Our next event will be Thursday, 27th April, at The Station, Silver St, Bristol BS1 2AG.
Dr Matthew Green, Britain’s Drowned Worlds
As Bristol is threatened by floods, this immersive, vividly-illustrated talk will tell the astonishing tales of Britain’s drowned cities and sunken villages, from the lost wine metropolis of Old Winchelsea to the medieval city of Dunwich now mouldering beneath the waves of the North Sea and the ghost village of Capel Celyn in Wales deliberately drowned in an almighty reservoir in the 1960s. We will look on at these lost worlds in their prime, as they teeter on the brink of oblivion, and as they are reimagined by artists and writers centuries later, both as an elegiac resurrection of the past and an awful premonition of our future.
Dr Matthew Green is a historian, writer and broadcaster with a doctorate from Oxford University. He has appeared in documentaries on the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, and he has written historical features for the Telegraph and Guardian. He is the co-founder of Unreal City Audio, which poriduces immersive tours of London as live events, audio downloads and apps. His first book was London: A Travel Guide Through Time.
Maddie Harris, We Are All Witnesses
Maddie Harris has been working to support refugees and displaced people across Europe since September 2015. Initially as an independent volunteer in Dunkirk and Thessaloniki, Greece, before setting up a grass roots human rights organisation, Humans for Rights Network in 2016. Maddie set up Humans for Rights Network in response to the human rights violations that she witnessed on a daily basis. The organisation’s mission is to document these rights violations against refugees, asylum seekers and migrants throughout Europe, to force accountability and justice. She is also co-creator of Refugee Solidarity Summit.
Maddie will focus on the situation for refuges and asylum seekers in the UK and explore why the act of bearing witness is essential and what it means to do so in the context of an increasingly hostile environment for people seeking safety.
Ollie Olanipekun, New Nature
Ollie Olanipekun is the CEO & Creative Director of Flock Together and the Founder & Creative Director of Futurimpose. From his community collective – Flock Together (which has been fundamental in starting a new outdoors movement) – through to his work in the creative industry, Ollie has built social responsibility into every facet of his work, pioneering meaningful ways to enact change and rethink narratives. Ollie sits on the development board of the Outdoor Industries Association (OIA), making him an influential voice amongst key figures, decision makers and brands in the outdoors arena. He is also an ambassador for both RSPB and WWT, where he plays an active role in raising awareness and progressing movements across wildlife and natural/environmental causes.
Ollie will be talking about New Nature and how it is the ultimate form of creativity.
Suzanne Heywood, Wavewalker
In 1976, Suzanne Heywood’s father decided to take the family on a three-year sailing ‘adventure’ – and then just kept going. It was a journey into fear, isolation and danger. Suzanne will be telling the story of her astonishing childhood, as outlined in her vivid memoir, Wavewalker. Suzanne’s parents had the wild idea of retracing Captain Cook’s third voyage and at the age of seven she was taken out of school along with her younger brother and for the next ten years the family lived entirely on the boat, through storms, shipwrecks, emergency hospitalisations, isolation and very limited schooling. No one else knew where they were most of the time and no state had any active interest in what was happening to the children. Suzanne describes both the excitement and increasing frustration as she fought with her parents, longing to return to England and to education and stability. At eighteen, having taught herself via correspondence and through sheer determination and resilience – and with money earned from kiwi fruit picking– she earned a place at Oxford University and is now COO of Exor.
Suzanne Heywood was born in the UK but for most of her childhood sailed around the world with her family, with limited access to formal education. She came back to the UK aged 17 and won a place to study at Oxford University. After her PhD at Cambridge University, she joined McKinsey and Company where she became a senior partner. She is now a COO of Exor and chairof CNH Industrial N.V. and Iveco Group. She married the late civil servant Jeremy Heywood in 1997 and they have three children. Her book What Does Jeremy Think? was a Sunday Times bestseller
“Even for an experienced sailor, a ten-year voyage across some of the world’s most dangerous oceans would give pause for thought. That Suzanne survived this and made her way back to dry land and a successful future is remarkable. Her book is stunningly good” RANULPH FIENNES, World’s Greatest Living Explorer
“This is a story of an epic childhood journey, so exciting and so shocking it is hard to know whether you’re reading about a dream or a nightmare… Wavewalker is thrilling, horrifying, beautifully written – I couldn’t put it down” ED BALLS
Cariad Lloyd, You Are Not Alone
When actor and comedian Cariad Lloyd lost her father to cancer at the age of fifteen people didn’t talk about death. Death was still a taboo and grief even more so. No one was talking about what it really felt like, the tears, the laughter, the pain – the truth of grief. Cariad didn’t know how to process it and couldn’t face talking to a therapist for 15 years. And then she did. And slowly she began to heal. That’s when, in 2016, she created Griefcast, her award-winning podcast, in which she talks to celebrities about their grief – the conversation they didn’t know they needed until it was there about one of the most significant events in a person’s life: its end. Her first four episodes got 100,000 listens in the first 3 months and now has over 7 million downloads. After each episode she felt a little lighter, and one day she realised she’d stopped needing to talk about her dad so much.
Cariad will be reflecting on what she has learnt about grief over the years and will share extracts and insights from her new book, You Are Not Alone. She will examine her own grief and the grief of others she has spoken to over the years, from comedians, writers, actors and producers to end of life doulas, grief psychotherapists and palliative care consultants. In You Are Not Alone, Cariad explores the psychology and science behind how our society deals with death and loss and debunks everything we thought we knew about grief. Everyone knows there are five stages of grief right? Denial, Anger, Depression, Bargaining and Acceptance. Wrong. In Cariad’s words ‘FUCK OFF FIVE STAGES’! Did you know that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who coined these five stages was actually talking about five stages of dying, not grief? You Are Not Alone is a road map for all of us: for anybody grieving, for anybody who would like to help somebody through their grief, or for those who just want to understand life a little better.
Cariad Lloyd is an actor, comedian, improviser, podcaster and writer. She is the creator and host of the award-wining podcast Griefcast, where she talks to people about their experiences of grief and death. Past guests gave included Adam Buxton, Aisling Bea, Sara Pascoe, Isabel Allende, Fleur East, Monty Don and Nish Kumar. It won Podcast of the Year at the British podcast awards in 2018. Cariad has also appeared in Peep Show, Have I Got News For You and QI, and is one of the creators of improv show, Austentatious.
‘Cariad Lloyd has changed the way we speak about grief’
SARA PASCOE
‘This book is a must for the grieving, the soon to be grieving, for those who want to be with others in their grief and, well, EVERYONE, especially all mental health professionals. Full of sense, heart and hope. A book that will hold you… Like the friend you need when you’re grieving’
PHILIPPA PERRY
5 speakers, 15 minutes each, no scripts!
Check out the talks and pictures from some of our previous events.
October 2017
June 2017
March 2017
January 2017
September 2016