I’m pleased to announce the walking tour I’ve been researching for some months is now open for registration! It’ll take place on 10th and 17th December. Read on… In 1940 Norwegian freedom fighters smuggle a Christmas Tree across the North Sea. In 1969 an imprisoned Nelson Mandela smiles at the news from Murrayfield. In 1984 […]
I like taking photos at protests. I think everyone should. Usually we only spend time in crowds because we’re queuing for something. At a protest it’s because we’ve decided to huddle together purely so we may be counted and seen as a group with an aim. It can, and should be, empowering and exciting – […]
Creativity and crises over the last 10 years of the publicly-owned polluter. “Make It Happen” was an RBS slogan that meant far more than they intended. In the mid-2000s activists had spent years of fighting oil spills, pipelines and mega coal mines and the damage they cause. When they began to look deeper into how […]
Text by Ric Lander, 2023, from census data, parish records, the Record of Births, Marriages and Deaths, and family notes. Sections in quotation marks are from interviews with Muriel Eddowes, conducted by Pat Lander. This is the story of my maternal Grandparents’ family, the Eddowes, and it begins with the Goodman family bible. The book […]
It’s 45 years since 4,000 people occupied Torness, East Lothian, as part of an incredibly vibrant campaign to oppose nuclear power in Scotland, a campaign which could be credited with helping to root Scottish independence in environmentalism: something of a miracle given the movement’s deep connection with “Scotland’s oil”. The plant eventually came on line […]
A baking Western Canada is on fire once again, following droughts and high temperatures. A week ago I took the bus from Vancouver to Calgary, snaking our way through scores of active and out of control fires. The route also follows the construction of the Transmountain Pipeline which scars the mountainsides (below). Canadian Government-funded, the […]