Stephen Davies
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[00:00:00] Mark: Stephen, welcome to the Impossible Network.

[00:00:03] Stephen: Thank you very much.

[00:00:04] Mark: Where are you speaking from today?

[00:00:08] Stephen: I'm in a small village called Ponsonouth in Cornwall. It is very quaint and very quiet. It's quite different from the city they grew up in, but I think I'm getting quieter or at least, you know, I'm living a quieter life as I get older, even if my work's getting a bit louder. 

[00:00:27] Mark: Well, that's a good combination. Well, that leads to the first question. As you're getting older and the work's getting louder and life's getting quieter, how do you reflect on yourself or answer the question, who are you as a human being?

[00:00:42] Stephen: Today, today. I'm not too sure to be honest. I think, I've always been quite interested in, philosophy and found that to be an answer to a lot of my troubles or a lot of the big questions that I'd ask myself. [00:01:00] And the stuff that I've read that I resonate with is very much about, you know.

[00:01:04] Embracing change and allowing oneself to evolve as a feature of the world and not become too fixed in terms of who we think we are or what we are. So I think in terms of, how do I reflect on where I am today? I've sort of come a long way without necessarily trying to hold on to particular versions of myself or places in time.

[00:01:24] And I think that's made it. A lot easier to move on, a lot easier to evolve. Yeah, I'm still in the middle of that now, ultimately.

[00:01:33] Mark: Interesting that we, I had a guest and a friend, an ex colleague for an agency I work with in Scotland, a guy called Don Smith, and he lives by this philosophy of emergence. These are this constant state of emergence and what he was 10 years ago, what he was five years ago is very different to what he is today.

[00:01:53] And he's just in this con believes he's on this constant journey. And his life is emerging as his work is [00:02:00] emerging and moving from being an advertising copywriter to an inventor. So it's interesting. It's sort of resonates a bit with what he said.

[00:02:08] Stephen: absolutely. Yeah. It's probably, or you've probably managed to synthesize it a bit more succinctly than I kind of at the top of my head, but yeah, that's, that's, that's pretty much it, you know, I think and from that point of view, it is easier to navigate life. You know, you're not sort of. Clutching at a context or a moment and saying, Oh, I want to stay here and I don't want change that seems to be Counter to the way things are So yeah, I don't know.

[00:02:36] I'm probably wrong or you know, I'm probably being bold But I would probably say that that is the nature of things, you know It's not just me as a person the nature of things is that they continue to evolve and they don't really sit still So I think you know in terms of how I live or how we live I think it's sensible to try and align with the way things are naturally and not come under any, you know, false pretenses about who we are and what we [00:03:00] can claim to be.

[00:03:02] Mark: Well, on the basis of that, the second question does lead to where you've come from and what influenced who you are today. Whether they be parents, teachers, mentors, key life experiences. So what, what, or who made you, you given that you are in a constant state of let's 

[00:03:19] Stephen: yeah, yeah. Well, I guess on some level I've kind of needed that philosophy. Throughout my life, because as you sort of move through, you know, one moment to the next, there were some moments that are more profoundly impactful than others. And there's been quite a few of them in my life, you know, so having a way to explain to myself why this isn't a bad thing.

[00:03:43] And this is an inevitable part of life. And it can be seen as an opportunity as has been necessary, really. Kind of prevent me from spiraling to a negative place, but to start from the beginning, you know, the biggest influence for me [00:04:00] growing up was having a loving home. Didn't grow up in the nicest part of the world.

[00:04:07] My parents were both smart people and ended up in a circumstance that, you know, wasn't necessarily what they had planned. And I had a lot of freedom as a kid. Explore and misbehave and all those kinds of things. And I had a lot of mates who were misbehaving and exploring themselves in the place where we live.

[00:04:31] And that?

[00:04:32] there's in and around Greater Manchester and it was pretty ugly, you know, at street level. I think on reflection the thing that was really different from me in comparison with My friends is I could go out and get into trouble in a variety of different ways and then come home and my mom might say that I'm an idiot, but she'd [00:05:00] still love me, whereas some of my friends would be going home and there was no love there, you know, they'd be in trouble and they get a smack in the face of their parents.

[00:05:10] And I think that sort of pushed them in a particular way. And, you know, I sort of followed that to a reasonable extent to. primarily because that's how it was where we were growing up, you know, there was a lot of people misbehaving, but that sort of anchor point that love that I had at home was so important, you know, in retrospect, you know, it just.

[00:05:32] meant that it was okay. It meant, I guess it was, it's not just what it meant in that moment, it's what it means to be now, you know, in terms of what I'm interested in doing with my life and work and whatever, that sort of thing that allowed me to become a different person to a lot of the people that I grew up with was that somebody loved me, you know, it wasn't sort of.

[00:05:54] attacked violently if I'd misbehaved out of curiosity or, you know, some other motivation. So [00:06:00] I think that was really, really profound. And that's something that I've always had with me, even if not consciously, you know, I've always sort of been drawn to. I use that term to represent quite a lot as well.

[00:06:16] You know, it's not just romantic love, but conflate it with kindness or whatever. So that was, that was really Influential. , 

[00:06:24] Mark: you, you say that the difference between you and your friends, that someone that you went home to a different environment. Is that something you were, you were a witness to or was it something they talked about?

[00:06:35] Stephen: I wasn't aware at all, you know, until I'd sort of got out of that place in a particular phase of my life, how influential that had been on me. You know, they weren't sort of making it explicit. We love you and your friends don't have parents that love them. And it wasn't really dawning on me the significance of it.

[00:06:54] I was still just motivated to mess around and be a penis, basically. So [00:07:00] that wasn't something that I really noticed until. I'd left Manchester, matured a bit and you're sort of visiting home, catching up with people or hearing stories about what's happening with people. And there's a lot of people who, you know, the worst possible outcomes without getting into a dark subject, but, you know, then I had to ask myself the question, why is it like this for me?

[00:07:28] And why is it like that? That for them. How has it ended so badly for them? And I think the sort of nudge that changed my trajectory or whatever it is that sort of setting the compass for where I'm headed in life Was love it was that you know If I was to compare my circumstances with those of my friends who've ended up in much worse situations than me they didn't have any love at home and That wasn't present, you know, as a thought, it wasn't something that I'd considered until, you know, my mid twenties, and [00:08:00] I was doing pretty good, and people were doing pretty bad, and I was just sort of thinking to myself, Fuckin hell, like, why is this so drastically different?

[00:08:07] I was there with them all the way through, you know, I was crazy as they were when we were kids, so how is it that The majority have ended up in the shit, whereas I am somehow an exception to the rule, and I would attribute that to, to my family, to the fact that, you know, I just had unconditional love, and I can't necessarily claim that I deserved it because I was a little shit, but, you know, it certainly made a big, a big difference to where I've ended up.

[00:08:32] Mark: How do you think that influenced your education path?

[00:08:36] Stephen: Being loved, I don't know, mate, I think it's a good question. I didn't really fall in love with school. Found it immensely boring and ultimately found a way to entertain myself by being the class clown. And again, on reflection, I think [00:09:00] that I was educating myself in some fashion. You know, I was learning to be sarcastic, even if nobody wanted me to be.

[00:09:07] But the reality is my mother in particular would, would put up with me. You know, exploring who I was and would encourage me. She didn't necessarily want me to mess around at school, but it was, I suppose, a product of that encouragement to, you know, like explore who you are, be who you are in this environment, the school environment.

[00:09:30] I'm just absolutely not interested in anything that's being thrown at me. I'm messing around, finding ways to entertain myself, all that kinds of stuff. So yeah, it's influenced me in that way. It's also instilled a reasonable amount of self belief in me that I can come up with solutions and find things to do with my life without an instruction manual, because I've sort of been shown a way to explore who I am.

[00:09:56] And Try and create value [00:10:00] from that, you know, whether it's financial or social or whatever. So My education, I was a mature student when I went back to university. I was very, very clear by the age of 16, 17, that what I wanted to do was to go to parties. I loved parties. Parties were my life, ultimately, from quite a young age.

[00:10:21] And I had friends who were going to university. I wasn't necessarily banking the opportunity to go to university, but I was kind of looking at what other friends had done, got a student loan and just got hammered and gone to parties, and it just didn't feel like a very sensible way to use a student loan.

[00:10:38] So I said to myself, I'm going to go to the same parties, but I'm not going to go to university. I'm just going to go to parties. So that was kind of how I lived for quite a while. It was also in some sense, a continuation of, you know, me exploring who I was in the world. The sort of status quo was not particularly interesting.[00:11:00] 

[00:11:00] The arts were, I'd grown up in a working class environment, so I wasn't exactly overwhelmed with options in terms of conceptual art, but I would say that my first real encounter with something genuinely alternative and rooted in the arts was through music, through raves techno and house music and all these very niche scenes and nuances in sound, which anchored a, Really interesting community, a diverse community.

[00:11:38] You know, Manchester is a big city, but it's not like London where you can have 10 techno nights on the same night and everyone's going to be entertained. And every night it's going to sell out. There'd be one, you know, on a weekend and it'd be the same crowd that went there and it would pull people together from different backgrounds.

[00:11:56] And they'd all sort of be interested in this sound. And [00:12:00] that for me as a working class lad, who just like parties was very eye opening because, you know, I could then go to after parties with. With artists and people with the sort of deep knowledge of philosophy and politics and so on all these kinds of stuff that I'm not being exposed to, you know, in a working class town.

[00:12:18] So that was all really significant. That kind of set me off on a bit of a auto didactic conquest. I started reading a lot. Still not working at all, traveling a lot, doing help exchanges abroad, mainly just to minimize the amount of work I'd have to do to have the time to read. Coming back to Manchester, going to more parties.

[00:12:39] That was my life for a good while. Then, decided that I wasn't going to go to parties anymore, that I was going to too many parties. So I was on a mission to sober up, managed to sober up through cycling, fell in love with cycling. Again,

[00:12:56] Mark: in Manchester.

[00:12:57] Stephen: still in Manchester, less and less. [00:13:00] So I think, you know, it's a very simple method to stop going to parties, but I got really into long distance.

[00:13:07] cycling. So, you know, if I got a phone call, do you want to come to a rave tonight? And I'm 60 miles from home on a bicycle, even if I want to go, it's quite difficult to get back in time. So yeah, there was a lot of dopamine to replace as well, mate, to be honest with you. So I think, you know, still being able to go out and get a good top off for that for, you know, long distance endurance ride was really helpful and I just got really obsessed with cycling after that you know that was that was then my life all of a sudden there's probably a theme that you'll notice by the end of the conversation where you know I'm sort of committed to a thing and you know through unforeseen circumstances.

[00:13:41] no longer committed to it. And then it's finding the next thing that sort of, you know, emergence flux nature of stuff that we mentioned earlier. It's quite evident throughout really. But, yeah, it got really into cycling. That was all I really wanted to do for maybe four or five years. It was just pushing myself to be as competitive as I could.[00:14:00] 

[00:14:00] And then I got knocked off my bicycle by car and broke my back. It was about 200 yards away from. Salford Royal Hospital, which is where the X ray theatre is. So that was a lucky aspect of it. You know, if they'd sort of hit me on the right angle, I might've flown through the air and landed on the X ray table.

[00:14:24] I was that close to it. So it just got bundled in there.

[00:14:26] Mark: Wow.

[00:14:27] Stephen: Yeah, you're not riding bikes anymore, mate. You know, just focus on walking and then all of a sudden, all right, what am I going

[00:14:35] Mark: so that happens. But if that happened 60 miles from the hospital, you could have been in serious trouble.

[00:14:43] Stephen: Yeah, it's one of them, mate. I think there's so many. ways. And I was in a, I was in a brace for a year, you know, so sort of period of deep reflection on what am I doing with my life, but how could this incident have been different? And yeah, every sort of physician that I spoke to every [00:15:00] doctor, it was, yeah, if it was like one centimeter that way, or it was a little bit like this, you'd be dead or you'd be paralyzed and all that kinds of stuff.

[00:15:06] And again, I think, you know, I think before we got on this podcast, we talk about just synchronicity, things just happening all of a sudden. And, you know, Yeah, there's so many different ways that that could have gone. One of the ways is that it didn't happen at all. And then fuck knows where I am and what I'm doing with my life, because it sort of forced me into this year where.

[00:15:28] My mum was putting my socks on for me, helping me in and out of the shower. I'd always been heavily independent, you know, sort of relieved with the burden of a party animal in a spare bedroom as early as I could have moved into the city centre. So I'd always sort of found my own way and, you know, live with my mates or by myself or what have you.

[00:15:47] So moving back there, I think it was about 25, Being incapable of looking after myself and, you know, having so many of the freedoms that I enjoyed physically, socially taken away from me. Yeah. It sort of [00:16:00] forced me to just completely reassess, you know, like, what am I going to do with my life? This chap saying, I'm not going to ride bikes anymore.

[00:16:07] That's what I want to do with my life. And yeah, sat with it basically for a long time. And. Ended up signing up to an art and design foundation degree at Manchester college early on as a sort of vehicle for further reflection and exploration. So, I wasn't really convicted about what I was going to do with that.

[00:16:30] I'd always, in a very roundabout way, considered myself to be an artist or a creative or whatever you want to call it. And that was something that I'd never intentionally tried to express. It was, you know, just being surrounded by artists, having particular conversations, having ideas for concepts. That sort of being All of interest to people that reputationally sort of license to say you're talking shite, that's a bad idea.

[00:16:57] And I'm not doing so. I thought, all right, I want to explore [00:17:00] this. I sort of believe in, you know, self expression. I've got a lot to express and I don't really know how to do it. So it sort of took that year of reflection into this foundation degree and By the end of it, decided that I was gonna study architecture at university, didn't do much architectural stuff throughout the foundation degree.

[00:17:21] I think that I ended up there because I did feel like an artist, I still do in a way, but I didn't really feel like I needed a degree to sort of qualify that. Whereas, you know, you can't really practice architecture on the side, you know, I can have an arts practice on the side. So, you know, there's just some level of qualification that's required to be in architecture.

[00:17:43] So I decided to do that. 

[00:17:45] Mark: What drew you to architecture? what sparked interest in it?

[00:17:49] Stephen: I think it was, it was, yeah, definitely older than the course, you know, that ambition wasn't necessarily, you know, to design buildings. My mom did [00:18:00] once pull out a. A journal from when I was school, must've been five, six years old or something. And it does say in that journal that when I grew up, I want to be an architect, which is quite romantic, but on the next page, it does say that when I went to grow up, I

[00:18:17] Mark: I want to party.

[00:18:18] Stephen: says, I want to be a dinosaur mate, which kind of makes any other claims about my future illegitimate.

[00:18:23] Doesn't it? I can't really say that I knew what was viable and what was for me. So, but I think the

[00:18:31] Mark: Well, well maybe, maybe in a world of AI, architects are going to become dinosaurs. You never know.

[00:18:36] Stephen: yeah. There's definitely a metaphor available on the next page. But yeah, in terms of like, why, why that and like, why the foundation degree and all that kinds of stuff. I've always sort of seen people and myself as products of an environment ultimately.

[00:18:54] You know, so that stuff I mentioned earlier with how my mates grew up and why was it different to me? [00:19:00] I'm sort of seeing that through the lens of their products of their environment. We're sharing a very similar environment, but there's this other influence for me, which is a loving home. And then I started to apply that model to other people, other circumstances.

[00:19:15] It was a. high street that I used to walk down quite a lot in Bolton, Bolton high street. And it was just absolute carnage. You know, these probably going to be many similar to it around the Northwest, around the UK, around the world, where there's a lot of homelessness, there's a lot of drinking, there's a lot of people on drugs just in the street, but you sort of look around and think about what's going on.

[00:19:42] Yeah. Spatially and commercially. And I think I was, you know, a naive point with how I interpreted architecture in the built environment. So I was conflating how it was commercially and how it was spatially and sort of deciding that it was all the same stuff, [00:20:00] which in retrospect, I don't necessarily think is true.

[00:20:03] But what I was seeing was a Weatherspoons, a very cheap budget pub, a Yates's Wine Lodge, a very cheap budget pub. a bookmakers, a pasty shop, a fried chicken shop, a charity shop, another Wetherspoons, another bookmakers, an amusements arcade, which is full of gambling equipment. You know, it was, that was the entire Heinz street, you know, anything that wasn't that was just a closed down shop.

[00:20:25] So I'm sort of looking at this and thinking, well, yeah, these people are off their heads in the middle of the day in public, but. Let's be honest now, how the fuck else are they going to turn out? You know, you've just put them into this crazy environment surrounded by drink and gambling and bad food. And if you sort of layer that with a lot of other contextual issues in the north of England, there are definitely going to be people on the street, on drugs in the middle of the day.

[00:20:54] And I think to me is not necessarily their fault. There's some [00:21:00] much deeper seated contextual issues that need to be addressed. So again, through that sort of lens of how does this place work spatially, I'm looking at this environment and I'm saying to myself, this could definitely be better, you know, like this is definitely not the best that we can do.

[00:21:17] And if it was better, I would assume that people would be better. So that was, you know, a very clear example of what was going on in my mind, but that model sort of been applied to other situations. And then there is an architectural implication. So the ambition is kind of stemming from that. And me just asking myself, how do I want to engage with the world?

[00:21:42] How do I want to be in the world? And yeah, that was kind of where I arrived at. So it was architecture from There went out really.

[00:21:50] Mark: Those observations of seeing the state of, inner city life in north, north of England. I mean, it, when you describe it, [00:22:00] it resonates cause I've witnessed similar situations in Scotland, in different towns. And I think, you know, I don't know what year that was. But I suspect it hasn't got any better regardless of, in the UK a government that's probably not going to be in government in a few days time talking about leveling up,

[00:22:18] Stephen: Mmm. 

[00:22:19] Mark: people are still experiencing deep social and economic inequities, which is leading to addiction, anger, rage outrage polarization politically.

[00:22:34] Pulling apart communities, all these things. so yeah, so my question is going off on that sort of rant, what year would have that been, that you were witnessing that, point, moment of reflection, that you were

[00:22:48] Stephen: Mmm. I'm not, it's harder to pin down the point of reflection, but I'm, I'm 35. I started going out drinking and partying when I was about 15. So [00:23:00] rewind it back 20 years. What are we, 2024?

[00:23:02] Mark: And

[00:23:04] Stephen: I'd be a bold claim to say I was mature, but I'm certainly at a point where I can reflect and think, why is the world like this?

[00:23:10] So yeah, around 2010, 2004 to 2010, and then. Yeah, that was when I was exposed to Bolton, High Street Moor, and then, you know, I'm in the city centre from maybe 2008. More commonly, lived in the city centre for a long time, and other parts of Manchester, Salford, Fallowfield, and so on. And yeah, they're extreme in their own ways as well because, you know, the scale increases with the city.

[00:23:38] It's It's carnage, mate, it is, it is absolute carnage and I think, yeah, there's loads of problems, you know, which

[00:23:46] Mark: that was pre Brexit as well.

[00:23:48] Stephen: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 

[00:23:49] Mark: so taking that, let's call it agency, to take control of your life and the direction you went on and making conscious decisions to embrace [00:24:00] architecture as a, a path to different, creating a different emergent future,

[00:24:06] the the future, Steven, be interested to understand what the impact of that was on your your parents and your family and if you've got siblings and how they saw the change in you.

[00:24:18] Stephen: me doing architecture,

[00:24:20] Mark: yeah, and just their observation and cause I suppose you talked about this almost like the way you talked about home as a sanctuary, 

[00:24:29] a place of love where you they would embrace you for who you were regardless of the behavior. And then they see you must have witnessed a change in you.

[00:24:37] in the direction. I just wonder how that was their reaction to that and then what led you from those streets of Bolton and the inner city Manchester to end up in a place like Cornwall, 

[00:24:48] Stephen: yeah, it is indeed, yeah. I think, I know my mum's very proud. of me. More proud than she would have been if, you know, we're still running around Manchester causing [00:25:00] trouble. But yeah, that's kind of been unconditional as well. You know, she's, she's always been proud of her kids. I've got two brothers there.

[00:25:07] Yeah. Interesting people in their own right. They've also been products in the same environment that I grew up in. My slightly younger brother, Matty. I don't think he'd mind me saying that he was probably wilder than me for a period. He sort of got out of it a lot faster than me as well. And you know, his life is dedicated to sport and family and his health now.

[00:25:34] Again, somebody that's been through an incredible change, you know, come out of an environment where there aren't a huge amount of options, you know, like the sort of main aspirations for people at our school, where are you either going to be a footballer? You're either going to get pregnant or you could be a drug dealer.

[00:25:52] They were the sort of like main career paths, you know? So we've all managed to navigate that somehow and do something [00:26:00] else. Well, actually my is a semi professional footballer. So we did take one of the classic options at our school. And then my younger brother, Mike significantly younger than both of us.

[00:26:10] And I think that he was exposed to, Misbehaviour at a young age and had more opportunity to reflect on whether that was actually going to be. a sensible way to live. I think, you know, me and Matty were, are two years apart. I was the first born. So I was sort of the, the battering ram exploring what was going on, you know, what can you do, what's fun and blah, blah, blah.

[00:26:38] And then Matty just sort of catching up in the, in the trail behind me becoming friends with a lot of the same people. And. Mike's the youngest brother, he's witnessed that, you know, from further away at an age where he can't just join in because it's happening. So I think that that was probably a useful [00:27:00] dynamic for him and yeah, we're very strong as a family now, you know, we've, we've seen a lot of chaos.

[00:27:08] Mainly caused by me and my brothers, but we've learned how to deal with it in a way you know, we've all grown significantly in a way that we wouldn't have done if that stuff hadn't happened in the same way, you know, me breaking my back and having to reflect on what am I doing? I wouldn't be sat here doing this now if that hadn't happened.

[00:27:31] So I wouldn't sort of wish problems onto myself or onto other people, but I have a very good friend who. is a psychologist and she says that I'm a crisis pervert because, you know, I'm always telling her these stories about all this terrible stuff that happened and how great it was and how much I learned and all that kinds of stuff.

[00:27:51] So yeah, I don't, I don't wish it to have happened, but at the same time, you know, you struggle to wish away what, you know, what you've learned as well. So [00:28:00] yeah, I think, yeah, I'm not sure if that answers the question about family and the dynamics, but yeah, there's a little bit of a tour of my brothers there 

[00:28:07] as well. 

[00:28:08] Mark: Where do you think your social conscience came from?

[00:28:10] Stephen: Maybe my mom. I think, I think it's come from a lot of places, mate, because I'm, you know, I very, very, very much avoided working at all costs and making money whatever way was possible. And, you know, that was partially because I like parties, but the parties were educational. In that, you know, you would meet people with really interesting points of view that would sort of direct me to, you know, different philosophies that would then read so, you know, my social conscience. I've read a lot of Buddhism, strangely enough, from someone of my background. A lot of it's derived from that. A lot of Stoicism. Yeah, it's, it's furnished in greater detail by texts, [00:29:00] you know, that I've read and taken to heart, but as a sort of, you know, intuitive thing within me, I'd probably say that's instilled by my mum, you know, I think me and my brothers were conscious that we were a bunch of dickheads sometimes and that we probably didn't deserve my mum's support and, you know, case for the defence, but she always made it, you know, And she did for a lot of our friends, you know, she would always stick up for kids like us.

[00:29:32] And that was, that was her job as well, to some degree, she is retired now but spent a long time as a district nurse, which is a really interesting role that under our current government the NHS will probably never see again. So she would go to visit families who had a kid that wasn't going to school, and that would be getting filed in the school as you know, a medical reason, and there'd be then some mild suspicion that [00:30:00] that medical reason wasn't legit.

[00:30:02] So a district nurse would then go around to see them and she could give medical advice whilst at the same time having a social lens on this. What's going on at home? Like, is everything okay? And she befriended Pretty much all of the families that she would go to visit and, you know, spent so much time with them over the long term.

[00:30:23] So she had all of these other satellite problematic families and kids dotted around the Northwest, around Greater Manchester. And she was very used to making the defense for them, you know, perhaps not articulated in a way that I might. With this, you know, philosophy of people being a product of their environment.

[00:30:45] But that was kind of how I think she observed it too. And something that I've probably absorbed from her subconsciously. In that, you know, she could go around and see a kid that's incredibly obese. You know, can't really get to school. [00:31:00] And she's then exposed to what the parents are feeding the kid. And the level of concern their parents have for what they're doing.

[00:31:07] She eats and then she can get to understand how much money the parents make and what can they actually afford and all this kinds of stuff. So, you know, she isn't a district nurse or in general district nurses weren't people that have, you know, a seven minute window to sit with you in the GP's office.

[00:31:22] Their job was to get to know you and what was going on. going on. And she didn't share, you know, every story of every family that she worked with, with us, because, you know, a lot of it was hard and a lot of the stories were quite dark, but I think inherently she, she was always there to defend them and try to help them, regardless of, you know, how terrible their behavior might have seemed in a moment.

[00:31:43] She was always conscious of, you know, it was a product of something much wider and something much deeper. And yeah, I would probably say that Got my moral compass from that, you know, there's a lot of stuff that I've read that's then layered over the top It's allowed it to be seen in clearer [00:32:00] detail. But I think that's where it's come from. 

[00:32:02] Mark: Yeah. just a an aside is, the, the, the destructive impact of the government on the NHS and the very fabric of what is core to British society. And it's the social contract with people. It's just, it's, it's devastating what's happened. hopefully, something positive can be rebuilt over the future in the coming years, but yeah, it's when I hear you talk about it, my niece in Dundee, she's district nurse, she's a similar, she's there in Dundee and I think she probably witnesses exactly some of the situations you're describing.

[00:32:41] Yeah, strange changing times. But anyway, aside from that tangent, it sort of does lead to then the third big question you've gone from from this fascinating journey the streets of Bolton and Manchester of parties the university of life, let's call it of self [00:33:00] education, taking agency The serendipitous accident that led you to then self reflect and go off in a different direction.

[00:33:08] Now that you're, settled with dog and quiet life and busy work in rural, let's say, Cornwall, what are you working to achieve or impact? Before you shuffle off this mortal coil. 

[00:33:23] Stephen: there's a few ways to answer it. I think in terms of who I am personally and what I'm trying to achieve, I'm still really interested in what I'm capable of. And that's, yeah, been the theme throughout my life, whether it has been parties or cycling or whatever. I'm interested in agency and autonomy and self exploration, new experiences, not necessarily, you know, big, bold, novel, exciting experiences.

[00:33:50] learning to experience self discipline, you know, after spending a lot of time on drugs was a new high of sorts. So it kind of moves in lots [00:34:00] of ways and takes on lots of forms, but still interested in that. Uh, A lot of that is now rooted into inside my professional life and then working in the industry that I do, that's less and less about, you know, what am I personally capable of?

[00:34:19] Well, I guess it is still about that, but it's less. It's certainly not autonomous, you know, I'm sort of finding ambitions, objectives and so on, which are composed into the context of where I live, the context of the globe, things like climate change, social issues and so on. So I have ambitions in that respect.

[00:34:40] I definitely have a lot of drive to understand, you know, can I actually accomplish that perhaps driven just out of curiosity? I mean, we've all got to do something and I kind of want it to be exciting and I want to keep having fun and self discovery is kind of where I [00:35:00] found my fun. So yeah, in a sort of sober rural town or a sober time of life in a small rural town.

[00:35:07] A lot of that is then about, all right, what can I do professionally, like how useful can I be professionally, how can I be of service to people locally, to the world, those kinds of things. I think to sort of get out of the abstract and into, you know, what's happening on the ground. I'm interested in localization to the greatest possible extent, you know, sort of taking an interpretation of climate change and global economics and so on.

[00:35:37] The most sensible thing that I think we can do is localize. And I think that there's a number of reasons to that, which don't necessarily need to get all the way through, but global supply. It's precarious. Global food is precarious. I'm interested in, you know, putting on sensible [00:36:00] bets based on probability when I make decisions in life and business and so on, and betting on the continuity of the global food system or global supply systems.

[00:36:11] That doesn't seem like a very sensible bet to me. Like the sensible bet is. On localization in the sense that if we're going to avoid problems with the global food system, some of the craziest people on earth, you know, are going to have to have massive change of heart about what they're doing and what their outlook is in the next one to two years.

[00:36:34] And that historically hasn't happened. You know, where hasn't just been a sudden realization amongst the. community of billionaires that we're collectively going to have to stop fucking around and start thinking about what's good for everybody else. So I'm not saying that can't happen, but I would say the probability is that it isn't going to happen in the next one to two years.

[00:36:58] And on that basis, the [00:37:00] science is there, food scarcity via a global food system is probably going to happen. So if that happens and you start to forecast, what does the place where I live look like? Cornwall's got a lot of agricultural land, a lot of that food gets exported, it's still got a decent amount of small local growers and a decent food system.

[00:37:21] So building that out seems like a sensible thing to do. Then you can apply the same logic to practically everything else, right? So, you know, if it's construction, you're looking at bioregional construction materials from a design perspective, from an architectural design perspective, you're thinking about those materials, but you're also thinking about The other industries like food, you know, how can you support the local food system through architecture?

[00:37:44] So we primarily work in agricultural contexts for that reason. The other thing that's precarious, not just because. of prospective food scarcity, but because of other issues we've got going on politically and how we [00:38:00] relate to information and communicate is community. The social fabric isn't necessarily looking like it could survive or stand up in a safe and rational way to food scarcity.

[00:38:14] So you're also thinking about how do you build communities? You know, what is the architecture of communities, not just the hard stuff, but the soft stuff. So we try to attend to that as well. That's kind of what is in localization to the greatest possible extent, which I would say is sort of my mission from here forwards until, you know, I get run over again on something changes, you know, but at the moment that feels like, you know, I could dedicate my life to that in the, you know, it feels like climate change isn't going away.

[00:38:49] In my lifetime, it's probably going to get more severe in my lifetime. So as you know, what am I trying to achieve? Yeah. Localization is it really that doesn't just have [00:39:00] to, you know, deal with the practicalities of every day life. It also applies to my attention and my outlook on things. Like I'm increasingly interested in just being in Cornwall and less interested in leaving traveling and so on, just becoming more and more fascinated with Where I live in greater detail, trying to, you know, break fascination with novelty and seeing rootedness as a novelty in and of itself and trying to think about localization in that way to, you know, how do I localize not just what my practical needs are, the practical needs are of others, but what do I pay attention to?

[00:39:39] Like what actually entertains me? What, what is my life made up of? How do I localize all of that? So yeah, that's kind of it I think. For the rest of my time on this mortal coil 

[00:39:50] Mark: during COVID, when myself and Elaine, my partner, we were living in New York one of our friends and actually a guest on, on the [00:40:00] podcast as well. She. asked us to work with her on a project we call Back the Neighborhood, which was in the West Village where she lived, very affluent part of New York.

[00:40:11] She'd witnessed the gentrification of streets like Bleecker Street, which we used to have lots of mom and pop shops on there, local businesses being ripped apart pre COVID, and then with COVID, them disappearing. And suddenly you've got these shuttered shops came from these global brands and all of these people from Russia and China that bought a property went silent.

[00:40:36] There weren't people at all anywhere and the impact on the neighborhood and she felt we need to re knit the fabric of the neighborhood because New York might be this amazing global city, but it basically it's it's character. is built on the, of, on the, the personality and the uniqueness of each individual neighborhood, which there are so many.

[00:40:57] And you said, let's start with [00:41:00] working out how do you re knit the fabric of a neighborhood post COVID? How do you engage restaurateurs, retailers, and residents to have a conversation together again, to take ownership of their locality? How do you get them to start to buy local? How do you go to the. The, the local schools to get them to buy from local farms and create regenerative farming and to use the spaces on the rooftops to start to create micro farms.

[00:41:32] So we went through this whole process over a two year period and had some fascinating conversations around where this could go and built a network of people. And then unfortunately, we, we moved to Austin in Texas and the thing died to death. But as you're talking, it just completely resonates with me.

[00:41:52] And, and, and I feel that you're absolutely right. And I've had some really interesting conversations with it. Well, in in Austin, [00:42:00] before I left with a guy called Michael Malice, who's written a book called the Anarchist handbook, and he believes that the future is based on anarchy, not on chaos, but anarchy's principle is that it's ground up governance by communities of people looking after their own interests.

[00:42:21] Rather than being controlled by the top down, telling governments, saying this is how you have to live and this is how you work, that it's based on communities, communes collaborating, taking, responsibility for each other, looking after each other. Still having systems, but the way that people perceive anarchy is that it's chaos and it's destruction.

[00:42:44] It's not, it's actually about constructive communities. And I think as you're talking about it, it, it resonates. And it also resonates. I don't know if you're familiar with John Alexander.

[00:42:55] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:42:56] Mark: John, John introduced me to Gavin Fernie [00:43:00] Jones, and John's written that book Citizens, Yeah. what he's doing is saying we're moving away from the consumer story and the subject story to the citizen story, and as you're talking about local, it, it completely, embraces all the principles he's talking about in the citizen story, and I think as we, as we, as the global system, Fragments and and 

[00:43:24] Stephen: Um, Yeah. 

[00:43:25] Mark: systems start to deteriorate, we are going to have to take responsibility for our locale, whether that be in Austin, whether it be in a district in London or Bolton or Edinburgh or, where I'm living now in California, are. And it's up to us all to take agency and do, and almost take a lead from what people like you and Gavin Fernie Jones are doing and starting to, to use the term I use for Back the Neighborhood, which is re knit the fabric of our neighborhoods or local, [00:44:00] local area.

[00:44:00] Stephen: Yeah, yeah, that'd be a tough gig in Bolton. I wouldn't want to be in Bolton for the end of the world. I would certainly do me very best if I was there, but crikey. It feels easier to think about that kind of thing in Cornwall when you're sort of surrounded by your primary resources and farms and friends and grow food and all that kinds of stuff.

[00:44:22] But yeah, I mean a lot of that makes a lot of sense to me. Mate, I think I was, Really drawn to philosophical anarchism. And I think the key takeaway in that, for me at least, was again, compatible with, you know, my ideals around localism in the sense that I sort of gleaned that what creates order, you know, without law is ultimately just moral knowledge, moral sensibility.

[00:44:51] The more we empathize, the more we. Take the time to ask ourselves, what is it to live a good life and actually try to [00:45:00] answer that question in practice. The better we get at working together and being together to the extent that one day you might not need a police force and so on. The practicalities of that, you know, you can't drop it in overnight.

[00:45:14] You know, it's a, it's a, it's a cathedral building project ultimately, isn't it? You sort of hold your ground and you maintain that philosophy and try to do right by people. And you ask yourself, what's the right thing to do? How do I live a good life? And just imagine that other people are doing the same thing.

[00:45:30] Believe that they are that they will do after you and let it grow from there. So, yeah, Probably in

[00:45:37] agreement with you, mate.

[00:45:38] Mark: so talk about something tangible. So you have a, you've got a practice called social designs and you're doing things with people and you're involved in, in food security, you're, you're involved in exploring new materials for, for building. Can, can you give some examples of just how, this local, let's call it localism is [00:46:00] manifesting 

[00:46:00] Stephen: Yeah. 

[00:46:01] Mark: and, and the agency and the work and the impact you're having?

[00:46:04] Stephen: Yeah, for sure. So in terms of how does architecture localize the food system in a sensible way in Cornwall, there is a, I'm not sure if you can call it new. It's newly coined a community growing scheme, but people have probably certainly been doing this for a lot longer than the term exists to term has existed.

[00:46:26] It's essentially people co managing. An agricultural site, mostly volunteers, generally not for profit. They're spaces where people can come together to meet one another, to get their hands in the ground. Feel like they're doing something tangible in terms of, Ah, the world's on fire, I'm waving a sign, nothing's changing.

[00:46:49] You go to a community growing scheme, you can plant a tree and immediately feel better about that. They produce food, you know, that's a big component of it, but they produce community [00:47:00] too, which is very attractive to me. So that's kind of. You know, our dream market is those kinds of projects in terms of whether it is, or isn't a market.

[00:47:12] That's kind of why our company is set up as a not for profit, the architectural practice. So, there is an architecture, there is a market for architecture in Cornwall, but generally the clients that come out of that, they don't want to do anything useful from my perspective, at least not useful for the world.

[00:47:29] And, you know, residents in London who want a second home on the coast for two weeks out of the year and all that kinds of stuff. So it's, it's hard to sort of open a practice and just be commercially available to whatever the market offers. So we set up by accident. We were volunteers, local community growing scheme, love land.

[00:47:49] And we were volunteering. Digging holes and so on after a bit, we sort of said, we have all the skills. We don't need to dig holes. What else, you know, can we do in [00:48:00] this kind of context? So we started hosting consultations with the community up there doing site planning. The idea of a building comes up a number of times.

[00:48:09] So we're thinking about that. And then we're thinking about how much work do you actually need to do to get a funding bid together to pay for a building? And there's definitely some, you know, so if there's no starting capital for that piece of work, how does a community group, whether it's local food system or it's, you know, community led housing or whatever, how do they get to a point where they've got A bit that's informed enough to win 200 grand, you know, I need 200 grand for a building.

[00:48:36] I have no fucking idea what I'm going to spend it on. No one's going to give you that money. Right? So we looked at that and said, all right, well, what if you, you volunteer in any way? What if you just volunteered to do something that uses more of your skillset as a way to sort of assist with architectural proposals from a much earlier stage or from a different angle from how it's usually done.

[00:48:55] We did that with our community group as a part of the community [00:49:00] group and got a bit of funding to do some design work. That community, that site is a part of Farmers Food Cooperative, which is a collection of like 26, 27 small organic growers and different food hubs, cooperatives, and so on. Someone from within that approached us from another site and said, you know, can you help us with our Our barn and our site, you know, we want it to have community uses similar to what we've been doing at Loveland where we'd met.

[00:49:28] So we said, yeah, we'll do that. And we incorporated the company around these two projects. You know, it was a case of, all right, there's something in this, you know, we haven't done any marketing. We've got no startup capital, but, you know, a couple of projects have just appeared because people can see that we're on their level.

[00:49:43] You know, we're just volunteers getting muddy in a field, getting stuck in trying to do the right thing. And. That's something that people have valued. That's something that we've not really had to tweak. You know, in terms of how do we market what we do, to be completely frank, [00:50:00] most climate activists are sceptics.

[00:50:02] So you couldn't really pull the wool over their eyes with any fancy marketing anyway. But in terms of how we find a market, we just don't. crack on doing the right thing with our community, with other communities, lots of networks around Cornwall, you know, people find out about that and the business has just been built out of that basically.

[00:50:19] It's gone pretty well. So community buildings on, you know, community growing schemes, they're really beneficial for the local food system. So that's how we're approaching that in terms of what else can you intersect with it. We do skills training as well. My partner, Fran, is my romantic partner and my business partner.

[00:50:42] She's also a builder. So she teaches women and girls how to build carpentry and so on with a group of other women who are affiliated with social designs. We generally build with an all female [00:51:00] team, offer apprenticeships to women to get into the construction industry, which is Typically not that easy to get into as a woman that's been successful.

[00:51:08] We did that throughout a full build on, an agricultural site over in St. Agnes in Cornwall. We were looking at other ways to do skills training Through that project, we were also looking at ways to get hempcrete into the project. Very tight budget. Again, started with no money, so we've been there all the way with the client.

[00:51:28] Not just trying to raise money for the building, but for our own fees, done that through crowdfunders grant applications and so on. And very tight budget. Didn't really have enough money for hemp Creek started building. Then we were asking ourselves, all right, there might be some other ways of doing this.

[00:51:45] A friend of ours heard about skills, grant skills, training grant, which would pay for the materials on the basis that we were upscaling people to work with the material. So again, very informal, you know, tangential solution, but we managed us to get. [00:52:00] hempcrete into the building. We managed to create a budget for that by making it a skills training thing.

[00:52:04] So offered a two day course with a friend of ours who's a bit of an expert with hempcrete. That's kind of how it all takes shape. You know, you can sort of map out architectural processes in a neat and tidy way, but when you're doing grassroots stuff, when you're working with communities, you've got to be really agile.

[00:52:23] You've got to look at different ways of getting things in. So I would say that that's a particular strength of ours that we. We know that I think if you're a conventional practice and you try to Get your head around it and do it It would be really hard to sort of map on to standardized processes. So we're advantaged by that somewhat we're advantaged by the fact that we genuinely want to do things differently.

[00:52:47] So, you know, we're not just trying to tap into a different market and people respect it. People come to us with, you know, ideas that are not architectural, you know, relates to it in some fashion, but the Hemp Creek thing, that was [00:53:00] a friend of ours who met some people who had a fund to put them in touch with those and said, Would you do the skills training?

[00:53:06] You could potentially get the hemp in. So again, there's a nice informal network behind all of that kinds of stuff.

[00:53:11] Mark: so people, people that don't know what hempcrete

[00:53:14] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:53:15] Mark: can you explain?

[00:53:16] Stephen: Yeah. So it's hemp shiv. So you have the hemp plant, that needs to be decorticated. Once it's, once it's grown, that separates out the fire and the shiv. The shiv is then mixed with lime that binds together. You can cast it. That makes. Hempcrete is a very good material, there are some cases where it might not be carbon negative, but generally is carbon negative.

[00:53:43] It's a solution for sure, you know, there's no more data that anybody needs to come up with to suggest that hempcrete is a solution for the construction industry. It absolutely is. It's insulative, some people suspect that it could be structural, [00:54:00] but there isn't quite enough evidence for that at this

[00:54:03] moment in time. Structural.

[00:54:05] So can it hold weight? So if you had a structural timber, and it was holding up a roof, and you took that timber out and you put some columns made of hempcrete, it's probably going to fall down. I've seen people experiment with, you know, archways and so on made out of hempcrete. They stand up, but they're only really holding their own weight.

[00:54:24] So some experiments to do that, but you can, you can build houses with it. You know, you can use that as the predominant material. In a house and register a carbon negative house.

[00:54:35] Mark: because many people don't realize how carbon, the impact on carbon emissions that concrete is 

[00:54:43] Stephen: Yeah. 

[00:54:43] Mark: industry.

[00:54:44] Stephen: Yeah. It's wildly. I mean, the construction industry, not just concrete, I think it's like 39 percent of all global carbon emissions. So it's a lot. And that isn't just related to materials, I guess, on some level. Related [00:55:00] to clients, developers, the general ambition for a project, you know, if you want to build a, if you want to build the biggest skyscraper in the world, you know, you're not going to make it out of hemp, you know?

[00:55:11] So there's a sort of thing around the intention as well, when you think about the emissions. So yeah, we're, we're very much interested in, in hemp and that's not really limited to it being carbon negative and trying to get it into our projects, it's. It's an industry, you know, there's a, there's a, there's an industry in hemp that the UK doesn't, doesn't really tap into and there's a market for it.

[00:55:36] You know, there's increasing pressure in the construction industry to reduce carbon emissions. Here is a solution. If you can introduce that to a locality, such as Cornwall, the economic impact is absolutely massive. And you can sort of look at issues that we have in Cornwall around housing in the round.

[00:55:57] You definitely need more economic [00:56:00] diversity to situate a housing solution in because predominantly after agriculture, just tourism, you know, tourism has a demand for housing stock, which it usually gets because tourism also creates a pretty crap labor market, which creates disparity between the cost of a house and what local people can earn obstructing tourism isn't necessarily a solution.

[00:56:23] But. If you could have built up economic diversity around tourism, if you could create new industries that would compete with tourism in the labor market and for space, you know, industrially, then that's kind of how my brain works in terms of what do you do about housing in a place like Cornwall. I'm interested in it in that sense as well.

[00:56:45] What could it actually mean for Cornwall economically if an industrial hemp processing facility was here, you know, if all of that was unlocked, it could mean a lot. Yeah, I have quite broad ambitions around [00:57:00] hemp and where it might go. 

[00:57:02] Mark: And you talked about the, having to be agile in terms of raising funds. So when you start off a project, like you mentioned a 200, 000 requirement to build, how do you go about finding that funding? And what sort of sources do you, you seek out?

[00:57:18] Stephen: What if there's, if you've got a client with no money, grants, make grants, you kind of have on your radar, all of the big grants that are available all of the time. So, and it's not just us who have the money. There is a really big, really strong network of community activists, environmental activists and so on in Cornwall.

[00:57:44] Too many WhatsApp groups to keep track of. But, you know, people are on a level, they're all on the same team, ultimately. Everyone's got a clear sense of that. So if a new fund comes out, somebody will tell you really, really quickly. You know, if [00:58:00] I see a fund when I'm scanning around and it matches my mate's projects, I'll tell them really, really quickly.

[00:58:06] So if it's all going to be grant funded, then it would be pretty rare. If the appropriate fund didn't show up on the community radar, so to speak. So that's one way of approaching it. Other way of approaching it is, is crowd funders crowd funders are pretty successful for us historically, just been a big crowd funder at Loveland, our community growing scheme and.

[00:58:33] Mark: It's called, what, Love Land?

[00:58:35] Stephen: is just off love lane. So it's not quite as cheesy a name as it sounds. And that was. Match funded five times, you know, so for every pound that was donated, it generated five quid. And that was from, you know, different grants, different support schemes and so on. And none of this stuff is nailed on. You can find funding for the right ideas, you know, whether it's a [00:59:00] Tory government, a Labour government or whatever. If you're trying to build communities, if you're trying to reduce carbon emissions, all that kinds of stuff. And, you know, if a lot of this stuff's getting filed under not for profit organizations, there are grants for that.

[00:59:14] It's not quite consistent enough, you know, to plan the rest of your life around it. And we're, you know, trying to plan other ways Making income, diversifying what we offer and so on, but it does work, you know? 

[00:59:27] Mark: So how do you then collaborate with things like local local authorities, and agencies, government agencies that are committed to I mean, obviously, the UK, even though it's outside of Europe now, still has commitments to climate actions, and then meeting targets, and you're, everything you're doing, the way you describe it, probably tick off quite a few of the global goals, in terms of the impact you're having, so these SDGs, you're having a positive impact at a hyper [01:00:00] local level, I think.

[01:00:00] Stephen: yeah. 

[01:00:01] Mark: Surely, they must be interested in what you're doing to look at how you could scale what you're doing. Not scale as in make it non

[01:00:09] Stephen: I'm with you though, yeah. 

[01:00:10] Mark: local.

[01:00:11] Stephen: Yeah, I mean, we've had a lot of conversations around that over the last year, and I think in terms of engaging local authorities and so on, we've done a lot of that, but on a project by project basis, so inevitably, you know, you're looking at interesting policies or trying to find an angle, you've got to engage with somebody.

[01:00:33] If there's a grant, you know, again, same situation, lots of conversations, working together to try and come up with a solution. And then I think in terms of, more recently we've been dreaming up some schemes and agreed some partnerships with some people who could potentially fund some of this stuff privately. And there is a model there. Yeah. And [01:01:00] it is kind of as you hinted. Lots of hyper local sites network together, all from Schumacher's playbook, from All is Beautiful, really,

[01:01:10] and some other writers of a similar perspective. So, yeah, there are then conversations with local authorities, with people in different, positions.

[01:01:23] A lot of it, a lot of it comes, comes down to capacity, really. I think that growing up, you know, being in parties and all that kind of stuff, I was very much, politics has got nothing to do with me. It's a load of rubbish, they're not doing anything for us, I'm not doing anything for them, just closed off, put some techno on, we'll just crack on with this. And that was it, really. But, you know, as I've sort of matured and softened up, I've got to know a lot of people who work in government, in politics, and they're doing their best, they genuinely are doing their best, you know, their heart's in the right place.

[01:01:56] The thing that seemingly inhibits them the most [01:02:00] is their own capacity, or the capacity that they're offered in the role that they have. And the interdepartmental communications, you know, for example, the planning department is not the policy department, so you can have someone come up with a brilliant new policy.

[01:02:13] That the planners have never heard of. And then you make a planning application based on this policy. And they're like, what the fuck's this? And then you've got to educate them. So, you know, if you were to look at those two prevailing issues around capacity and, you know, lack of dialogue between departments, the way I sort of interpret my role as a change maker or whatever I am today, I've got to make their job easier.

[01:02:35] That's, that's the gig, you know, if you sort of go in with like a big broad question and no solutions, they'll be like, all right, yeah, I mean, I agree, but I don't have any capacity or any budget. And if you can sort of show up with a solution, then, you know, you find the person who's got the right in the right place, then, then you'll get paid.

[01:02:51] You know, a lot of doors opened really quickly. There was a lady I met in, I was on a research tour after I finished my undergraduate, and [01:03:00] she delivered some big community led housing schemes in the Netherlands. And the way that she'd done that was to prepare them largely in the background over a number of years, fully confident that the municipality had promised X amount of houses and weren't going to deliver on it.

[01:03:15] And then within range of an election, She showed up with a ready made solution and said, remember that promise you made that you're not going to keep, well, it's here, I need this money and this, and this, and this. And they said, yes. And that was, you know, very formative in my career as somebody working as an amateur entrepreneur in architecture or whatever.

[01:03:36] And that was really, really, really powerful. You know, all she'd done was just made that job as easy as it could possibly be. She knew that there were people with delegated authority that could make a decision on something like that, who wanted to make a decision like that, but just have no capacity to actually come up with the solution themselves.

[01:03:55] So probably some kind of informal link where, you know, there's a dialogue. [01:04:00] If you can prep it for this point, we can do it. I won't pretend that there is an informal dialogue in Cornwall between people in positions of power and people on the ground. Again, there is a lot of people who know with confidence that they're on the same team.

[01:04:12] So. That's about as far as I go in terms of how to engage with local authorities and practice with politics and practice. They're not against the ideas, they've just got no time to do anything about them. So come up with the ideas, don't whinge about it too much, just come up with the ideas, come up with the solutions and then put it in front of them and that's, that's kind of how It's worked strategically so far.

[01:04:35] Mark: What about philanthropists?

[01:04:38] Stephen: We're just getting to know a bit more about this actually. Yeah, there are, there are some good philanthropic funds in Cornwall, Cornwall Community Foundation, for example. A great front is drawn from a variety of different places, supports local businesses, primarily social enterprises like us, which is very useful.

[01:04:59] We're [01:05:00] learning a bit more about it because the partnerships that we're finding out the moment are with. Commercial partners, people not used to the social enterprise world, and they're introducing us to all sorts of, you know, mechanisms where having a social enterprise as a vehicle could be of great utility in these partnerships, not as a way to, you know, do anything that shouldn't be done, but.

[01:05:27] It's, it's fascinating. It's really, really eyeopening. You know, we've always worked at the grassroots and always looked at, all right, these are the application forms. These are the funding criteria and so on. Whereas there are ways to be introduced to our philanthropists, not a philanthropic fund who can make a donation directly to an idea.

[01:05:47] And we had no idea about that, you know? So it's just the case of us moving forward with open eyes and open ears, talking to new people. It's in different worlds ultimately, you know, as a sort of young [01:06:00] idealist, I wouldn't have dreamed of, you know, partnering up with big commercial entities and so on, but some of them have got the same ideals.

[01:06:08] They just have a different way of expressing it, you know, they've arrived there from a different trajectory to me. And yeah, you then see all of these other doors you didn't know existed. And it's really, really interesting. So yeah, philanthropists, I would imagine will play a big role. with the park in our lives over the next five years, I think.

[01:06:26] Mark: I used to when I was working for big ad agency, I did a lot of work with Ikea and Ikea have a massive part of their business called the Ikea foundation. And they're very much focused on, education and, mean, you're building, Ikea is all about building things together. So I think you should make contact with some people in the Ikea Foundation

[01:06:52] Stephen: Okay.

[01:06:53] Mark: and get on their radar.

[01:06:55] Stephen: Yeah. I'm up for that, mate. If you've got any phone numbers, give us a shout.

[01:06:59] Mark: [01:07:00] Yeah, I do. I've got someone I can connect you with.

[01:07:02] Stephen: All right. Brilliant. 

[01:07:04] Mark: So if you were, if you were, let's say transported back to Bolton, where would you start

[01:07:10] Stephen: I don't know. I really, really don't. Yeah. That's why I said, you know, before a little bit tongue in cheek, it's, I don't, I don't know what to do in an urban location. You know, it's, And I mean that professionally, I think Cornwall is, is, is unique and I know everywhere is unique in a particular way, but in practical terms, it's, it's an island, you know, it's right at the end of the line. The roads are not like they are in the rest of the country, or, you know, I'm sure Devin would have something to say about that.

[01:07:46] Mark: West Coast of Scotland.

[01:07:48] Stephen: Yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not going to group you guys in with the rest of the country. It's not, it's not quite fair to group the Cornish in either. I'm not sure they'd all be that happy about that. So I might retrace my steps there as well, but [01:08:00] it is an Island. You know, there's so much opportunity in terms of the resources.

[01:08:05] If you can come up with the schemes, the models and implement them, we've got land, you know, we produce a lot of food. We've got two coastlines, we've got offshore power at sea, we've got geothermal wells at Eden and another one, United Downs. We've got so many opportunities to pull together radical, resilient systems.

[01:08:29] And I didn't move here knowing that, but you know, as I've sort of, all right, what am I going to do in practice? Like, how am I going to do the right thing for where we're heading? And you sort of look at this as here's your canvas, right? Let's just Accept or, you know, assume that architecture is an art and you're looking at this landscape, this is your canvas.

[01:08:47] It's like bloody hell,

[01:08:48] Mark: Huh.

[01:08:48] Stephen: I couldn't do this in Bolton. You know, I couldn't imagine setting up a geothermal well in Bolton. I couldn't imagine, you know, having a hundred mates who, you know, have a hundred farms. I couldn't [01:09:00] imagine where to begin. I'm not saying that it's impossible, but the more complexity you have, In a system, you know, for example, a city, the harder it is to model and I'm not one of these utopians that thinks we'll just get it to click and happily ever permaculture, I think there's always going to be variants and disturbance and we're always going to have to adapt and evolve the level of disturbance in a city compared to a place like Cornwall is different.

[01:09:33] You know, it isn't predictable, but it's more predictable. So I don't know, I honestly, and it nags me to death, mate. You know, like, I'm, I'm passionate about where I grew up and I care about it deeply. I care about people's plight and trying to create ways for them not quite escape, but to, you know, just sort of claim some agency and do something else other than what seems [01:10:00] to be So I have no ideas how to, how to deal with that.

[01:10:04] I've got friends in London who work in a similar way to us in architecture and they describe it as being on the front lines of capitalism. And I think that's a very noble 

[01:10:13] on the front, the front, lines of capitalism. When I talk about, you know, it's a bit mad, isn't it? London, have you ever thought about living in the sticks?

[01:10:20] And I kind of get that perspective. I can't argue against it, but. I don't know. Pick your battles is kind of where I'm at with it. I don't, I don't know if humanity is going to win in London, in Manchester. I don't know if it is. Whereas in Cornwall, maybe there's a better shot at it. So yeah, no solutions for urban environments, sadly.

[01:10:42] Not from me. 

[01:10:43] Mark: For now. 

[01:10:43] Stephen: any at all.

[01:10:44] Mark: For now. 

[01:10:46] Stephen: bleak.

[01:10:46] Mark: For now, let's just say.

[01:10:48] Stephen: Yeah,

[01:10:49] Mark: We'll come back later and find out yeah, you've changed your mind. Can I do some personal questions?

[01:10:55] Stephen: yeah, sure.

[01:10:57] Mark: Who or what inspires you to get [01:11:00] up and keep changing the world for the better?

[01:11:02] Stephen: What inspires me? I've got to say my mum, haven't I? I've been talking about my mum a lot. So I might as well keep that theme going. Yeah, I mean, in terms of being inspired and like, my life is hard, but it's hard through my own making because of my own ambitions and all that kinds of stuff. It's not to say, you know, my mum having kids and whatever wasn't her own making, but you know, there were just external factors there that weren't optional for her, which are for me, and seeing how much she contended with.

[01:11:35] You know, she had three kids, three jobs, and two to three dogs at any one time. And she, she just dealt with it, you know, and I'm not, again, going back to, I don't, I wouldn't wish that hardship on her, but in terms of, you know, what's inspiring, you know, what can people accomplish? You can sort of look at, you know, very wealthy people, very innovative people, people who've accomplished what [01:12:00] appear to be the accolades of the status quo.

[01:12:04] What I enjoy about people is. What you see on a daily basis that is just so unbearably fucking hard. I don't enjoy that it's hard for them, but just seeing that they can overcome it in a way that's completely boring to, you know, elite accolades. And I saw my mum do that every single day. So I'm inspired by that.

[01:12:24] That just sort of shows me what people are capable of and have had close proximity all the time. What inspires me to keep going? But then it's also a question about like, what's the point, isn't it? It's like, here's what someone's capable of, but what's the point? You've got to do something, haven't you?

[01:12:50] I think that seems like a very underwhelming answer, given how motivated I might seem to be, but I [01:13:00] don't know, I've had some philosophical escapades into nihilism and existentialism, not just on a personal level, but in literature, reading about these topics. And there's a really interesting sentiment, from Sartre that man is condemned to be free, you have to excuse the pronouns.

[01:13:24] On that book, it's a really interesting line, you know? So even if I don't want to do anything, I've got to do something, do you know what I mean? There isn't an exit that I can take. So on that basis, it's like, well, I might as well do something good, right? I might as well have fun. I might as well recognize that this is a gift and.

[01:13:44] You know, I can sort of hark back to the past version of myself that was inches away from being dead or paralyzed or whatever after the cycling accident. And. In that year, you know, the conversation I was having with [01:14:00] myself about, you know, I would do anything to just ride a bike again. I will settle for that just to ride a bike again.

[01:14:05] And then now that's just a bonus and gift always. And, you know, we'll sort of see life in that same way, you know, coming up close to the fragility of it. It just shows you how much you should value it. And I think that I can't ever see that fire going out. You know, that, that, that is sort of what I'm aiming at, but also another thing that keeps me going, you know, so there's a sort of fire in the belly of.

[01:14:34] Bloody hell, you nearly lost this, but then at the same time, you've still got it, so, you know, go and do something incredible and enjoy it. So, yeah, I don't, I don't usually struggle for motivation unless, or inspiration, unless I'm doing admin, which I'm completely allergic to. I come out in hives if I try to fill in a form.

[01:14:54] Mark: Are you still cycling then?

[01:14:56] Stephen: Yes, yes I am indeed, but yeah.

[01:14:59] Mark: But not, [01:15:00] but not 60 miles.

[01:15:02] Stephen: I'm still cycling 60 and more still, yeah. I'm into, I'm into long distance cycling. I'm interested in all types of cycling to be honest, but yeah, long distance is kind of what I fell in love with. For a variety of reasons. Got into, you know, how fast can you go and blah blah blah, but it's very fleeting.

[01:15:27] You know, in that sort of realm of I've never done this before. I've never accomplished this before. I've never gone that fast before. It lasts like a split second. Whereas like, if you can cycle past a point that you've never cycled past before in terms of your mileage, you know, this is the first time I've cycled over a hundred miles.

[01:15:44] And now that I've gone past a hundred miles. I can just stay there for as long as I can. And that feeling of fucking hell, I didn't know I could do this. It just goes and goes and goes and goes and goes. And the sort of energy that I find in that space where, and it's not just limited [01:16:00] to cycling, but where it's fucking hell, didn't think I could do this.

[01:16:03] And I'm doing it. 

[01:16:04] Mark: huh. 

[01:16:05] Stephen: I just dragged more and more energy out of me. So same with the bikes, mate. I think a lot of that's been honed on the bikes. Like how far can you go? I'm a lunatic recycling mate, I've done

[01:16:15] Mark: That's really interesting. Have you, 

[01:16:17] Stephen: long rides. 

[01:16:18] 

[01:16:21] Mark: yeah, are you watching the Tour de France?

[01:16:23] Stephen: I am, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Are

[01:16:26] Mark: I started what, I haven't yet cause we don't, we don't have a TV service here. So anything I watch is just catching up videos on YouTube, but I did, I've got Netflix account and I've been watching the documentary. It's just, I don't know if it's just come out, but it's all about Lance Armstrong,

[01:16:49] Stephen: Right, interesting.

[01:16:50] Mark: which is, which is quite interesting cause he's such a divisive character,

[01:16:55] Stephen: Yeah.

[01:16:55] Mark: but it's really interesting hearing just isn't he? the, [01:17:00] the old stories.

[01:17:02] Of the drug taking and his competitors and it's getting really deep into his psyche Mm. I think it's I won't say any more. It's really it's really interesting. It's worth watching.

[01:17:12] Stephen: How new is that one?

[01:17:14] Mark: I think it's just out I do think it's new. Yeah, because 

[01:17:19] Stephen: shows to us in the States? Okay. Let me know, I'm a

[01:17:23] scamp.

[01:17:23] Mark: Probably but I can tell I can turn on my vpn and i'll turn on my I'll turn on my vpn for the uk and see if I can see it in 

[01:17:31] Stephen: All right, sounds good, sounds good.

[01:17:33] Mark: What principles do you live by or standby? 

[01:17:38] Stephen: It's a tricky question for me because of all my sort of flappy answers that don't really pen anything down because that is generally how I feel about stuff. There is a principle in that you know, I suppose about change and the continuity of change throughout life and so on. There's [01:18:00] some of the stuff that's a bit more solid.

[01:18:03] I think that in principle, I don't think people are inherently wicked or selfish don't necessarily think that they're inherently good either. I think if I had to put a bet on, I would say that we're intuitively good to one another and in an evolutionary sense, that makes more sense. Doesn't it? Like we've lived in communities.

[01:18:29] If it was everyone for themselves, then how the fuck did we end up in villages in the first place? So, I would say that I believe that in principle, and then in terms of what do you do with that in practice? It's bad incentives, you know, we're incentivized to be selfish by systems that surround us. So, if people are being wicked, I think it's really important [01:19:00] to remember that.

[01:19:00] They're probably not inherently wicked, you know, they're growing up in desperate circumstances with bad incentives And yeah, you can sort of then look at people who are not desperate You've got all the money in the world that were being wicked and whatever but still, you know If you're just surrounded by bad incentives and that perspective is never interrupted then

[01:19:21] Mark: how do you deal with uncertainty and doubt?

[01:19:23] Stephen: Um, I feel okay. Kind of gotten used to it and accepted it. And embraced it. I think that life isn't certain. It isn't predictable. And I think coming to terms with fact, it allows you to see uncertainty as a part of the opportunity. And

[01:19:48] one way of explaining it is perhaps through my personal experiences as an overthinker, which is. You know how I might have titled myself [01:20:00] for a number of years and then through meditation and other practices I've come to terms with how much stuff is actually going on in my head and arrived at a place where all of these things that I am thinking about no longer require a conclusion.

[01:20:23] You know overthinking is problematic when you've kind of Got to dovetail everything into a conclusive answer and then you can file that thought away and put it in a box Which is that doesn't feel very sensible to me So instead my mind feels more like a an infinite number of television channels that I can tune into or not tune into They're all there.

[01:20:46] They're all going on all of the time, but they don't need conclusive answers You know, they don't need wrapping up in any way. I can just not pay attention to them And I sort of see that as, you know, a way to look outwardly into the world as [01:21:00] well. It is uncertain, you know, you can't sort of control the world and force it to do what you want it to do.

[01:21:07] It's just going to keep playing out in the way that your thoughts are. And you can pay attention to aspects of the world and engage with those aspects of the world. And maybe they'll go somewhere, but in the same way that, you know, you start thinking about something, you can't foresee where your thoughts are going to go.

[01:21:22] You can't foresee where the world is going to go. You can engage with it, or you can not engage with it, but to sort of come up with some way of dealing with uncertainty, which somehow falsifies that there isn't any, I think that's more of an issue than uncertainty itself. I think sort of just getting closer to the fact that that's inevitable and always the case, uh, It feels less like a problem and more like an opportunity.

[01:21:46] Mark: Okay. Very meta. I mean, the next question, is there any life hack you've discovered that other people should be aware of? I think you just described it

[01:21:56] Stephen: Oh, wait. [01:22:00] Yeah. I get a lot of sticky in the pub chatting a lot of waffles. So I'll try and say something a bit more concrete or hemp Creek might be a better way to put

[01:22:08] Mark: He, I was about to say, yeah.

[01:22:10] Stephen: Saunas. Yeah. I can sort of talk about philosophy and meditation, but Saunas is just.

[01:22:15] Mark: Sos

[01:22:16] Stephen: Like brushing your teeth for me now, I need to get in the sauna as often as I can.

[01:22:21] And yeah, they're ace.

[01:22:23] Mark: Okay. Especially after those a hundred milers.

[01:22:26] Stephen: Yeah,

[01:22:27] Mark: it'd be an, I thought it'd be an ice bath, not a sauna.

[01:22:29] Stephen: it's a combo for me. Our local sauna is 200 yards from the sea. So sauna, jump in the sea. It's about, it's a bit warmer at the moment, but yeah. It's great. It's really, really lovely. And it's a bit of a social lottery as well. Um, which is the other thing I enjoy. It's a lot of semi naked people who've never met before from different backgrounds and they all just sort of go in there and force their thoughts to each other because they feel vulnerable and they're all facing each other so I think, um, there's another life hack in there somewhere.

[01:22:59] Mark: sounds to [01:23:00] me like the partying has just gone full circle.

[01:23:03] Stephen: Yeah, I think so. I think so. Um, but yeah, so socially they're, they're very interesting arenas. I think, uh, they're physiologically great for your health, but also just in terms of a practice, uh, a simple practice of, you know, how do you empathize with people? How do you relate to people? Go and sit in a sauna and just talk to some strangers because everyone's got the kit off, you know, nobody's got their fancy clothes on.

[01:23:26] You can't really recognize what people's backgrounds are. Just go and have a chat to some random people in a sauna. That's the life actually, I think. 

[01:23:32] 

[01:23:32] Mark: Uh, any doc or show people should watch that you think would be enlightening?

[01:23:38] Stephen: Uh, it depends. If you're interested in Cornwall, I would watch Cornwall Climate Stories. That's a documentary series, uh, that's put out by Cornwall Climate Care, who, uh, not for profit down here. They look at issues on a local level and then consider [01:24:00] them in the bigger picture. Very well done, um, documentaries.

[01:24:04] Mark: Um, we always, uh, well, I believe in reciprocity. So, um, I commit to, and if you're interested, just connect you with other people that might actually help the conversation and the, and the conversations and, uh, uh, and the, and the work you're doing. Cause I think the power of the. Serendipitous connections and random collisions has value.

[01:24:26] So if

[01:24:27] Stephen: I'm keen.

[01:24:27] Mark: do that. And my final question is, who do I interview next?

[01:24:32] Stephen: Do I have to answer straight away?

[01:24:34] Mark: No, you can come back to me with some recommendation, but it's fine. You can take your time. So even if you're, you know, you can email me. Once this goes, I'll push this live next week. And then once it's live, you can then use it to then send on to someone saying, Hey, you're my recommendation.

[01:24:49] Stephen: Okay. I, I'll I'll recommend someone in pencil now, but if it works, then at least you've got a recording to add on. Um, so I [01:25:00] will recommend Denzel. Well, Denzel is, uh, the founder of the Senate, a Cornish film company. Um, I don't know him at all, really. I think I've spoken to him maybe two or three times, but the other, you know, thing that we've not discussed much today is.

[01:25:22] That's evident in my work and what's important to me is, is, is local culture and Cornish culture is, is very important and endangered to some extent. And there's stuff that's possible spatially in terms of how you build communities and how communities carry that culture and express that culture, revise it and, you know, give it new life and so on.

[01:25:46] But in terms of, you know, cultural input, not dialogue between human beings. Barsena is a Cornish film company, does stuff in Cornish language, which is being revived. And [01:26:00] I guess the question of, who should you talk to next? I'm kind of asking myself that question. I'd love to go for a pint with Denzel Monk and hear about, you know, what's driving him.

[01:26:08] And if I can do that by proxy through your podcast, then I'm up for that as well.

[01:26:12] Mark: Sounds good.

[01:26:13] Stephen: Alright mate.

[01:26:15] Mark: Well, um, finally, um, hopefully this has all been recorded. I'll let you know once I've

[01:26:21] Stephen: Oh god, I'm dreading that, mate.

[01:26:23] Mark: files afterwards, but no, I've really enjoyed the conversation. we've gone off and. Directions I didn't expect. So, really appreciate your openness, honesty, and candor and, uh, self reflection and, uh, the sort of the journey you're on is, just found sounds like just, a very productive, unpredictable, ambiguous party.

[01:26:45] Stephen: Yeah, it does. It does. Alright mate, nice one. Well, yeah, I appreciate it. 

[01:26:50] Mark: Yeah. Okay then. All right. Cheers.

[01:26:52] Stephen: See you in a bit.

[01:26:53] Mark: Okay. Bye.