The Road to Rebellion - Part 1

Roc Sanford is a British writer, artist and climate activist whose life has been a countercultural journey from an alternative childhood through academia to a remarkable experiment in off-grid living and ecological resistance as a catalyser for Extinction Rebellion and Ocean Rebellion. For more than three decades he has been associated with the remote Hebridean island of Gometra, where he lives much of the year without mains electricity, running water or many of the conveniences of modern life. Roc was born to parents who deliberately turned away from wealth and privilege and chose to live closer to the working-class world they wanted to understand and write about. Amongst other works, his mother Nell Dunn was the author of Poor Cow and Up the Junction, and his father Jeremy Sanford was the author of Cathy Come Home, all made into groundbreaking hugely influential British New Wave films by Ken Loach in the 60s. Their life choices carried Roc from Belgravia, to Chelsea to Battersea, and then to a remote valley in Wales where the family lived a very alternative life. We hear about that and get into the tensions that can emerge when idealism meets reality. We hear about Roc's unusual schooling, his years during the AIDs crisis in New York, studyomg the ideas that shaped his thinking about perception, systems, and the way we interpret the world. And we head to Soho, meet Francis Bacon and Genesis P Orridge again, and hear about his first brush with British law. Roc has led - is leading - a big countercultural life - so this is the first part of a double-header conversation. More on Roc, his work and life --- Hello! If you can contribute to this crazy endeavour, join our Patreon HERE Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to support the show —that means a lot. We have chosen not to carry ads here; it simply wouldn’t sit right with the spirit of the Bureau. But that does mean we can benefit from your support, in whatever form that takes, not just financial. Stephen