Saskia's world tour (sort of)

Hello all,

Well, i´ve finally made it to spain! Currently in a village called
monda near malaga. The days so far are very sunny and warm, the nights
are very cold!

For all of you interested in keeping track of my progress over the next
few months, as i wwoof and cycle my way across spain, i´ve now got a
myspace account: http://www.myspace.com/sask_watch

or you can view my blog on: http://blog.myspace.com/sask_watch
If you subscribe to my blog (you´ll need to create an account with
myspace first which is free and fairly easy) you´ll get regular updates
of my progress (though you don´t have to join myspace to view them, you
just won´t get alerts letting you know when i´ve posted a new one :-)

There´s also some pics (only of austria so far - i´ll be uploading some
more once i get the chance).

If you have an account you can also add yourself to my ´friends´ which
will make me feel all fluffy and warm inside!

Keep in touch,

lots of love,
Saskia xXx

An explanatory note

It has been brought to my attention that some people who have read this blog may have been offended by my lighthearted tone. I am very sorry that this is the case and would like to assure you that although I joke about, I am very seriously interested in the issues that have been raised. However, I am not reverent. Partly because it's not my style to be so and partly because a lightness of tone invites an engagement from potential contributors of different ages and inclinations in a different way than a serious traditionally academic research project might. And inviting a range of voices and interpretations is important to me and to this project.

I have been offline for a while and this is because I have been a bit crap, basically. But also because I was feeling certain doubts about the purpose of the project and the possibility of engaging in something like this without hurting people's feelings. The only real aim I had for the project (for to have to many aims is necessarily to inhibit its potential) was that it would draw on a multitude of experiences from a multitude of people. To some extent, and with the help of Saskia, the blog has achieved this and has generated lots of interest.

The response that I have posted to K B Neale's comment is based on a paper I gave in February at a conference called Life Histories, Women's Histories (I think), and should go some way to explaining the context from which I'm writing.

The issue of how middle aged women tend to write personal email responses to me rather than post on the blog (as middle aged men have)presents a problem but also an interesting insight into how history is constructed. I will give some thought to how best to proceed with some more focused research that addresses this differential.

As ever, I'd welcome your responses to this.

Thank you.

Anna

Blue Rock festival

This was fab last year.

Spirit of the Age

If you're interested in 'life writing', here are some details about a big conference on the topic(s)

Memory, Life-writing and conflicting recollections

Notes and quotes on ‘writing the self’ for weblog.

‘Confessionalism has to know when to hold back. Honesty has to be worked at. ‘A little sincerity is a dangerous thing,’ said Wilde, ‘and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.’

‘Thomas Hardy once said that there was an “infinite mischief” in “the mixing of fact and fiction in unknown proportions”.

‘good non-fiction does inevitably employ many of the devices of fiction: narrative, characterization, suspense, surprise, and a sense of beginning-middle-end.. In other words, selectivity and detachment are as much a part of confessionalism as other forms of writing.’

‘A little wariness seems appropriate, since memoirs depend on memories, which are often false. When an author recalls in exhaustive detail a scene form thirty years ago we may wonder if it happened exactly that way.’

The above quotes are from Blake Morrison’s introduction to Too True. (Blake is my supervisor at Goldsmiths.)

I work at Kingston University and on 11 May 2006 we had a seminar on Biography and Life Writing. Paul Bailey is a writer in residence on the Creative Writing programme and he began his talk by saying, ‘A lot of people think they can write a memoir by sticking to the facts of their life…’

Harvest Fair

How to use this blog

*Scroll down until you reach a subject heading that you are interested in, such as 'Dolwilym: Then and Now'
*At the bottom right hand side of that discussion point there is a 'comments' link. Click on it. This will manoeuvre you away from the home page.
*Click your cursor into the smaller right hand box below the instruction 'leave a comment'
*Underneath this box it says 'login and publish'. Click on that.
*Click back onto the original link (eg 'Dolwilym: Then and Now') and that will take you back to the home page.

If you have any questions, please ask me or Saskia.

Cromlech (Dolwilym, Bwrdd Arthur)

Gwal-y-Filiast (“Lair of the Greyhound”) Cromlech (alternatively known as Dolwilym, Bwrdd Arthur)

Link to more pics of the cromlech

And more....

Dolwilym: then & now

Click here to view more pics of Dolwilym

Hippies Reunited!

Questions and comments and odds and sods

Hello
The different forums that I have posted are a bit like a glossary of terms (in the wrong order) which are no means exhaustive! If you have any thoughts, questions, ideas please post them here, that way everyone gets to see and respond to them! Saskia - thanks for your brill input so far: I'm planning to get Giles to scan loads of pics this weekend and will add the BRILLIANT ones you sent me then! Cheerio, A

Here's a recent related story if found. Demolition for lost tribe's eco-house. Enjoy.

Subculture

Steiner education

More of a lifestyle than a school. I loved going there, though it was only for a short time. Did Ceilidh the world of good too. One day she came home, aged 8, and told us about how her classmate, Raph, had been supping home-made beer that day. They all seem to have turned out quite well though!

Socialism

Simple Simon

Any thoughts on Hazel's empire? Or rather, reflections on the role of food in a communal living context.

Sex and drugs and rock and roll

all it's cracked up to be?

Self sufficient

Hands up who pulled it off.

Psylocybin

Have I spelt that right???

Operation Julie

Nostalgia

I am giving you carte blanche to talk about 'the good old days' here.

Non-competitive

Is it just me or are a lot of us kids who were brought up in apparently non-competitive environments HIGHLY COMPETITIVE NOW! What does it mean, anyway - to be 'non-competitive'?

NAKED!

There was a lot of it about back in the day. Pam and Giles never needed much of an excuse to get their kit off and parade about the place in the nood. I recall Ted wandering about stark bollock naked one day when I was in my super-sensitive early teens and my straight Welsh friend's parents were dropping her off in their blue Sierra...My attempts at passing for normal were dessimated.

Mud

Mother earth/back to nature

Montessori School

Above is a recent reunion (circa 2001) of some of the montessori school people; friends, teachers, parents and pupils, at Charleen's house in Bristol.

Click here to see more pics from the reunion

'I went to the Montessori school. I hated it. We used to sing, ‘The river is a-flowing…’ They used to just want to talk about your feelings all the time. I was only four. I got out of it. I remember hating it. You'd sit around with tambourines and bang them…I didn’t like the other kids…I was a bit of an arsehole…I just liked to be nasty to people…Dunno why…I got a load of rosehips and cut them up and put them down people’s backs! As if to say, ‘that’s what I think of your emotions!’ (LJ, 2006)

Kahlil Gibran

I don't really understand what all that was about. Please enlighten me. (geddit?!?)

Institutions

'Tina hates any sort of institution; all of the crap that sometimes goes with being part of society. You can see why people would want to escape it and set up their own society. You wonder if it’s ever possible to achieve.' (LJ, 2006)

Integration

'Despite being so at one with the earth, their environment, and totally in tune with the ancient cultures and traditions surrounding them, the hippies seemed somehow not to notice that the language of the people who had lived in Wales for centuries and centuries was not in fact English, no, it was Welsh. Generally they made no attempt to encourage their children to learn Welsh or mix with Welsh speaking families, and the notion that they themselves might perhaps learn even a little Welsh, or even attempt to pronounce Welsh place names in a non remedial way, it seems, was, and still is, preposterous.' (SJK, 2006)

Home-grown

Infidelity

Come on. We've all done it. Haven't we? Can you dig free love and condemn infidelity in the same breathe? Is it a fact of life?

Hippy

Why is hippy a derogatory term?

Glastonbury

Gender

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it always struck me, or rather after I'd passed through the mirror phase it struck me that despite the liberal leanings and alternative aspirations of so many of the local folk in Wales the women still did the lion's share of the housework and childcare. If that was the case, why was it so?

Free love

Did it work? Ever?

Folk

As in, salt-of-the-earth people, often from the country, or strangely nostalgic music played on the violin after hours in pubs. The two often converge. There was a lot of that in pubs in Wales back in the day, and I think it has something to do with the remoteness, the bad weather, and the mountain ranges. Or something.

Farmers

Rosy-faced country gentlemen chewing on a piece of grass while nurturing nature. Or inbred sheep shaggers?

Does anyone remember the line-up of locals on the railway track keenly watching the free-form May-day frolicks on the lawn with their binoculars?

Family

It's a funny word because it's often used in a reductive way to denote blood relatives. Stuff and nonsense. Family are the people who give you money on your birthday.

Experiment

This is an experiment. Please make it work.

Elsan

An elsan is a chemical toilet that doesn't flush. We used to have one in the coalshed before Dolwilym dragged itself into a state of near civilisation. Then it moved to the tiny sodden stone corridor between the side of the shed and the dripping wall and became a 'public convenience'!

The Elephant Fair

The Elements

Ecstasy

‘Early days’

Culture clashes

Commune

Cults

Alternative lifestyle

Acid

Glyneirw

Morfa, Blaenffos

Meigan Fair

The Red Barn

Gwernogle

Dave Winters’ plays (eg Golden Slumbers)

May Days at Dolwilym

The Shed

Other people's children

Boys in skirts

Jethro, you looked so pretty and innocent when you were dressed like a little girl. But how did it feel?