The Ragged Optimist 60

"The world needs a lot more young, angry women. That's the thing we need most of." Greta Thunberg

Can I share lots of work-news with you? Thank you.

I’ve just been appointed Writer-in-Residence on Sittingbourne Steam Railway, in a commission from Ideas Test. First visit this week, and writing to follow soon after.

Also this week, I’m talking to David Whitehouse about his new book, Saltwater Mansions, an addition to my ‘books set in Margate’ shelf. It’s an event for The Margate Bookshop (19th June). I’m doing another event with them in July, talking to environmental activist and writer Emily Buchanan about her debut novel.

For our next First Friday at Marine Studios (4th July), we’re looking at craft and I’m going to focus on regenerative and restorative craft practices - the ones making something from nothing, or putting good things back in the world. If you know of anyone doing interesting things, let me know.

I’m one of this year’s ARMA Award winners, working with Fabrica on the Whitehawk in Brighton. There are workshops for young people coming up (11th & 12th July).

Photo: Jordan Mary

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1. There were just 25 barn owl sightings in London in 2010, but 347 spotted a decade later. And now they can be seen all over London.

2. Dorette Engi and her children have spent several years rewilding her land in Devon, which now includes recreated wetlands, mixed grasslands and restored woodlands. They’ve just released ten white storks. "It's extraordinary. These birds haven't lived freely here in over 600 years, yet as soon as they were given the choice, they stepped out into the landscape like it had always been theirs.”

3. In November 2021, a family of beavers was spared a death sentence and relocated to Argaty, Tom Bowser's home. In this deeply personal account, Tom tells of his attempts to save these incredible animals, of the support and opposition received, and of the gains that beavers ultimately brought to his home.

4. “The first Herts Rivers Week gave us a great opportunity to put chalk rivers and the wildlife that inhabits these globally rare habitats in the spotlight. It was fantastic to see so many people exploring our rivers and learning how they can play a part in protecting them.”

5. London practice Tuckey Design Studio has restored the Grade II-listed The Wool Hall in Somerset, UK, a home and recording studio founded by Tears for Fears - celebrating the building’s long history as an "outlet for craft and musical production".

6. In the 1960s, the National Trust launched the Neptune Campaign to raise money to acquire coastal land and protect it from development. Neptune's first purchase was Whiteford Burrows on the Gower peninsula, South Wales, in May 1965. Since then, they’ve raised over £114 million and are now adapting the coastline to cope with climate change.

7. This spring and summer, visitors to Kew Gardens can experience Of the Oak, an immersive art installation that creates a ‘digital double’ of the oak by using extensive real-world data captured in collaboration with Kew’s scientists and horticulturists.

8. Potters Thumb is a pottery studio in Hackney Wick, founded by Mark Ciavola six years ago and originally based in Brighton. Potters Thumb has worked on the development of 'Glass Porcelain', a unique method for making clay that uses waste single use glass within the hospitality industry.

9. Lots of the staff at Turner in Margate are artists, but don’t get to exhibit in the galleries there. So roughly every year, they organise their own exhibition.

10. Sophie Ferrier uses materials made from everything from food waste to non-native invasive plant species. Her aim is to restore local environments through storytelling about the materials she uses, re-building a kinship to the natural world through objects of enchantment. I’m a little bit in love with her work, and in awe of her practice.