not to their brains. And this is where Robert Nozick comes in. Anarchy, State, and Utopia is written by the Professor of Philosophy at Harvard and has already won an American National Book Award and been extensively praised in the straight press. Like Bookchin, Nozick is not very interested in the provenance of his ideas. He asks, how today do we justify the existence of the state? Does it depend on an uncontrollable historic impulse, on a mythical social contract to which we were bound by our ancestors? Of course he rejects these ideas and, if you are in a mood to be challenged, follow his ideas through, for stimulus, if not actually to agree with him. His two most helpful ideas arc the building up of and justification for, a ·minimal·state which protects against force, theft, fraud, and the breach of contract, but no more; and the building up of a style of utopia which allows for further internal development ah, those static blueprints which would have us forever fixed in a picturesque pose of never·ending happiness! The other ·tough read·also pays homage to anarchist origins. Against Method extends the definition of what we call ·science·. Feyerbend·s author blurb is replaced by a simple astrological chart and although he never says as much, Feyerbend·s justification for an anti·authoritarian science may make things a lot easier for those who feel guilty about their preoccupations with ·freak·science. Orthodox science as a body is authoritarian because of the belief that ·scientific method·(by which is meant these days the operation of the hypothesis, observation, falsification/verification development of immutable scientific law) is objective and therefore can·t be questioned. Marxists have long since demonstrated to their own satisfaction that science isn·t neutral while science is funded by capitalism and while scientists view their results with the expectations of the capitalist system. An anarchist critic would probably go along with this, but then take the argument further. Feyerbend says laws are good for pre·dicting results, but the only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes. He diminishes the falsification verification approach as hopelessly removed from the realities of the practice of science. Science needs not only observation, but observers, and if we observe the observers the one thing that is evident is the rarity of the application of ·orthodox scientific method·in scientific discovery. A philosophy of science attempting to ignore


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metaphysics and rejecting myth is only an artificial con·struct. Against Method is a lovely, outrageous book with a clever internal construction. I was disappointed that Feyerbend failed to mention either of the people to whom he is most close: John Platt and Alfred North Whitehead, but I came out of his book with a swinging anarchist irreverence for the archetypical white coated neutral scientist and his ununderstood authority. More importantly, these two books show that anarchist ideas continue to develop and refine. To revert to Book·chin: technology (of a certain sort) can be liberatory, but we need to keep a theoretical and practical alertness to naivity in our concepts of freedom. Selfsufficiency is sometimes re.lated to selfish·ness, and worse.

Peter Sommer Modern Magick S.S.0.T.B.M.E., "An Essay on Magic, its Foundations, Development, and place in Modern Life". Published by The Mouse That Spins, (something to do with Paper Tiger Productions, c/o 28 West Common, Redbourn, Herts). 80p In these days of paperbacks with titles like ·Black Magic Today·selling a million copies. it·s refreshing to come across an unpretentious book in this realm. This book is more than it seems, for though the quick glance may indicate that it just concerns a Science versus Magic argument, this is merely one aspect of its purpose. In reality, it is a comparison of four different methods of ·operating upon the world·(which the author calls Art, Religion, Science and Magic) and an attempt at explaining an unusual one, Magic, in terms of a more common one, Science. These four subdivisions of what one might call ·Human intellectual motiva·tion·may appear to be oversimplistic, but the author, I think, intends them to be taken both as building blocks from which real human situations are constructed, and as ·proverbs·which have the seeds of truth within them enabling us to under·stand an underlying system whilst having the structure of generalisations. The author contrasts these subdivisions by means of examples: the lighting of a fire under difficult conditions, for instance, when tackled by each of the methods, shows four different mental processes. The Magical and the Scientific would yield the same practical result, but would use different courses of reasoning. The Scientist would choose dry wood because he knows that the latent heat of evaporation of absorbed water would hinder ignition. The Magical thinker would make the same decision, but for different reasons: he knows that the Elements Fire and Water are antipathetic. On the other hand, the Religious thinker will choose dry wood for traditional reasons (i e the logic of past generations) and the Artist because it ·feels right·.


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We can distinguish these modes of thought by concluding that thought is compounded of four elements, intuition, observation, logic and feeling; in this scheme, magic is the result of thought directed toward observation and feeling as the source of impressions, whilst Science is the combination of logic and observation. By drawing these ideas in a circular clock·face type of diagram, we can attribute different systems of thought on the quadrants between these elements. Another distinguishing mark of these methods of operation is their different attitudes to belief. The Artist has no need for belief, in the sense that it is positively dangerous for him to believe there is any best way of representing something. The Religious thinker strives to believe, in God, in the afterlife, in salvation, or whatever. The Scientist, however, believes, at least, that his method is ·a sound approach to the Universe·, which, of course, it is ... to the Physical Universe, no doubt. Where this materialistic attitude breaks down, in the ·fringe areas·, the method either transmutes itself into a more metaphysical approach (e.g. certain areas of sub·atomic physics), or the scientist rejects the area of study entirely, witness e.g. the case against ESP until about 15 years ago. As in this latter instance, the rejection is often on ·pseudological·grounds: "ESP is an extremely unlikely hypothesis; the hypothesis of fraud is easier to fit into the accepted framework of science; .... one must accept the hypothesis of fraud". The Magician, on the other hand, uses beliefs as tools, though not in the way the Scientist would inelieved its converse ·and just as quickly reverse the process again. He is able to do this because he conceives of no ·absolute truths·. The Magician can sometimes cause ordinary people to operate in a Magical way ·the man who recently appeared, believing implicitly in the ·power of water·, was able to put water in his car·s petrol tank and drive away: others saw this and were able to do the same, oblivious of the fact that until recently before, they would not have considered it possible. But later, they were persuaded to go back to their original belief and water no longer worked. The reason for the difference in interpretation as regards ·using beliefs as tools·lies in the fundamental difference between the concept of the Theory in Science and Magic. Whilst the Scientific theory may be a merely partial truth and not an absolute one, it is founded on a body of scientific knowledge, and is the result of previous theories having failed certain critical tests. It is also the result of a working hypothesis having passed certain critical tests. In Magic, the Magical theory is not even a partial truth, though it is an absolute truth in the sense that, almost by definition, it will work. In other words, there is no truth, or objective reality, in magic. If you believe that, for instance, water will drive cars, then it will. No question about it. The belief results in an effect, rather than the more usual converse. This lack


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of objectivity is one reason for the secrecy so common in magic. Not only would one lower one·s ·belief factor·by exposing one·s methods to the objective gaze of science (and other people) but one would also confuse other occultists who used other systems totally at variance with one·s own ·ones which would otherwise have little hindering their successful operation. For the same reason, Magical orders structure their system of personal and group evolution into a succession of grades·you don·t want extraneous beliefs and methods to cloud your successful operation of the magical subsystem related to your particular grade, and as you progress up the structure you gain an ability to operate in any particular kingdom, unhindered by possible converse relationships and attributions pertaining to other kingdoms . Similarly, Magic does not require a ·body of knowledge·except within a group; all members of which practice the same magical system. It is very tempting to suggest from this that ·Science is merely a subset of Magic·but I believe this is only true if we redefine Science and Magic outside the terms of our original four mental processes. If we take Crowley·s definition of Magic (or should I say ·Magick·) as ·The Art and Science of causing Change in conformity to Will·, apart from asking for a further definition of Will, we must further redefine the basic system·structure. I have no intention of doing this here. One would have thought there would be no basic conflict between Magic and Science ·or the other two ·but, obviously, there is. This appears to be a result of a failure to perceive the most basic substrata of the different methods. The magician these days tends to regard science as a system well suited to the physical universe, whilst lacking in facilities for comprehension of non·physical systems, which the magician uses all the time. (Although he might grudgingly accept certain aspects of nuclear particle theory as being ·non·physical, whilst laughing up his sleeve at the secret groups of scientists hidden away by respective governments, working away from the body of scientific knowledge, turning quietly into magicians). Unfortunately, some magicians seem deliberately to make it hard for science to accept them by couching their theories in pseudo·scientific jargon. There they fail, because magical theories will never stand up to the critical tests that science requires. For the magician, they don·t need to. In fact as far as the Magician is concerned, they don·t even have to be repeatable or demonstrable (in fact, it·s better if they aren·t: introducing spurious objectivity serves no useful purpose, and can be a hindrance to proper magical operation as it affects one·s ability to change beliefs. Velikovsky and Von Daniken, whilst neither are true Magicians (We·re not having them either!) hold theories which are far more magical than scientific. Hence it is foolish to analyse them logically, as logic is not a magical


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pre·requisite (hard luck, Jerry Palmer and Co.) Unfortunately, both Velikovsky and Von Daniken are asking for trouble by pretending to operate in the scientific frame of reference, without fulfilling the criteria. In the first case, we find someone who chooses his own tests, which, if passed, are usually of no consequence, and if failed are called into question. With Von Daniken, we find cheap evasion of tests for silly reasons; in both cases, we never reach the point at which the theory has to stand up to a critical test which will determine its validity. This is perhaps the most important criticism of the aforesaid persons·theories. But even this is a criticism of presentation rather than of fundamental premises. If they had pre·sented their theories in a magical context, as not necessarily having any objective truth, instead of pretending they were scientific, there should have been no cause for criticism from the scientific viewpoint. (There probably would have been, but it would have been superfluous.) They would have been quite usable as magical theories (in fact, my group·s ·personal body of knowledge·included for some time certain derivatives of both these theories, until we decided to believe something else, But while we believed, our operations worked.) And so on. Having paraphrased and talked around some of the points in this book, and when I say some I mean just two or three, I hope you will go out and buy this little book if you have any feeling for the magical way of working. It has a good position as a bridge between the ordinary way of looking at things and the start of study of a magical system, but it also has a lot to say to those of us who think we know quite a bit about the subject. It is very easy to forget that the occultist must be very open·minded and ready to change his belief in an instant. Whilst he may work within a certain system all his life, if he allows that working to become ·the key to the Universe·, then he is fooling himself. He is running the risk of becoming dogmatic, and unable to accept the validity of someone else·s system. (“As I have The Key then no·one who doesn·t believe as I do has it”) So the Golden Dawn has some·thing to tell us, as does Don Juan. If we forget that, we might as well give up and go round the Wheel a few more times, however ·Aquarian·we imagine ourselves to be. And not only are there an infinity of keys to the Cosmos, there are an infinity of door!), and almost all of them are practical; you have to go out and do something rather than read it in a book. And for a book to show you that, as this one does, it must be damn good.

Richard Elen Tough Shit Trucker·s Bible and Just Another Truck·stop, from Release, c/o 1 Elgin Avenue, London W9. £1 for both. If it takes a hundred psychologists twenty years to prove a link between


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marijuana and hair on the palm of your hand, then you·ve got much more patience than I have. Meanwhile a whole lot of perfectly reasonable people are wasting away their days in exotic jails because of their efforts to provide goodies for the folk back home. The Trucker·s Bible and its updated sequel is a comprehensive account of the sort of bum deals passed around by the Blue Meanies just about everywhere from Kilmarnock to Katmandu. It·s a huge downer, but required reading for anyone who thinks the stuff just grows on bushes. The rap for large:scale possession is pretty tough even in this Isle of Kings, but out in the stix where the liberal conscience takes its holidays, repressive measures are nothing short of barbarous. In their efforts to cope with this carnage, Release has assembled a country·by·country digest of useful information for hapless victims and anyone who feels inclined to help them OUt. Subjects covered include average length of sentences, availability of bail, prison·visiting regulations, torture, brutality and similar local police customs (and Customs customs, for that matter). There·s also a synopsis of major government reports, largely ignored, advocating the decriminalisation of cannabis and its relatives. And there·s an overview of the international smuggling scene which ought to dissuade anyone daft enough to contemplate jacking in their job at the bank to set up a Hollow Teddy·Bear Import Co. Fact is, most of the dope that gets into this country is handled by well·organised, highly·financed operators who know what they·re at, while most of the busts involve enthusiastic amateurs who think they·ve discovered a hitherto unimagined hiding-place. (There aren·t any.) If you·re the sort of nice person who reads Undercurrents you almost certainly fall into the second category, so you·d be well advised to stay at home, score your monthly quid·deal and read these books instead. And if you order them from Release, please send some postage, cos they ain·t any richer than you are.

Martyn Partridge U.K. can eat O.K. Can Britain Feed Itself?, Kenneth Mellanby, Merlin Press. £1.95. Kenneth Mellanby is already being quoted far and wide as the respected ecologist who thinks Britain can achieve agricultural independence. The basic requirement of his plan is that we, and not our animals, should eat the fifteen million tons of grain we grow each year. But with that as a starting point, there arc a number of choices open to us. With nine million acres growing grain, we still have the bulk of our agricultural land (the poorer land, admittedly) to do what we like with. The message is hopeful, and at one point Mellanby breaks away from conservative estimates and suggests that if we really tried, we could grow a basic ration for a population of 100 million. Many of Mellanby·s proposals will be familiar to anyone who takes an interest in the environment. Better use


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of hill pasture, animal manure returned to the land, vegetables and hens in back gardens, and beans instead of meat as a protein supplement. But a few eyebrows have been raised at his defence of straw-burning, grubbing up of hedges, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. To be. fair, he says that straw will in future be too precious to burn, despite the labour cost of collecting it. Also, he·s prepared to let us keep the hedges, useless as they arc, if we don·t mind paying the farmers to leave them alone. But for a book which claims to be written from the point of view of the consumer, and which warns us that it may offend the farmers, this looks astonishingly like agribusiness·as usual while the urban masses collect their ration books.

Tony Durham Quack Quack! A Guide to Alternative Medicine. Donald Law Ph.D. DBM PsyD. Turnstone Books. 1974. 212 pp. £2.50. The author, says a blurb, is·A Doctor of Philosophy, of Botanic Medicine and of Literature, he holds diplomas for psychology) dietetics and other related subjects: (Pity he couldn·t spell ·dietetics·right in that case ·mis·spell ·Diatetics·in ·Contents·and on p. 85 and p. 202. Also, by the way, there are no Doctorates of Botanic Medicine awarded by universities in this backward land of ours.) You·d think too that getting all those qualifications might have kept him busy enough, but no: ·\When not travelling in connection with his research studies·no details given ·he climbs, shoots, enjoys sailing, etc. He holds several medals for running, life·saving, etc. Paints in oils, plays guitar and chess. He has been awarded two honorary professorships, one English, the other French·no professorial details provided. One isn·t enlightened either as to whether the life·saving medals are for the ordinary humdrum kind of life saving, or for alternative·medical life saving; but since he tells us on p. 193 that·many people have had temperatures of 1100 (Fahrenheit) for a few days and still rallied round·(a phenomenon totally unknown to any ordinary doctor who believes in his fuddy·duddy way that a temperature of 1100 spells d·e·a·t·h), he certainly seems to deserve one or two of the latter kind. He has also written at least 18 books, a mere fifteen being modestly listed at the front of the present volume, three others being mentioned in the text; and on subjects as diverse as palmistry, swimming, herbs, botanic medicine, baldness, and philosophy ·so that we are apparently confronted with a polymath, and one of phenomenal energy. Still, the topic·s alternative medicine, so let·s see what he·s got to say about it. Well, first, there ore a few mis·spellings: ·pantothemic·(instead of ·pantothenic·) acid on p. 103, ·lumber·for ·lumbar·on p. 125, and ·raisings·for ·raisins·on p. 122. And then a doctorate of philosophy is usually indicated by ·Ph.D.·or ·D.Phil.·, not by ·Phd·. Dr. (of philosophy)


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Law seems to think oxygen is absorbed in quantity through the skin (p. 46 ·it isn·t). that the sacrum consists of five quite separate bones (p. 73 square old allopathic doctors, who spend eighteen laborious months dissecting corpses and gazing at skeletons, know it consists of five bones very firmly fused together into one), that ·sulphur is a mineral salt·(p. 99 ·odd, because most of us think it·s an element), that vitamin D can be ·absorbed from sunlight·(p. 105, which would be difficult as there isn·t anything material in sunlight), that vitamin K ·is calcium in essence·(p. 107 it isn·t), and that there is a disease called ·diabetes mellitus insipidus·(p. 194 there isn·t, there are two quite distinct diseases, diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipidus). No matter. Medical quibbles and carpings perhaps. Perhaps. Let us get down to the meat of the matter. The book starts with a mention (analysis ·Would be too strong a word, much too strong) of some of the defects of allopathic (i.e. orthodox) medicine. A few of these are on target, though ·permanent genetic damage to the blood·(p. 15), whether due to phenylbutozone (most doctors spell it ·butazone·) or anything else, is an entity unknown to allopaths; the news that ·several universities have established Chairs of Iatrogenic Medicine·(p. 16) is news to this keen observer of the medical scene; doctors (as distinct from Dr. Law) gave up about seventy years ago believing that bad smells from drains caused disease (p. 31). and in a decade where most medical research is directed at auto·immune disease, inherited disorders, non·bacterial environmentally produced disease. and over·and under·nutrition the notion that allopaths believe ·bacteria are the sale cause of disease·(p. 34) is, so to say, a shade simplistic. Finally, Dr. Law ·who is apparently aged 50 or 60 ·may say ·I remember my grandparents·generation most vividly. Illness was exceptionally rare·(p. 32), but the hard fact is that out of 1,000 boy babies born in this country in 1900 only 247 could expect to reach age 70, whereas in 1970563 out of every 1,000 could expect to. Illness rare, Dr. Law?·Miracle Deaths at work perhaps. If he had said that not ali the credit by a long chalk for the improvement in life expectancy should go to doctors, but some to engineers, builders, teachers, politicians, etc., that would be quite a different matter. Having disposed of allopathic medicine in 40 pages, Dr. Law turns his eagle eye on the alternatives. He lists 60 alternatives, which is a lot, especially as more than 50 are alternative modes of treatment. Well, I mean, suppose you get ill you can·t treat yourself in fifty different ways simultaneously, can you? Anyway, this moronic, sloth·like allopath couldn·t. Moreover, the list includes alternatives of probable or certain value sometimes for some conditions (for example, acupuncture, exercises, relaxation techniques), others of possible or doubtful value (homoeopathv, certain herbal remedies, baths). and yet others that are


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certainly of no value whatsoever to any·one but their practitioners (phrenology, radiesthesia, copper rings, and treatment with colours). One or two ·like Lakhovsky·s Oscillatory Coils and Rikli·s Sunshine Cure (syn. sunbathing) ·this particular ill·read allopath had never come across before, and perhaps he·ll be lucky enough never to come across them again. Another doubt springs from the fact that not all the progenitors of these various arcane therapeutic rites made it even to three·score years and ten. Coue almost did (p. 83) ·he died one day aged 69, and it·s to be hoped he didn·t start that day with ·Day by day, in every way I am.growing better and better·else he must have got a brief, nasty shock later. Dr. Edward Bach (p. 55·57), who invented Bach·s Flower Remedies, ·joined·as Dr. Law puts it ·the Great Majority at the early age of fifty·. (According to Bach, says Dr. Law, ·there are people who suffer from advanced hopelessness, and for them gorse was specified·. ·Advanced hopelessness·is good, very good; though this reviewer·s less sure about gorse for it ·unless the advanced hopeless were to be forcibly thrown into a bush of the stuff.) And third in this wretched negativistic catalogue there was Priessnitz, he of the Water Cures, ·one of those giant figures·according to Dr. Law (p. 169) ·whose deeds raise them above their fellows for ·intelligence, steadfastness of purpose, and for the beneficial results of their life work·except he didn·t make it as a beneficiary himself, for he died at 52. Culpeper, too died at 38. Let·s move on. Only a lifelong allopathic sceptic, a devotee of more and more mere wearisome years, would think in such terms? ·O. K. well then, let·s look at Dr. Law·s alternative medicine (60 varieties). He has a lot of good to say about all sixty, and almost nothing bad about any of them. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in the States, though, that agent of establishment suppression, doubtless in cahoots with the CIA, had a lot bad to ;ay about Dr. Jarvis·s Apple Cider Vinegar and Honey cure, which Dr. Law praises. Many years ago it confiscated a large con·signment, though perhaps Dr. Law didn·t know. (He refers to it twice ·Contents·and p. 49 ·as ·Apple Cider, Vinegar and Honey·, so maybe we·re not talking about the same thing. And maybe we are.) Dr. Law also believes in all kinds of other things orthodox medicine totally rejects, for example: that honey is ·a healthy, natural laxative·(p. 50 ·it·s mostly just sugars and nice flavour, in fact); that ·many people simply do not know how to breathe·(p. 68 ·what the hell are they doing being alive at all then?); that chiropractic (manipulating the spine) can treat shingles (p. 78 ·allopaths believe a virus is at work), and ·some forms of hay fever·(which allopaths think is due to an allergy), and ·many headaches of long standing·(hell, I dare say so long as getting rid of the headache ·or saying you have ·means you get rid of the chiropractitioner too ... ). Also that insomnia is due to potassium lack (p. 89), or·er·calcium lack (p. 94). or·er·sodium chloride lack (p. 65


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·which last is damn peculiar because almost everyone yet examined by ordinary biochemical routines is chockablock with sodium chloride ·common salt). What else does Dr. Law believe? That fluorine in the bones is far removed from the substance of fluoride, which some iII informed people insist upon adding to water·(p. 96 ·actually fluorine is present in the body as fluorides, thank God! because fluorine, the element, would burn a hole right through you in about two seconds dead); that manganese is antiseptic (p. 97); that there is some connection between vitamin C deficiency and haemophilia (p. 103 ·Dr. Law has ·long suspected a connection·, but there is none so he·s been up that particular gum tree quite some time); that vitamin A is not stored in the body (p. 105 ·being fat·soluble, it certainly is); that sugar ·consumes oxygen at a most alarming rate·(p. 120 ·untrue, and anyway a rapid rate wouldn·t much matter, ,oxygen being free); that ·sugar penetrates through the wall of the stomach without being digested·(p. 121 ·it is, in fact, broken down to glucose and fructose and absorbed in the small intestine); that honey contains vitamins C, E, and A, (p. 122 ·it contains a trace of C, and no A, no E); that olive oil is a herb (sic·p. 130); that ·allopaths claim to be able to cure everything·(p. 161 ·like so they claim they can stop anyone dying ever then?); and that massage can help get rid of obesity (p. 169). Pause for breath (are you sure you know how to take one?). Dr. Law is sometimes funny, though not usually by intent. Over his diagrams I will pass in silence except to recommend to connoisseurs of the ineffably inane the aura diagram on p. 53, the eye diagram on p. 111, and the pedal diagram on p. 124. He suggests that for a suspected cold one should ·take 100 mg of vitamin C every hour-for twenty·four hours·(p. 103, my italics). Me, I·d sooner keep the cold and get some sleep. Do you know what ·the curse of the century·is? ·thermonuclear weapons? Wedgy·Benn? No, well neither did I know till I read this book; It·s ·tummy sag·(p. 75). What d'ya know? Mr. Law appears to believe in·the possibility of miracle cures (p. 15()·151), which would seem to relieve him of the necessity for bothering about hi, other 59 ways to health. It didn·t though. He believes jewels have healing properties too (p. 145·146), which is doubtless why you see all those little old women decked out in the things. For sheer, concentrated, Marx Bros. nonsense, however, I do strongly recommend pages 61·67 on ·biochemics·, though the section is headed with the howlingly irrelevant misnomer ·Biochemistry·. Dr. Law, unlike the medical profession ·which regards silicon, the stuff in sand dS a totally inert element claims too that ·many listless, "stale" days in a gymnasium or on the sports field owe their origin to a deficiency of silicon. Deficiency also results in speedy exhaustion, nervous debility, irritability due to physical conditions and a tendency to suffer from cold feet and hands and early loss of hair·(p. 97). And in case you didn·t know ·There is


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a distinct connection between a diet deficient in potassium and many forms of baldness·(p. 89 ·distinct to Dr. Law, that is: sec, says Dr. Law, How to Keep Your Hair On by Donald Law, a title bettered only by an American author, George Catlin, who wrote a book in the last century called Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life, all about mouth breathing. Mr. Catlin must absent·mindedly have kept his open one day in 1872, because that·s when he passed on.) This too I liked (p. 80): ·Mediaeval churchmen would lay sick people in the area below the coloured glass windows of their cathedrals, which usually represented one saint or another; the saint was given the credit for the healing that took place·Dr. Law believes that colours can heal. (Blue: for most skin conditions .... Orange: hernia, appendicitis .. .·well, it takes all sorts, bud; don·t be ·0 an·tic.) Finally (p. 165), in this relatively harmless section: ·Phrenosophical Spiritual Healing ... a unique form of healing because the healer sits in meditation, asking for divine guidance about the patient. The guidance comes in the form of advice about which of a number of different coloured silk cords to select, and how many of each colour to take. These are then woven by the healer into a length such as will go round the patient·s wrist or over the place of the hurt or pain .... It has been known to work some exceptional cures. Anyone who believes that sort of claptrap would believe the earth is flat and would deserve to fall off of it into outer space. Well, inner space then. Well, there·s a fail·safe net underneath anyway, isn·t there? Well then, pray for divine guidance and some of those coloured threads. Some of Dr. Law·s commendations are, however, more serious. Thus he recommends (p. 138) the patient with high blood pressure to take ·celery, hawthorn leaf, or rosemary tea·, the implication being that some benefit will ensue_ At a time when there is a number of highly effective drugs for high blood pressure (a possibly lethal condition) that is not a recommendation anyone should make to lay people. He describes (p. 158·159) how he was cured of tuberculosis by , bed rest, vitamins, the mercy of God and the prayers of those who loved me ... Everybody I knew at the sanatorium who had had the allopathic cure remained an invalid for life. Since the mid·1940s there has been a range of highly effective anti·tuberculous drugs (streptomycin, para·aminosalicylic acid, isoniazid, and various later drugs). It is, to put it mildly, irresponsible in 1975 to make that ridiculous comparison in a book meant for the laity. (Perhaps, however, Dr. Law is not as up·to·date as he might be: of the few standard medical texts he quotes in his ·Suggestions for further reading·one ·Diseases of Medical Progress ·has been through two editions since the 1959 edition he quotes, and the latest edition of another ·Human Nutrition and Dietetics ·came out in 1972, not in 1969, which is the date of the edition he quotes; and it has three authors, not just the one


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Dr. Law quotes.) Worst of all is a statement (p. 160) to the effect that Still, the osteopath, ·is said ... to have cured ... some cases of cancer and tuberculosis. The advantages of Still·s methods are that the cure is virtually instantaneous·with the clear implication that osteopaths might achieve the same today. That statement, cancer being what it is, is cruel as well as irresponsible. This ridiculous book is not of itself worthy of a long review; but it so happens that many people, including some doctors. are today very dissatisfied with the approach to health and sickness of orthodox medicine and are seeking alternatives. If the laity look to books like this for guidance, they will do themselves more harm than good. This is not to say that allopathic medicine is perfect: it is not ·as a host of books and journals from the Lancet to The Catonsville Road·runner all intermittently testify. Neither is it to say that an alternative medicine is not needed: it is needed, desperately needed. This is no place to go into details, but a commentary as critical as this review could have been written on certain aspects of allopathic medicine (and of the society that produced it). though it would not indict the vast majority of orthodox doctors for cruelty, or for plain ignorance of chemistry, anatomy, physiology, diagnosis, or for recommending ineffective treatment of most complaints. If you have an acute appendix or meningitis or thyroid trouble or a brain tumour, then get yourself to an orthodox doctor just as fast as your legs can carry you, brother: if you don·t, you may well not live to regret it. One may not approve of heart transplants or of connecting babies to baboons or of operating on spina bifida children, but of the immense knowledge, the brilliant technical skill, and the well·meant (if perhaps misguided) dedication of the doctors concerned there is simply no doubt. A change will come aside from a major societal change ·by combining the best of allopathic medicine with a radical reform of other parts of it (particularly in the preventive field), and the combining with it of some unorthodox but effective non·allopathic methods. Some of the latter figure in Dr. Law·s list; but he does the cause of alternative medicine no service at all by producing this slipshod, undiscriminating book, which is really little more than a mishmash of nonsensical drivel, ignorance, superstition, half·truths, and non·truths some dangerous ones at that. Gamma minus. I recommend him for the Barbara Cartland 1975 Special Award.

An orthodox medical practitioner Saving Our Bacon Save Your Own Seed, Lawrence D. Hills, The Henry Doubleday Research Association, Backing, Braintree, Essex. "Once we dug for victory and now we dig for peace, from ·rat races·,


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·vicious spirals·, ·belt tightening·... and all the other stock phrases of an age when the>e flourish like weeds, but unfortunately cannot be composted." So writes Lawrence Hills in the foreword to his new booklet on saving your own seed. In line with the philosophy of the Henry Doubleday Research Association this booklet is written to help gardeners by giving practical directions for raising the easier seeds, to save money in these inflationary times and to save those varieties which are now vanishing from the seed catalogues. Seed raising is not as easy as it sounds. There are the pitfalls of the F I hybrids, rogues, crosspollination and poor summers. However, for those who succeed there is the satisfaction of being able to ignore the new EEC regulations and the seed merchants who aim to fill our gardens with bigger and more prolific tasteless vegetables. The beginner is advised to start with beans, lettuces, onions and spinach. Because these are easy, they are cheap but this is·relative ·nothing is cheap if you are on a pension. With these all one has to do is to allow the plant to run to seed and to catch the seed before it is dispensed by the wind. With the correct drying and storing you will have seeds for years to·come. One well grown lettuce will produce 30,000 seeds and as these have been successfully germinated after as long as thirteen years it is well worth the effort. The more ambitious can try grow·ing their own onion sets, resistant to onion fly and guaranteed to produce onions even in a bad summer. For these the poorer the soil the better. Other seeds well worth trying are peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes and some root crops. All require their own techniques for cultivation, drying and storage. The brassicas are more difficult. Because these are genetically similar to some weeds it is easy to end up with the kind of brassica one often finds growing on the cIiff tops. The shrewd gardener is advised to invest in half a pound of first class cauliflower seed, due to its difficulty to produce and its long keeping characteristics it is thought to be a better investment than krugerrands. Potatoes too, selected carefully from the greengrocers will crop just as well as the expensive seed potatoes. Although seed growing has many advantages it does involve land being occupied for up to three years. However, as the majority of seed will keep for as long as two years and in some cases as long as fifteen it does (mean that seed growing is not necessarily an annual event. Seed from one plant will provide for many years sowing. No seed growing is complete without a germination test early on in the year ·no more difficult than growing mustard and cress. In all, an excellent 50p worth for any gardener ·if only for the jingle on the last page revealing the secrets of the packet life of the vegetable seeds. Gone now the annual dilemma, to throwaway the old and buy


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new (all those half used packets) or to risk the old and possibly a poor crop. Seed merchants ·all is revealed.

Charles Harries Round·up Pluto Press·s new book, Your Employers·Profits, by Christopher Hird, is very useful. It talks about finding out what Companies are up to, who owns them and whom they own, their profits declared and real, and how to gauge a Company·s overall health. It also covers Nationalised industries, Building Societies, Charities and other types of organisation. All very thorough and excellent value at 90p from sympathetic and many straight bookshops. Prism Press have just reissued the first English edition of Kropotkin·s Ethics at £1.95 for 394 pages. Kropotkin·s name is a password to these pages, but the book isn·t likely to be very valuable to struggling country anarchists. It·s a blockbusting analysis of the problem of values and ethics in various cultures and makes a lot of modern social analysis look pale indeed, but doesn·t enter the same sort of ground as Conquest of Bread or Fields Factories and Workshops. ITDG Publications (9 King St, London WC2E 8HN) keep on quietly producing the goodies, which we·ve failed to keep up with for some time. So better write for a complete list if you arc likely to need anything. They·ve recently produced Methane: Proceedings of a one·day Seminar, compiled by Leo Pyle and Peter Fraenkel, at 80p plus 15p postage in the UK, a volume as fragmented as conference proceedings usually are but containing something on most aspects; microbial and anaerobic techniques, bio·gas plant, agricultural digesters, engineering and commercial considerations, third world aspects and a lot more. An excellent overview. Also outstanding but very practical is A Manual on the Hydraulic Ram for Pumping Water by S B Watt (sic), no price given_ The design described is very thoroughly researched and is said to be one of the most useful available, especially for poor com·munities. It can pump water with a head of a metre and a flow exceeding 5 Iitres per minute. It needs no external power, has only two simple moving parts and can be fairly easily knocked together. As even ITDG haven·t got round the laws of Physics yet, it can raise the water to much higher than a metre but only a fraction of the throughput can be raised. Australia·, we thought, when we saw the September issue of Earth Garden was labelled Spring. And so it proved; they·re at PO Box 111, Balmain 2041, Australia. Very countrified and Mother Earth News·like, with no political line, and they·d run a mile from carrying a shock horror probe on oil rigs in the Bass Strait. But what there is is very well done; biodynamics, music, geese, compost, bees, building, and more, with lots


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of description of readers·own country experiences. All pretty invaluable if you·re planning on doing it yourself. This reviewer was left with a twinge of envy; there aren·t many countries with so much land and sun and so few people that Earth Garden·s way is realistic. Italy. Stampa Alternativa, CP 741, Roma, are an alternative publishing house with eight books to their credit, on Macrobiotics (L800), the Military (L700l, Counter-information organising (L600), India (L600), Organic food and medicine (L700), two on music which we·ve not seen (L 700 each) and one called La Scienza contro i proletari (L1 000) which is on, well, science against people. And very comprehensive it is too, from toothpaste to Vietnam and China to industrial health. The overall effect is like a more populist BSSRS approach, and would be especially effective among the unpoliticised. Rosso Vivo, at Rotografica Fiorentina, Via Faenza 54, 50123 Firenze, are an excellent left/eco group who have a 16·page newsletter for L300. It·s probably about monthly as the annual subscription is L3000, 10 000 if you can afford it. It includes nuclear power, medicine, Chile, electronic warfare, NATO, Larzac, Commoner, and Murray Bookchin, with Ecology and Revolutionary Thought in translation. Really good, and rather Undercurrents·like. It seems that there are a.number of radical science groups operating in Italy, mostly around universities, and if any others have anything else this good, we want to see it. Lastly, a new magazine of the UFO scene which we·ll mention again if it keeps up to expectations. It·s Nufois, I edited by R W Morrell, 443 Meadow Lane, Nottingham, NG2 3GB, and is the house organ of the Nottingham UFO Investigation Society_ Write for details with SAE as we haven·t seen one since January 75, so it may have died, been relaunched as the Scottish Daily News, or otherwise metamorphosed.

Martin Ince


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• • • • • • • • • • • • LettersENERGETICALLY YOURSDear Sir, UNDERCURRENTS magazine. latest copy. £0.45With reference to our telephone call of 27.10.75 to I.P.C, we were informed that the above publica·tion was available from Under·currents ltd. The item is required rather urgently, and I should be grateful if you could supply a copy of the latest issue, with an invoice for £0.45 to the Department of Energy. E A Cooper Assistant librarian Department of I::energy Thames House South Millbank

FETE BETTER THAN DEATH I was sad to read of the low turn·out in london for the anti·nuclear power march, (Undercurrents Il), and it struck me that perhaps we could follow the lead of the Breton anti·nuclear movement. I and a group of other interested" people attended a festival at Edeven in Britanny which was! held on the proposed site on another N.P, Station. The festival was nOI just aimed al the con·verted, as I feel much of the work in England and Wales is, but al families and hOliday makers who, while enjoying the free music, theatre and film, were taking a great interest in the easily under·stood maps and details of the proposals. The movement in France is a force recognised by the people and identified with ·good·motives, apart from loose connections with the Breton separatists. festivals of this nature could do more good than thousands of duplicated handouts, Tim Evans 3 Park View Oakenhead Wood Rawlenstall Rossendale

DEFENDING AND THE RIGHT TO WORK I thought that Dave Elliott, in his otherwise excellent article on Lucas Aerospace (Undercurrents /2), rather underrated the importance of the military.to·civil conversion aspect of the lucas stewards·proposals. Despite the Labour Government·s much·vaunted defence review earlier this year, defence spending is not being reduced (even in real terms; never mind in nation) ·it is going up disproportionately relative to pay and other items in the military budget. One of the argu·ments used by industry and Government alike to justify this situation is that cuts in military production will create unemploy·ment. They pretend to find it


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inconceivable that arms workers could be producing other, socially useful, goods instead. Quite apart from all the other exciting aspects of their work, the lucas stewards have done a very valuable _ and radical ·job by exposing this argument for the nonsense that it is. Incidentally, CND has recently published a pamphlet (Arms. jobs and the crisis) on the conversion of defence industries to peaceful production, which Undercurrents readers might be interested in (though they probably wouldn·t agree with all of it). It·s available from the address below, at 22p including postage. Dave Griffiths Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Eastbourne House Bullard·s Place London

LOVELESS LEYS 1 was sorry to see some of the attitudes expressed in the ley·line·article, (Mysterious Energies. Undercurrents 11). I also shiver in the cold of the system·s techno·logical ethos, but love is as real as bedrock. II isn·t necessary (or helpful) to get into superstition to find it, and although it may appear 10 be against that ethos to believe that one can find spiritual energy in particular spots, it is, in fact an unconstructive attitude in that it seeks to avoid the fact that love comes only to and from struggle. Without having looked at the evidence I·m quite .. willing to believe that the pre·Celtic lot surveyed straight lines 10 site their rites, and that they attached religious significance to them. But it·s a very different thing to say that highs come from these places. Wile tiler one is feeling high is easy to know; wily is much harder. If leys make you high then isn·t it surprising that at Glastonbury, said to be one of the most leyed places in Britain, the average standard of loving is actually below the national rural average? I mean the locals there tend to be particularly mean and suspiciOUS. The country isn·t all like that: I·ve been in villages in Norfolk where the people are so relaxed and unhassled it makes me feel warm just to pass them in the.. street. Chris Eve London

ANY FRIEND OF EARTH Having just read, in Undercurrent 12, the piece entitled Where have all the FOE·rs gone? I feel compelled to reply: FOE·rs .... prick us do we not bleed? After all, do we not believe that paper and glass are wasted and should be saved? Do we not believe that ·zany·stunts like bottle·dumps and Bike·ins have a profound effect on the thinking of the Government of the day and also serve to raise public consciousness? Do we not believe that if we refuse a paper bag from the lady in Woolworths then we have


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saved a tree, ·somehow, some where, from certain death? Do we not believe that ordinary people concerned about the environment (or about any other issue for that matter) can enter into open and honest discussion with their elected representatives? 00 we not believe that population con·trol coupled with legislation to protect the environment will set matters right if only we give it time? Do we not believe That the Governments of this country make and take decisions for the benefit of all neon Ie including our children)? Are we not all, after all, Social Democrats and Liberals? ..Heaven forbid, do we not believe in Democracy? Yes, sadly, we believe all these things, I support your article in its call to all disaffected radicals to join their local FOE branch bUI I fear that you have set them quite a task; and maybe They have more to fear from the things we do not believe: We do not believe that there is any rush .. Quote as we may from our copies of limits To Growth and the Doomsday Book to the local branch of the ladies·Circle, we do not take it all that seriously really, and feel that these chaps are overreacting somewhat. We do not believe that the problems that we are tackling are but mere symptoms of an unhealthy)·social system that must be changed_ And, worst of all, we do not believe, nay we (cannot believe, we are witnessing the end of the world; for to believe that is also to believe that we too as individuals (hi·fi and all) are equally doomed. However, criticise as I may the rank and file of FOE, may I remind you all that FOE is indeed about something more than collecting bottles and waste paper because "above all we intend to campaign for the universal adoption of sustainable and equitable life styles." (Stated objectives of FOE). What is needed, then, is enough people within the movement to ensure thai this is the "above all else” priority of FOE. A more radical grass roots membership is needed because only then will (he move·ment be able·to pursue this goal unhindered and to pursue it as it should be pursued . "I::it hl:r ecology action is revo·lutionary action or it is nothing at all. Any attempt to reform a social order that by its very nature pits humanity against all the forces of life is a gross deception, and serves merely as a safety valve for the established institutions" (Bookchin). Defending our environment is not a game; not a trendy way of spending one·s weekends. Neither is it a stepping stone to a career in politics, or an easy way to get one·s name in lights in the local rags and becoming a celebrity (of the ·two bit·variety). Defending one·s environment (if you will forgive the cliche) is a war, a war against overwhelming odds, and FOE·rs must not be content merely to ·tap the heels·of capitalism, or to place obstacles in its path. We must ensure its overthrow and ensure it quickly. let us take as our objective, n .... only objective, the universal adoption of sustainable and equitable life styles. Read it all you FOE·rs,


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read and understand it. It is revolutionary and we must all become revo·lutionaries. If this is not what you wish then get out of the kitchen and make way for those who are prepared to accept the con·sequences of what Friends of the Earth stand for. Dave Roberts Local Co·ordinator Cardiff Friends of Earth II Hill View Beddau Pontypridd

A FEW SHORT WORDS, PLEASE I take my pleasures from the simple things in life ·my garden, my pussycat and beautiful people ·and while I enjoy your magazine immensely I am left completely cold by technical explanations which give me head·aches trying to make head or tail of them, usually to no avail. This applies equally to scientific and sociOlogical matters. I am sure there are many other simple people like me whose heads are full of half·notions about this windmill or that culture, but who(J really can·t understand these things because they can·t find a way through the obscure language used. A prime example is ·Towards an Alternative Culture·(Undercurrents 10. 11 and 12): I have read it through four times and am still no wiser than when I started. Looking at the pictures I think it may be interesting, but I am unable to find out. Maybe I·m thick. Maybe I should go back to reading the Beano and leave reorganising society to the big boys who can read words of more syllable, and who possess the key to reading between the jargon .... John Bridge Farmhouse Clapton Nr Crewkerne Somerset

INFLATION EXPLAINED On the whole we Think you are very nice and look forward to reading each new issue of Under·currents, but what we can·t understand is why, after an excellent review of Amory Lovins World Energy Strategies, Chris Hutton·Squire gets so much space in which to indulge his personal feelings about us. His words, 200+ of them aCtually, at the end of his review seem to us to be no more than gratuitous target practice. No one here can remember him asking for an ex·planation for the high price of the book, which is maybe why he didn·t get one. As it happens, the book is expensive because it is imported from the USA, and the reason why it was published there was in order to get a world·wide dis·tribution for it which we couldn·t manage ourselves. There are other reasons as well, to do with such mundane matters as FOE·s cash·now situation and the administrative problems of handling publications. If Chris really wants all the details, all he has to do is to come and ask ·or


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better still he is quite welcome to try whenever he likes to make a better job than we can of "getting the message out as cheaply as possible to every corner of the Land". We can·t pay him anything for doing ii, but it may help to settle his "uneasy feeling.FOE 9 Poland 5 london W Chris says ‘Nobody can deny thai the book is expensive, and I·m glad FOE don·t try. Actually they pro lest too much. I quite understand thai it is Wiley who overpriced the book. What irked me was Amory Lovins·com·placency. The occasion was the afternoon of June 16. Ask Amory’


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• • • • • • • • • • • • Small AdsCOURSES MIDDLESEX POLYTEt,; ... ·NIC esc and esc Honour5 In Society an~ Technology, This fouf·year sandwich course offers you the opportunity to study the natural and social sciences and their inter·dependence. You can enter with A-levels In any two subjects. The course provides .In understanding of the complex relationships be·tween science and techno.logy. enabling you nOI only to under·stand your own place in contem. porary society, but to work responsibly with the beneflts technology can bring. Write or telephone for further details and an application form to: The Admissions Office, PO Box 40, Middlesex Polytechnic, Queensway, Enfield,Middx. EN3 4SF, Phone 01·80S 0892. PERSONAL ORGANIC SMALLHOLDER, married, mid-20s. losing rented land to developers, seeks food·growing project. Skill and enter·prise but no capital. The Cottage, Silson Lane, Baildon, W. Yorks. WE WANT PEOPLE to liv", with us in Bristol. We are Julia, Trevor, Helen and Chrissy, have just moved into a large house and would like to share it with others. If you would like to meet us, write 8S soon as possible to 33 Florence Park, Bristol BSG 7L T. WE HAVE LAUNCHEO a co·operative based business to manu·facture electronic gadgets with a bias towards AT. W~ are looking for an electronics design man who would like to be associated with our project, either fuJI or pan time. Kibei, 120 Garlands Road, Redhill, Surrey. COUPLE SeEK accomodation In seml-communal mixed house In S.W. London or adjacent areas. Phone Lloyd or Mandy 874 2170. ECOLOGICALLY INCLINED male in late 30s interested in self·sufficiency seeks female with similar interests to share running of a country house on the Welsh coast. Marriage could be considered at a later date. Reply to Undercurrents Box No. E1 HARDWARE BRAD'S SOLAR ROOF PLAN. Complete do-it-yourself info (drawings, costlngs, supplien, snags, plumbing, even the electronic control circuitry) for the elegant Canopy that made the New Scientist cover story of September 19th J 974. 8 months hot water (l26~, 52 C) for 1 p/day , we've had over 21 kilo·watts hom our 60 SQ.m. roof. And at £'8/sq.m .. it's cheaper than tiles. NO rip-off. 25p pillS SAE-from BRAD, Churchstoke, Montgomery, Wales. (Any surplus, we promise, goes to fund


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further AT research), HEDGEHOG HAND CAROl NG and Spinning Equipment, plus other accessories, and special oUer fibres. For beginners and professionals. T .J. Willcocks, Wheatcroft, Itchingfield, Horsham, Sussex. (Enclose s.a.e.) PUBUCATIONS BOOKS - Environment, Low Tech, Pollution, Survival etc. Send S.A,E, for lists. Bogus, 60 Princes Avenue, Hull, ~orks. SOLAR HEATED BUILDINGS·A BRIEF SURVEY, by W,A. Shurcliffi 122 pp, S 10 (postpaid) from Solar Energy Digest, PO Box 17776, California 92117, "This new and enlarged edition of Dr. Shurcllff's continuing survey pro·vides concise Information on 132 past, present and future solar·heated structures, primarily in the IJSA but Including a few 'rom other countries." The National Centre for Alternatil/e Technologv has prepared the following DIY plans. 1. SW Multiblade aerogenerator

(Dynohub) 20p 2. Water pump (20ft head) lOp 3. Pumping windmill

(Sal/onius) 20p 4. Solar Panel 20p

S. 300W Sail windmill (Cretan) 20p 6. Hydraulic Ram 20p Available from the centre at £1.00, set + 8p postage, or at stated price plus 8p postage. All these elChibiu may be seen working at the quarry, A further list of Information sheets is available, but please enclose SAE in all correspondence. NCAT, L1wyngwern Quarry, Machvnlleth, Powys. 99.9 PER CENT EXTERMINA,. EO s'nce the onset of farm mechanisa·tion, Heavy Horse Preservation Society seeks donations of money, uhwanted clothing, used stamps, .old postcards, coins, jewellery, to sell for Horse Rescue Fund 'or the ,ew survivors. HHPS, Old Rectory, whitchurch, SalOp. LEARN TO WEAVE on triangular frame loom (weal/es up to 2' lC S') with wool, shuttle, charts, in hessian back. Special £12. Looms, 213 Archway Rd, London N6. ETCETERA FRENCH Kingston AWA has a copy of a pamphlet on environ·mental and ecological matters, written -by the French Organisation of Rel/olutionary Anarchists. The approach is scientific but not burdened with jargon. We


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invite the interest of any reader whO can tackle scientific French with help in its translation. Contact Julian Turner, Kingston group of the Anarchist Workers Association, 16 St. Leonards Road, Surbiton, Surrey. CLAP 4% TAX. Nobody Is too poor to pay this tax! Send 17p in stamps for the latest CLAP hand·book - it's a good read in its own right, a bi-monthly directory of alternative society projects, Pay this tax, or don't complain if by 1984 there are no revolutionary, imilginative, co_operative and visionary projects left in this country, Community Lel/Y for Alternative Projects, c/o BIT, 146 Great western Ro.ad, London W,ll. (tel 01·229 8219) OR DOES YOUR PROJECT NEED MONEY? If it's community-based, concerned with the enl/lronment, conSCiousness-expanslon, improving communication between people, or righting oppression, please send for details of how to 3pply, INTERESTED in alternative tech·nology? Interested in developing a totally new rel/olutlonary politics Outside the traditional or IIbertar·Ian left? we are an organisation of revolutionary non.marxlsts who' don't believe In class struggle, but do believe in non..c;entrallst organ·Isation and liberation from all roles both at home and at work. Interested?, " contact B, M. LEEWAY, London WCl 6XX. WORK A DIFFERENT KIND OF JOB Interested In new ways of working t098ther? Want to have more say in your own life? Don't miss the new Issue (No.3) of InThe Making, a jlrectory of proposed productive projects, 1975 edition. From 22 Albert Road, Sheffield 8. Price 22p per copy, Including post. Subscrip.·tions 60P. 2p per word up to 150 words


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• • • • • • • • • • • •

Radical Technology is coming!Yes, in March or April of next year Wildwood House will finally publish the Undercurrents magnum opus, Radical Technology. In the States and Canada it'll be available in January. Please don't write to us, or Wildwood, to order copies, as they will be widely available in bookshops after publication, and you'll be able to buy it from us for the cover price, some £2.50, plus postage, again after publica·tion. Here is Peter Harper's summary of the book, for lazy reviewers and prospect ive purchasers:Radical Technology is a large-format, extensively illustrated collection of original articles concerning the reorganisa·tion of technology along more humane, rational and ecologically sound lines. The many facets of such a reorganisation are reflected in the wide variety of contribu·tions to the book. They cover both the 'hardware' - the machines and technical methods themselves - and the 'software' - the social and political structures, the way people relate to each other and to their environment, and how they feel about it all. The articles in the book range from detailed 'recipes' through general accounts of alternative technical methods, to critiques of current practices, and general proposals for reorganisations. Each author has been encouraged to follow her or his own personal approach, sometimes descriptive, sometimes analytic, sometimes technical, sometimes political. The contributors are all authorities in their fields. The book is divided into seven sections: Food, Energy, Shelter, Autonomy, Materials, Communication, Other Per·spectives, Over forty separate articles include items on fish culture, small-scale water supply, biological energy sources, a definitive zoology of the windmill, self·help housing, building with subsoil, making car·tyre shoes, the economics of autonomous houses, what to look for in scrap yards, alternative radio networks, utopian communities, and technology in China. Between the main sections are interviews with prominent practitioners and theorists of Radical Technology, including John Todd of the New Alchemy Institute; Robert Jungk, author of Humanity 2000; the Street Farmers, a group of anarchist architects; Peter van Dresser;-and Sietz Lcefland, editor of Small Earth, the Dutch journal of alter·native technology. Also included between the main sections of the book is a series of vision·ary drawings by the gifted illustrator Clifford Harper, evoking the spirit and practice of Radical Technology: 'how it could be', These drawings, or 'visions' include a communalised urban garden layout; a household basement workshop; a community workshop; a community


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media centre; a collectivised terrace of urban houses; and an autonomous rural housing estate. The book ends with a comprehensive directory of the literature and active organisations in Radical Technology. This notes inevitable gaps in the book's coverage, poi nts the reader to where more information can be found, and provides also an overall picture of a growing move·ment. Radical Technology: Food and Shelter, Tools and Materials, Energy and Com·munications, Autonomy and Community, Edited by Godfrey Boyle and Peter Harper, and the editors of Undercurrents, Wildwood House, London; Pantheon Books, New York, 1976_ 304pp, A4, illustrated, index. Hardback ISBN 0704502186; paperback ISBN 0704501597.

Back Issues Undercurrents back-issues are selling out fast - nos. 1 to 5 hav.e already passed into history and are no longer available, but 6 to 12 can still be had for SOp each (including postage) from 11 Shadwell, Uley, Dursley, Gloucs. See the sub·scriptions form on page 48 for further details. Undercurrents 6 Heat Pumps I Alternative Electronics I Organic Living ,Experiment I DIY Windmill Design I Alternative Technology Sources Guide I Running Your Car on Gas I Small·Scale Water Power I What's Left of Alternative Technology? I Stan Gooch reviewed by Colin Wilson I Have Plants a Secret Life?, ... , .. , Undercurrents 7. Special Communications Issue Telephone Tapping & Mail Opening: who does it & how I A Phone Phreak's Confessions I The Government's Doomsday Communicat·ions Systems I TV Cameras Spy on City Streets I The People's Radio Primer I Switched-on Uses of Ham Radio & TV I Cable TV: What's in it for the Media Moguls I AT in the Shade I Did a Stray Missile Shoot Down an Airliner? ... , .. Undercurrents 8 Prince Philip Visits National AT Centre I Eddies' Paranoia Corner I COMTEK Festival Report & Pictures I BRAD Community I Organic Living Experiment I Sward Gardening Introduction I The Other London Underground Radio: Opening Up the Air Waves I Building with Rammed Earth I Multi-blade Windmill Design I Wind Generator Theory I Hermeticism: Technology Needs Transcendence I Plus: a look at Undercurrents finances ... , ..


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Undercurrents 9 Special Feature on Nuclear Power Dangers. Kiddies' Guide to Nuclear Power I Waste Disposal Dangers I The Breeder - Fast & Deadly I End of the US Nuclear Dream I The International Protesters I Energy An·alysis of Nuclear Power I Nuclear Proliferation Perils I The Terrorists' DIY A·Bomb I Uranium Supply Shortages, .. PLUS: Nuclear Blackmail - has it already been tried? I Bunker Secrets de-bunked I Solar Collectors: product review I Nature et Progress Conference 10 Paris: full report & pnotos I Hudson Institute ~ritique I Can Home·Grown Food make a Significant Contribution? Undercurrents 10 Joint Issue with Resurgence Magazine. Solar Collectors: Complete Background Theory and low--cost DIY Design I Towards An Alternative Culture: Part I I Land for the People I New Villages Now I Sward Gardening in Practice I Anarchist Cities I General Systems I Future of Alternative Technology I Schumacher: A Conscious Culture of Poverty I Living the Revolution: Milovan Djilas I Industrial Slavery Can Now End I Nuclear Protest Builds up Steam .... Undercurrents 11 Nuclear Nightmares Come True I Bee Keeping I Back to the Land: What happened in the '30s I Mysterious Energies: the Hidden Secrets of Ancient Britain I Building with Compressed Subsoil Blocks I Wind Power Special Feature: Background Theory & Part ( of the Undercurrents-LID Wind Generator Design I New Methane Digester Design I The House That Jaap Built - an Autonomous Dome in Holland I Mind Expansion: An Evalua. tion of Psychocybernetics and Silva Mind Control I Getting Your Goat: Goat·keeping Demystified I Towards An Alternative Culture - part n .... Undercurrents 12 AT and Lucas Aerospace I Comtek 751 DIY Biofeedback I Alter. native Medical Care I The Crabapple Community Illaif Life against Nuclear Power I The Granada Tele·eco-housc I Planning for War I The Brighton Envuofau I CEGB Energy down the Drain I Community Technology in Washington DC I Class War Comix I World Energy Strategies I Transcendental Meditation I Freedom for Scotland. . . . . ~

Documents

Undercurrents 13 November-December1975