Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In terms of nature's coming back, it's quite extraordinary on site, you know, it can be owl, buzzards, merlins, the insect population, it's not doubling, it's like 10, 20 times the size. And it feels like we're not distracted anymore, we've actually done something about it and it's actually happening.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Hello, I'm Annabelle Hasseltine, I'm a journalist and broadcaster and you're very welcome to Hope Springs, brought to you by the Resurgence Trust. Today I'm talking to Roger Tempest and Paris Ackrell, the custodians of Broughton Sanctuary, a 3,000 acre estate in the Yorkshire Dales, which has been transformed from a crumbling ruin into a state of the art retreat centre, described as a birthing place for an as yet unarticulated movement.
I'll be asking them why it is that after a thousand years of being owned by Roger's family, they felt the need to change its name. And as the World Economic Forum wraps up its annual gathering in Switzerland, we discuss why there's now a need for a spiritual Davos.
[00:01:16] Speaker C: Roger Tempest and Paris Ackrell, welcome to Hope Springs and congratulations. I hear you've just got engaged 11.
[00:01:25] Speaker D: Years in, so why don't we start there?
[00:01:28] Speaker C: Why didn't you tell me a little bit about how you met and then we'll move on to the amazing Broughton Sanctuary.
[00:01:36] Speaker D: Well, thank you so much for having us on your podcast. So we met in Cheshire at a photography exhibition. We've got quite a big age gap. 20.
[00:01:45] Speaker C: How many?
[00:01:46] Speaker A: 20, 26 years.
[00:01:48] Speaker D: And so, yeah, I just thought Roger was going to be like a co. Older friend to start off with. And then he invited me to take some photographs at a party and yeah, that was, that was it really. After that we've got a child, created a family, founded Avalon, which is the beating heart of Broughton and all the retreats that we do at Broughton Sanctuary.
[00:02:09] Speaker C: You're currently in Brazil, working out there for the next couple of months, I think. But we first met at Broughton and the last time I saw you was at a retreat, Visions for the Future, which is your baby. And it had a huge sort of cross section of extraordinary people there. Rupert Sheldrake, who's been promoting the idea of morphic resonance for decades, and Alexander Byner, who is the author of the Bigger Picture, co founder of Rebel Wisdom. You know, we had everybody from talking about AI, Druidism, weird technology, what's. What was your concept behind this?
[00:02:46] Speaker A: There were three of us, Ed, Oliver Harris and myself, and it's really about this sort of unarticulated movement which is, has been forming I think very strongly over the last few years, but hasn't fully manifested itself yet, where we're rejecting the ideas of the old, whether it's the old polarizations, left, right. And I think it's a very exciting era. It's a bit like tech in the 70s just at the beginning. And we're realizing some of the platforms we've been standing on for so many years have been delusions. You know, this is reaching out into new territories which I suppose more to do with emotional intelligence and intuition. And it's very interesting the results of it.
[00:03:30] Speaker C: Broughton hall has been described as a spiritual Davos by Lawrence Bloom, who was the first chair of the World Economic Forum. And it's particularly pertinent at the moment as Davos has just happened.
What is it about Broughton hall that has attracted people like Andrew Harvey and Zach Bush and Bruce Damon?
[00:03:52] Speaker D: You know, as Roger says, and I'm sure everyone listening will know, there's a breakdown happening in the world. You know, so much commercialism, there's a breakdown of society and communities, you know, health crisis, spiritual crisis, all kinds of different crises on different levels. And I guess, you know, we're living in a time where there is this unarticulated movement and a lot of people are waking up to, you know, all these different issues, whether it's, you know, how we're treating the soil and what we're eating and the levels of toxicity and you know, searching for meaning and purpose in our lives and where we're finding that the communities and places and spaces that are really, you know, feeding us with, with that wisdom and knowledge. So there's, there's almost seems like there's this rising of the light of people really seeking to create, sustain and be in these spaces. And then there's also, it feels like the exacerbation of all of these issues, you know, that the darkness of what is happening out there in the world is almost like a heaviness. And through Avalon, which is a state of the art, purpose built, well being center, which is completely dedicated to all kinds of different transformational work, we wanted to create this non dogmatic space where we can come together as human beings to ask the bigger questions in, in life. Yeah, who are we? What are we doing? Where are we going? And Avalon just started drawing in amazing people. And Roger is very much a people person and is incredible at connecting with people from all different walks of life. And we love this idea. You know, there's a rumi quote, beyond ideas of right doing and wrongdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: You know how we've changed Broughton. This alchemy's gone on from looking, you know, how you look through life through one window and you see it in one way and suddenly when you shift everything, you have this alchemistic shift. And that's what's happened at Broughton's. Everything we've done, you know, we've gone from industrial farming to nature friendly farming, we've gone from fossil fuels to renewables. We've done, you know, everything. The outer nature has been changed and the inner nature has been changed. And what's happened is just all these, there's a sort of metaphorical field being created and people have just are coming in and touching upon it and seeing if it's of interest or whatever. We're just ambassadors of thought of many other people. It's the messages we are aligning to seems to be triggering a lot of really amazing people to come and talk and to grow and to evolve. And suddenly this confidence of thinking which has been denied, you know, this bubonic plague of the last hundred years of the way we've been prisoners of ourselves and the way we created society and whatever, there's a sort a freedom moment and a sweet spot coming out of it which is just attracting the most extraordinary people and it really does affect the people who are coming. It's undogmatic and we're not getting into the way people have been sort of in their engine houses of opinion and hate. It's not really about that. We're something different and we're touching upon.
[00:06:56] Speaker D: Something different and I guess visions for the future as well. It's an invite only event. So we really, you know, try and connect with leaders that are doing really good work that we feel this gathering will really support and strengthen them out in the world to create this ripple effect of change. And so yeah, we've had some incredible people over the years.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: Bruce Damer actually, I think is the most incredible person I've ever met. Actually. He just, he found the origins in life and you know, can build spacecraft going to outer space. But his, his thinking is so extraordinary because he's got this academic ability of a Nobel Peace Prize winner on one level, but then he's got the humility and childlike emotional intelligence to translate that into something relevant for humanity. And so I think in this day and age people are not accepting half lived lives as much, you know, the courage and brevity of finding people different forms of leaders who are going to guide us through to the next visions of humanity, I think is really, really important because I think the monoculture of the existing leadership, if you look around the world, whether it's left, right, whatever you call it, you know, is pretty weak at the moment. And I think the human spirit is recognizing this. The polarization form of politics which has sort of dominated life. You know, it's time to sort of get out of that straitjacket is one of our beliefs. But. But what we're really about at Broughton Sanctuary is the individual transformation of people. Lawrence and Andrew Harvey and you know, all these sort of people, we're a sort of touch, touch point for this unarticulated community and a sort of form of light center. And I think what we're doing, you know, the ripple effect goes right out and we've sort of got to know each other well. We're always helping each other's huge amount of WhatsApp groups and there's huge discussions about where we are, where we could be, how we can help, how we can contribute, you know, how we have social impact and the changes which are needed to sort of reform where we got to as a species really. And a lot of it is grounded in common sense.
[00:09:06] Speaker D: And it's not uncommon for people to come for one day and stay for a week or a month or a month.
[00:09:13] Speaker C: When Alexander Byner was, was talking and he said, you know, we're at the moment where we have a sort of a choice between Utopia or dystopia. And it seems to me that Broughton has taken this unarticulated movement by the horns and is growing it, you know, radically. You've lived. The Tempest family have lived at Broughton hall for nearly a thousand years. It's always been Broughton Hall. Let's just put it in context.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: It's.
[00:09:39] Speaker C: I mean, it's like a small village, actually. It's quite like a large village. It can house, I think it's like 196 rooms, 56 chimneys and the huge number of people working in it. But you changed its name last year from hall to Sanctuary and that is, that is making such a statement. So, Paris, tell me about Broughton Sanctuary.
[00:10:00] Speaker D: So Broughton Sanctuary is. It's an incredible place really. I feel like when people step in inside, they feel that there's almost like. It's like a magic bubble. It's 3,000 acres of rewilding landscape. There's the historic house, which was built in 1597, which is actually the only Fibonacci number in Almost a thousand years. We have over 20 different holiday homes now, retreat houses, all kind of scattered around the rewilding landscape. We've got a whole mosaic of different habitats that we're supporting to regenerate and come back to life through our nature recovery program. And then Roger spent so much of his, his time and energy rebuilding it really. You know, he grew up when it was, you know, completely dilapidated and has reinstated, I guess, this beautiful sumptuous histor house and regenerated the whole estate. There's 50 different companies that also work on the estate. There's a business park which sort of sprawls out across the estate as well. We've got the headquarters of Silver Cross jba, a hydrology company. We've got different charities. It's very eclectic. Utopia is our bistro and it's a kind of food hub and it's set within a beautiful walled garden designed by Dan Pearson which changes throughout the seasons and, and then Avalon, right next door to that which is our state of the art, purpose built, well being center which has kind of become the philosophical beating heart of the sanctuary. And then Avalon also is very much beyond the building. So we've got Odyssey, which is a 30 kilometer walking route throughout the estate, which is a pilgrimage for the mind, body and spirit. And we've got all sorts of kind of hubs and we call it Place Activation across the estate from Bee Animal Experience to screaming Fields to our wild well being of woodland saunas and moon baths. It's constantly developing and evolving. It's very eclectic and they're wonderful.
[00:12:12] Speaker C: I mean I've been lucky enough to be there for three different retreats now. I was there with, for the Ruby Wax retreat on Mindfulness with a Monk and I was there for Elevation Barn which is about elevating yourself. You have up to 70 people in each of your retreats and you're full 50 weeks a year, is that correct? Tell me about the path of Love, science and consciousness. Hoffman, tell me a little bit about the different types of retreats that you have there.
[00:12:39] Speaker D: We're really interested in helping people to create deep change in their lives and to really, you know, find a connection to themselves, to source, you know, whatever that means to them and to really live a life of true meaning and purpose. And Path of Love is a wonderful retreat. It's been going on I think for almost 30 years or something. It's a deep psychotherapeutic retreat. And the Hoffman process has also been going I think since the 60s again, a very deep psychotherapeutic retreat where you're looking at the conditioning of your family systems, you know, the conditioning that you got from your parents and, you know, there's no blame, but it's just learning to accept, you know, where you've come from and how that's impacted you and really how, how you can then shape the life that you want to live. And then we've got science and consciousness, we've got the weird experience spelled W Y R D, which is the old Celtic word for consciousness. And we've got all of this equipment from Princeton University proving beyond scientific doubt that our minds affected matter around us. They were seeing how there was a correlation between how stress matters, fighter pilots were with the breakdown of the machinery. But really, you know, we're a non dogmatic space again with very eclectic, diverse range of different retreats with the breakdown of, you know, more traditional communities and people being scattered sort of across the country. I think people are really seeking out now these non traditional ways to connect spiritually and to develop emotionally, mentally and, you know, find different ways of processing their life experience and the journey and looking for ways to strengthen themselves on the journey of life. And retreats do provide that sense of community and that sense of support on that life journey.
[00:14:35] Speaker C: Yes, well, that brings very neatly onto the next thing I wanted to talk about, which is the history of Broughton resurgence. And this podcast, Hope Springs, is looking at the connection between trauma and healing. Roger, your family have been recusant Catholics. Perhaps you'd like to talk a bit more about that and what your home has seen over these last thousand years.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: Yeah, well, in terms of our history, it is. We were a Catholic rectant family. So I was just watching Wolf hall last night, actually about Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII and Eden, Thomas More and, and many others. You know, they died for their faith and my ancestors did die for their faith and they stuck to a belief system and the Catholic tradition, you know, which means universal, is, you know, one of the anchor points. We have a beautiful chapel in the Broughton hall itself, the historic house, which is still live, and services every Saturday. And I think that tradition's been really key to our existence in so many ways. And then my mother even she worked for Mother Teresa all her life, you know, in service to Mother Teresa, both of them extraordinary women and what they achieved and what they did. But I have been thinking about it quite a bit because I've been looking to my father who was shot in the head in the Second World War, but he survived and only died a few years ago. But he was part of relief of the concentration camps. And 25,000 people in the camp he relieved died three weeks after it was relieved. And one of his colleagues went blind for three weeks. And I was just thinking about all my ancestors, what they've been through, you know, whether in Agincourt or Jacobite rebellions or whatever it was, they're all very involved. And I wonder, you know, that ancestral trauma and that trauma, what formed us, how it forms us, you know, the survival instinct. I think it's a very interesting science and what comes through to existing generations. And, you know, perhaps Broughton, by having this alchemy of changing Broughton from what it was to. To what it is now gifting, Broughton, in essence, to be of service, is a real legacy and the fundamental. We did change the name from Broughton Hall Estate to Broughton Sanctuary. And one of the reasons, one of the main reasons behind that is because even though things have been going on a long time, like we've been there 32 generations, all this sort of thing, it doesn't necessarily mean it's right. And so cutting away hierarchy, class, different things like that, and just reassessing it and looking in a different way, I think that's part of the reformation of civilization, in essence, that everybody in their own worlds is shifting things and just, you know, ready for the brave new world.
[00:17:15] Speaker C: And can we just put this in context? I think you inherited or Broughton hall when you were seven years old, is that correct?
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it is.
[00:17:23] Speaker C: And. But you went off and you worked for Eddie Shah today and you were having a great time as a journalist, and then you realized that your father wasn't coping anymore. You described to me once coming home and just seeing him in the study, that must have been huge for you.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: That was a big moment, really, because it was the first time I'd seen my father in a sort of point of complete mental breakdown, really, and resignation. It was hard. Like in 1974 when Dennis Healey, you know, did that budget to make the pips, the pips of the rich, squeak or whatever. He said we were virtually finished and sort of. So we tried to survive. I mean, the dereliction and depletion was so high, you know, everything had come to the end after 100 years of the 20th century because of First World War, Great Depression, Second World War, you know, socialism, whatever. It just absolutely, you know, there used to be 40,000 places. We were one of the last 1400 places. And the thing is that it really brought the willpower out because you suddenly thought, no, we. We can be a positive. Contributed to Society, you know, we're not, we're something different. We can be a really good, metaphorically a cow which can give milk. And then we had debt, debt, debt for 30 years. And then in the early 90s the outlook was changed.
[00:18:42] Speaker C: I want it to be very clear to the listeners that you weren't being supported. You had to go out and make your own way and you did. And you didn't just make your own way, you. You made enough to be able to bring some money home. So tell me just a little bit about rural solutions and what you did in order to be able to fund the restoration of Broughton.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: I had a survival instinct on me and I sort of brought up with, you know, my father found it very challenging, you know, to try to survive. And he was brought up in a different era with different values and different systems. Mum was a really modern woman and highly intelligent and just, you know, not stuck in class system or anything like that. And so I was sort of pretty inspired to just to get on. So I just created businesses wherever I could to earn money. And we'd had quite a bit of success in reusing the buildings for, in particular office use. So we have 700 people in work in 52 companies now based on the estate. And I used that knowledge to go outside and we formed a national rural regeneration company. And rural regeneration was pretty, pretty unique. I think we were the only national company and so we formed this national company about the reuse of old buildings in the countryside for non residential uses primarily and to get the countryside going again. Beyond agriculture, it had enormous impact and it grew and grew and we did over 300 schemes and they all provided jobs and reused buildings and that. And then I sold it and put every penny, you know, back into Broughton and Broughton's sort of the hub. So we restored the hall, which had a hundred years of dereliction really. And when you cold put another dog on the bed that wasn't heating, hot water is pretty rare. You know, there was deep, you know, antifreeze down the loos. It was pretty. There was humor in it. There was humor in it and I'm not complaining about it at all because we wanted this mission to get Broughton back on its feet and being an amazing contributor to society and to every, you know, to, to the community.
[00:20:39] Speaker D: I think it's a really important point that you make, Annabel. And you know, with privilege comes responsibility. And I've met a lot of people in my life and I've never met anyone as hard working as Roger. And it's very easy I think in these days of polarization, for people to, to see, you know, the kind of place that Broughton might have been or that they might assume that it is and to, to make all these projections and not actually see, you know, where it's come from. And Roger was just explaining in the 70s, you know, that's sort of like one period of time, but actually throughout history, you know, Oliver Cromwell took over the hall and the, the family, being Catholics, weren't allowed to travel, you know, more than a couple of miles and had to pay huge taxes and practice their faith in secret. You know, there's, there's so many things that sort of aren't really spoken about anymore. And also that spiritual legacy has, has created this strength within the family to, to keep on going, you know, no matter what, what arises. And yes, you know, at Broughton now, the team has very much become the, the heartbeat and the family. Yeah, it's very much a family feel.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: Well, let's go back now and talk a little bit about you. What was your life like before you met Roger?
[00:21:53] Speaker D: I was born in Birmingham and then we lived just outside Birmingham in the West Midlands. And I grew up spending a lot of time out in nature. I spent a lot of time with horses as classic sort of pony girl. And then my family went through quite a different difficult period from when I was about 16, 17 to 23. And there was a lot of illness in the family. My dad had a stroke and then a long journey with cancer and my mum's only sister was going through an intense cancer journey at the same time. And my dad ended up losing a lot of his businesses and we lost our house.
[00:22:34] Speaker C: I mean, that must have been really. That must have rocked you a bit.
[00:22:37] Speaker D: Yeah. And I, I think at university I was sort of like self, self soothing through, you know, partying. And my dad also came from very humble beginnings and he was bought up in a two up two down house in the north of Wales in, in Towin. And he, he was just an amazing entrepreneur really from, from the minute he could have a job, he was always just looking at different ways where he could, you know, find. Find something to, to spark something. But his thing was giving us a good education. And yes, you know, when I was at university, it was, it was a really difficult time and I think that I was probably dealing with, with depression and my experience was it was a weight on the shoulders all the time. And I was coming back from university and looking after my father, looking after my grandfather and trying to be, you know, someone who was sort of light and not causing too much trouble. And I think once you go through, you know, an intense period of suffering, sometimes there's an opportunity to sort of break. Break out of that. And I sort of started meditating and cleaning up my lifestyle and then. And then it's sort of. I had. I had an experience when my father died which really just set me very much on the path of my spiritual journey. And it was a month after that that I met Roger. And he. He'd recently sort of got divorced and. And was also, you know, on. On a journey as well, of. Of spiritual seeking. And we traveled around the world and we were very fortunate. Roger took us to some incredible places, visited the Missionaries of Charity, the Mother Teresa Sisters all over the world, went to various different ashrams and retreats. And we were talking a lot about, you know, the state of the world and what's happening. And then Avalon was sort of this slow organic evolution of what we felt was this need in the world.
[00:24:18] Speaker C: It seems to me there's an alchemy of spirituality at Broughton that is actually not just on a sort of the veneer, but it seems to be something that's going on at a deeper level. And when I was staying with you last time and I was able to explore the annals of Broughton and all these sort of secret doors, and it just makes me wonder how many more secret doors there are. But, Roger, your great grandmother, Eleanor Blanche Tempest, in 1908, you discovered some maps recently of the location of Druid sites. What is it about Broughton for you both, when you sort of think about it on a visceral, spiritual level? How do you see it?
[00:24:55] Speaker A: It's like we're sort of opening up portals all the whole time because we keep. Like, suddenly we've got this Bronze Age circle, you know, 3,000 years old or something, which we've found. And then the Druid thing was on maps. We found it, like a year ago in 1908, a map of it all really detailed. And then we saw it on a 1722 map. So there are all these sort of layers which are opening up. And I think once you start looking through life in a different way and through a different window, these layers start to appear and there's a sort of waking up. So in the same way as we've just planted 340,000 trees the last few years and gone up from 5% forestry to, say, 33%, you know, because it's needed for flooding for whatever reason, you know, if we don't look after nature, we can't look at after ourselves, all that side of life, you know, the nature was forgotten about for too long and we disregarded it. And so we've said, well, that's no longer going to happen at Broughton. We're going to celebrate, you know, these sacred lands. That correlation is really critical for us. It's one of our pillars, inner nature and outer nature working together.
[00:26:03] Speaker C: I think I was there when you discovered that your daughter's name, in old sort of Celtic English it's ayre and it means yew tree. And Yorkshire is another word for yew or York, Paris. I know you're especially interested in the impact of nature on the mind and rewilding the spirit.
[00:26:21] Speaker D: Absolutely. We were lucky enough to go to the Amazon about 10 years ago and I just had such a strong visceral experience of, you know, the sense of biodiversity and how it enlivens your being, your essence, your energy and just that real also sense of connection of that my body is, is the earth. You know, there's, there's no separation really. We're one and we're constantly interacting and exchanging information and all sorts with, with the world around us. The intelligence that runs through nature is also running through us. And so there are so many different ways to, to reconnect to that. Whether it's going for a walk, going cold water swimming, or whether it's, you know, doing yoga and somatic exercises where you're waking up to innate intelligence which is running through your body. And I guess, yeah, rewilding the spirit is very much about wrestling back into our innate beingness when we can really connect in a very deep way in this descent down into our bodies, into our felt sense and also to realize this incredible intelligence which lies within. And it's this kind of like pool of healing medicine that's there for us, you know, if we want to tap into it.
[00:27:39] Speaker C: So how are you changing your relationship with the land? What are you doing at Broughton with your rewilding project?
[00:27:46] Speaker A: It's been a hell of a journey going from industrial farming in effect to nature friendly. And we have an incredible team led by Kelly Hollock and we just. Our biggest fundamental difference has been to plant 340,000 trees over the last four years. Roughly. The net effect of it is quite incredible. It changes the whole mood of the, the land. So we get rid of toxins, vaccines, hormones, insecticides, you know, fertilizers, all that, all. They're all finished and they're one or two around with difficult situations.
[00:28:18] Speaker C: You've had death threats?
[00:28:20] Speaker A: Yeah. We have, we've had some pretty nasty stuff happening, especially in the early days. But I think, you know, the world knows that we've got to look after nature and we haven't been looking after it. They know that toxins, you know, are creating a lot of problems, whether it's getting rid of glyphosate, you know, it's pretty obvious we need to do all that. But for a lot of the population, they haven't quite cottoned on yet, but once they're given the education, they will get it completely and wouldn't give it to their kids. So in terms of nature's coming back, it's quite extraordinary on site, just the, you know, it can be owl, buzzards, merlins, the insect population, you know, it's not doubling, is like 10, 20 times the size. They're actually animals and plants I've actually never heard of which our ecologist reported today. He's found 78 different types of mosses. And the whole of nature is now become alive and we look after it to the best of our ability and the human being responds to it. All our guests who come for just an eco holiday or whatever, you know, they all feel it and it just feels right and it feels like we're not distracted anymore. We've actually done something about it and it's actually happening.
[00:29:28] Speaker C: It does seem that your journey and the journey of Broughton is aligned with the walk of this unarticulated movement that you have spoken about often. And I believe it was Andrew Harvey who described Broughton as a maternity ward for the birthing of a new humanity. Can we talk a bit more about what that is like? I mean, I know that you've described Broughton as a hub, sort of a spiritual center. Parks and you've had Lily Cole and Angela Rippon and Zach Bush have been there. But I think that it's interesting that this unarticulated movement doesn't have a name and that, you know, you're witnessing this huge alchemy of change and trying to capture what, what that means. But what, what is this movement and why is there no name for it yet?
[00:30:16] Speaker A: I think it's, you know, it's, it's birthing as we talk and around the world, because the online communities and all the WhatsApp groups and everything, there's something, it's like a skin being taken off. Something is erupting based on, you know, the dissatisfaction behind the polarizations, the dissatisfaction of the single issue.
Activist groups who advocate only for their single issue rather than having a more renaissance view of the whole. Because we've had this century of sort of academic led human construct of certain politics, you know, communism, socialism, whatever it is, it's been very restricted and there's something coming out. The whole feel, the whole instinct, the whole intuition is sort of coming at another point and suddenly the heart and soul have become a priority rather than an academic paper. There's something coming and you just feel it every, every day really it's about the message, not the messenger. And so, you know, nobody possesses these messages, individuals or whoever. It's just, you know, they're actually the source of life. There's a struggle to articulate it, but it is quietly coming.
[00:31:31] Speaker C: There is a sort of, there's a lack of trust and a lack of confidence and you know, I'm a great supporter of Greenpeace. But not that long ago they posted a comment by Sally Rooney and it basically said, you know, one powerful idea. Private property, because the rich own things and the poor do not. It is legal for the rich to destroy the earth and illegal for the poor to stop them. And it's that, you know, you've mentioned polarization and siloing and prejudice and this seems to be something that is rampant across the world now and there's so many uncertainties. Do you think that this is part of why it hasn't been named is that people actually feel that they're lacking confidence?
[00:32:14] Speaker A: Well, I think that people like Sally Rooney, you know, I have no respect for the comments that she's just made and I, I love Greenpeace that year and I've been to some of their events and I think I'm very, very motivated by their campaign against, you know, the fisheries in, you know, these big factory boats just, you know, clawing up the ocean bottom and all that sort of thing. But Sally Rooney is part of, part of the old system, you know, the state, the outer state cannot run our inner state. Personally, I love the center ground and where people come together. That's my belief system. But the woke left how they were directing us into this thing. It still manifests itself every day what's happening in England at the moment. But it's just this sort of, this contrived, false, delusional ideas which are percolating through and all this sort of advocacy of hate, you know, will suddenly be realized for what it is. It's prejudice, you know, it's like we'll see that pass.
[00:33:13] Speaker D: I think it's very easy to generate hate and anger, especially when there's so much instability in the world and People have lost their sense of purpose and real meaning in their lives. This big uncertainty and then pushing that towards these ideas of, of anger, hostility and, and hatred. But it overlooks landowners who are doing the most incredible, you know, groundbreaking work for our country and the world. And I think it's very, very short sighted to overlook, you know, a lot of good that is done for so many people. You know, job creation, increasing biodiversity just for the sake of perhaps a few people who are living with resources and perhaps not with that sense of responsibility.
[00:34:02] Speaker C: Is there room for the large landowner when you have estates like Holcombe and Lowther and Ken Hill who are, you know, sort of same sort of size as you. I've heard people talking about this sort of anti wealth and I think it's really important to unpack it. You know, money is the root of all evil. It's not, it's how it's used. And when you have that ability to be able to be change makers, I don't think it should be underestimated.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: It's really sad we've got that sort of range of people in sort of promoting all these ideas. Let's get back to simplicity. You know, something like St. Francis says, it's in giving, you receive and all these sort of really good values. You know, with privilege comes responsibility. And the great landowners, you know, when you use that word that's, you know, it can be quite loaded. We are just individuals with two arms, two legs trying to look after an area of land in our bit of the country. And you know, landowners aren't, aren't so big anymore. You know, we're pretty minority species. But places like Lowther, which I know personally, and Hokum and Wildcat Hill and all these sort of places, it's amazing the work they're doing. Yes, there's controversy behind it because if you're a farmer in the back of Wales and all you can think about is sheep production and the intensity of that and then suddenly someone's saying, well, you need to rewild a bit and have natural and organic food and different things like that. It's controversial and it's a difference in opinion, but how beautiful in society could it be if we just, we agree our differences and say, oh, that person's doing it in that way and they've got the right to do it in that way and someone else is doing it in that way and this is coming together. But there are areas which are tricky. You know, when people are pumping glyphosate phosphate into that 6 inches of soil and vaccines and hormones and all this sort of thing. You know, there is a point where it affects us all in the community. But I want to say on behalf of wealth creators, what we do do is the social outputs we produce at Broughton Sanctuary at the end of the year. I'm really proud of them and I'm proud, I'm proud of them on behalf of all our family at Broughton and all the people involved. You know, there's something bigger than the prejudice. There's time for a little bit of standing back from that. And if they want to, it's like, it's like the recent inheritance tax changes. I mean it's the biggest false economy ever, you know, it'll cost us millions and millions. They're killing the cow which produces the milk, which produces the tax for the NHS hospitals, for the state provision. So I think this prejudice against wealth producers and all this sort of thing should be looked at in a different light and a little more harmony and love put behind it to understand, you know, that these, a lot of the well produced in this country is a very creative, you know, it's easy to knock James Dyson, but what amazing what he's done, helped in every household up and down the country through his products and whatever. And if he wants to buy 30,000 acres of land and put trees and farm in a nature friendly way, I mean, good on him, you know, why be prejudiced about it? Because he's got great social outputs for everybody.
[00:37:00] Speaker C: So how would you sum up what Broughton is doing? If you'd just like to summarize some of the things you're doing at the addiction center, reminded too of Joanna Macy's quote, you know, the sense that we're all coming together and we're entering a new age and the age of the great turning. We don't know if we're at the end of humanity or whether we can evolve and become what humanity needs.
One level, it doesn't really matter, but we have to invest in the possibility of a better world and you're throwing your energy into that. So just remind us all about what Broughton does with everything that it is.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: Our whole mission, I think for Paris and I at Broughton is to make sure it's a positive force on humanity and everything we do, whether it's environmental, cultural, agricultural, whatever, to make sure it's a positive force and we're giving more than we're taking and we're a haven. An island of coherence.
[00:37:55] Speaker D: Avalon means an island of refuge.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: An island of refuge. So we become A held space. And by the way, we don't take ourselves too seriously too. We get a lot of things wrong or whatever. But there are thousands of millions of projects out there. And what I would love to see is as it's accumulation of all these projects and all that we do, what you do, Annabel, Everybody just has this more positive effect on how we live in this current civilization. And I think over the last hundred years we lost that magic and it's time to put this back together again. And these thousands of millions of projects will make a difference in the end.
[00:38:33] Speaker C: That ripple effect, isn't it? So my last question is, what is your hope for the future?
[00:38:39] Speaker D: For me, it's a humanity living in a deeper connection with themselves, with each other and the land. So there's this sense of wholeness and you know, what Roger was talking about.
[00:38:53] Speaker C: All.
[00:38:53] Speaker D: All the different layers, you know, a deeper level of interconnectedness with life on every level.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: The. The most beautiful quote sums everything up for me, which is a Mother Teresa quote. I was in an airport and I met a Mother Teresa nun and I said, I always like to give messages from the Mother Teresa sisters to other people. What's your message? And she said to me, mother Teresa gave this quote, God gave us the gift of life and what we become is our gift to God.
[00:39:26] Speaker C: Beautiful. Thank you very much, Roger and Paris, and what a pleasure to spend more time with you. Thank you.
[00:39:33] Speaker D: Thank you so much, Annabel. Thank you for having us on this wonderful podcast.
[00:39:37] Speaker A: Thank you, Annabelle.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: If you enjoyed today's conversation, please leave us a review wherever you're listening. I recommend this series to anyone who you think might enjoy it too.
I'll be back in a fortnight talking to Galahad Clark, who founded vivobarefoot. A cobbler by birth and by trade, he is on a mission to change the way we connect with the earth through a shoe inspired by the sand bushman of the Kalahari Desert.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Thank you, Anuba.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: This episode was produced by Pete Norton and brought to you by the Resurgence Trust, a movement, a magazine and a manifesto for hope.
To find out more about their work, click the link in the show notes of this episode. I'm Annabelle Heseltine and thank you for listening to Hope Springs.
