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Over the last week or so we've been thinking about sites for planters to fill with seeds and eventually edibles. Bob Dawson and I had a walkabout and identified between twelve and fifteen sites around the town that would be excellent places to put planters and maybe some more benches nearby so that people could enjoy the views over the town, the river, the abbey and so on.
We also looked at the Greyfriar's garden with its herb allotments begging to be tidied up and replanted with something approaching the original herbs. So far so good except for a nagging trend for institutions to throw health and safety and other bits of red tape at you when you try to do something simple and beneficial. They always want you to be constituted which immediately bogs you down in time wasting trivia. It probably comes from a hierarchy of people covering their arses but nevertheless. The way I look at things anyone putting obstacles in your way should set out to find solutions and fix it. They are after all being paid. Fortunately we have a new Community Council with good people on board - do-ers rather than paper shufflers - so I'm confident that with this umbrella body we can provide good things for the town without too much bureaucracy.
I also learned about food sovereignty. In simple terms this is defined as a food system where the people who produce, distribute, and consume food have control over the policies and mechanisms of food production and distribution but in practice it's a complex field. Obviously we're not near this yet. What interests me is the notion that there's some kind of human right going on whereby people should expect the state and its offshoots, like councils, to provide, facilitate and promote access to healthy nutritional and inexpensive food. I'll pick away at this in the weeks and months ahead because I'm not seeing much from 'above' and what I do see comes mainly from the excellent work of schools and the NHS, as you'd expect from dedicated professionals whose vocation is to care for people and thereby develop a civilised society. The easiest and best thing councils could do is stop junk food retailers from setting up in Borders towns. I suppose you could argue that it's what people want. I know a few middle aged men who want strip clubs and massage parlours up the High Street but I can't see that happening.
Here's a rough plan of the sites we identified for veggie planters in 2025. We had the idea of making a sort of accessible trail that people could follow and take rest at various points. The sites are un-named and in blue - hopefully you can distinguish them from the other markers.
We also looked at the Greyfriar's garden with its herb allotments begging to be tidied up and replanted with something approaching the original herbs. So far so good except for a nagging trend for institutions to throw health and safety and other bits of red tape at you when you try to do something simple and beneficial. They always want you to be constituted which immediately bogs you down in time wasting trivia. It probably comes from a hierarchy of people covering their arses but nevertheless. The way I look at things anyone putting obstacles in your way should set out to find solutions and fix it. They are after all being paid. Fortunately we have a new Community Council with good people on board - do-ers rather than paper shufflers - so I'm confident that with this umbrella body we can provide good things for the town without too much bureaucracy.
I also learned about food sovereignty. In simple terms this is defined as a food system where the people who produce, distribute, and consume food have control over the policies and mechanisms of food production and distribution but in practice it's a complex field. Obviously we're not near this yet. What interests me is the notion that there's some kind of human right going on whereby people should expect the state and its offshoots, like councils, to provide, facilitate and promote access to healthy nutritional and inexpensive food. I'll pick away at this in the weeks and months ahead because I'm not seeing much from 'above' and what I do see comes mainly from the excellent work of schools and the NHS, as you'd expect from dedicated professionals whose vocation is to care for people and thereby develop a civilised society. The easiest and best thing councils could do is stop junk food retailers from setting up in Borders towns. I suppose you could argue that it's what people want. I know a few middle aged men who want strip clubs and massage parlours up the High Street but I can't see that happening.
Here's a rough plan of the sites we identified for veggie planters in 2025. We had the idea of making a sort of accessible trail that people could follow and take rest at various points. The sites are un-named and in blue - hopefully you can distinguish them from the other markers.
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I’m enjoying the initial stages of the Fallow Project, working with Artwalk Porty, the research and planning within the town and in the hinterland.
My first move has been to try to put together a small group in the town to look at how we might start small scale but visible food production. Some call this guerrilla gardening (but we’ll come up with our own name so as not to upset people). The idea is an extension to the amazing flower displays in the town whereby we introduce small planters of food and maybe herbs, attractively presented and dotted around the town so that people can help themselves when the food is ready to eat. There’s a substantial support network in the Borders so the precedents are there. Apart from the polytunnel at the school I don’t know of any small scale food growing in Jedburgh which puts us at odds with most of the other Border towns.
I’m also getting in touch with farmers and figuring out what I want to ask them. I’ve been reading a lot about global agriculture and the food ecosystem, in particular George Monbiot’s excellent positioning work Regenesis which offers a fairly bleak assessment of out current position with respect to land use and food production. I suppose what I’d like to find out from farmers is how they see their work within the constraints and conditions imposed by climate, government policies, the global food markets, financial considerations and so on, and what they see as the future of sustainable food growing. I'd also like to find out what they would see as the future of agriculture if some of the constraints were removed or changed.
At the other end of the food chain, the cooking and eating department, I’m pleased to see that there’s a cooking initiative coming to town from a Glasgow based group Outside the Box.
As for en eventual art work let’s wait and see but I’m fascinated by Monbiot’s discourse on the supreme importance soil and how we, in his own words, treat it like dirt. He has a podcast on his book on Spotify which is well worth a listen. The things that go on beneath our feet.
My first move has been to try to put together a small group in the town to look at how we might start small scale but visible food production. Some call this guerrilla gardening (but we’ll come up with our own name so as not to upset people). The idea is an extension to the amazing flower displays in the town whereby we introduce small planters of food and maybe herbs, attractively presented and dotted around the town so that people can help themselves when the food is ready to eat. There’s a substantial support network in the Borders so the precedents are there. Apart from the polytunnel at the school I don’t know of any small scale food growing in Jedburgh which puts us at odds with most of the other Border towns.
I’m also getting in touch with farmers and figuring out what I want to ask them. I’ve been reading a lot about global agriculture and the food ecosystem, in particular George Monbiot’s excellent positioning work Regenesis which offers a fairly bleak assessment of out current position with respect to land use and food production. I suppose what I’d like to find out from farmers is how they see their work within the constraints and conditions imposed by climate, government policies, the global food markets, financial considerations and so on, and what they see as the future of sustainable food growing. I'd also like to find out what they would see as the future of agriculture if some of the constraints were removed or changed.
At the other end of the food chain, the cooking and eating department, I’m pleased to see that there’s a cooking initiative coming to town from a Glasgow based group Outside the Box.
As for en eventual art work let’s wait and see but I’m fascinated by Monbiot’s discourse on the supreme importance soil and how we, in his own words, treat it like dirt. He has a podcast on his book on Spotify which is well worth a listen. The things that go on beneath our feet.
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In all the time I've been walking and wandering around the Borders I've never found it easy to get access to some of the most attractive places. For example the rivers. There are good reasons for this which I'll discuss in due course when I come to investigate land ownership more generally. For now I'm interested in the kinds of locks, clasps, hasps, bolts and other mechanisms that landowners or tenant farmers use to keep animals in a field and in some cases, again to be examined later, to keep people out. Here are some pictures from a recent walk up the back roads, yonder and beyond. Most of these methods of securing gates are common to sheep fields where the farmer isn't too bothered about who comes and goes, as long as you close the gate after you. A bit of orange 'tow' goes a long way (pronounced tau in Aberdeenshire where I come from).
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From The Landowner project
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This summer I'm a wee bit excited about the possibility of collaborating with an arts organisation to examine in some depth the agricultural practices patterns of land ownership in the Borders. How do you make art about such topics?
I don't know much about agriculture other than what I can read about, ask farmers about and piece together from lots of walking and poking around into fields, moors, woodlands and farmyards. My research is necessarily restricted. I've been wondering/wandering for a long time how to get inside the themes and topics relevant to agriculture and land ownership and have in previous projects produced some work from the perspectives of sound recording, photography, short film (my glacially-paced and ever-emerging series on The Landowner for example) and latterly text. There's no correct answer except that the best media are best within their own conditions and limitations. Even after many attempts I’m still not sure how you make art about agriculture though having doubts isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
What I'd really like to do, and have already begun in some investigations, is to find out from farmers and landowners how they see their work and land in say fifty or a hundred years, especially within the context of the forthcoming energy transition. A Northumberland dairy farmer I know told me that a century or so ago nearly everything was powered by the sun. Now it’s oil. I’m asking myself if we’ll see electric tractors and the end of nitrogen fertilisers made out of petroleum coke. I'd like to find out more - I only know bits - about the details of land ownership, rights and responsibilities, agricultural economics, how government policies affect farmers. I'm personally interested in public access to land, in particular why some landowners (but happily only a few) insist on making things as difficult as possible for people to enjoy the land simply and harmlessly, that is by walking on it. I've become fascinated by gates, fences, latches, clasps and hasps. I try very hard to understand barbed wire and electric fences. Perhaps I’ll start a Sears Roebuck style catalogue listing all the impediments to easy walking.
The more I learn the more I enjoy my walks. The more I walk the more I learn.
I don't know much about agriculture other than what I can read about, ask farmers about and piece together from lots of walking and poking around into fields, moors, woodlands and farmyards. My research is necessarily restricted. I've been wondering/wandering for a long time how to get inside the themes and topics relevant to agriculture and land ownership and have in previous projects produced some work from the perspectives of sound recording, photography, short film (my glacially-paced and ever-emerging series on The Landowner for example) and latterly text. There's no correct answer except that the best media are best within their own conditions and limitations. Even after many attempts I’m still not sure how you make art about agriculture though having doubts isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
What I'd really like to do, and have already begun in some investigations, is to find out from farmers and landowners how they see their work and land in say fifty or a hundred years, especially within the context of the forthcoming energy transition. A Northumberland dairy farmer I know told me that a century or so ago nearly everything was powered by the sun. Now it’s oil. I’m asking myself if we’ll see electric tractors and the end of nitrogen fertilisers made out of petroleum coke. I'd like to find out more - I only know bits - about the details of land ownership, rights and responsibilities, agricultural economics, how government policies affect farmers. I'm personally interested in public access to land, in particular why some landowners (but happily only a few) insist on making things as difficult as possible for people to enjoy the land simply and harmlessly, that is by walking on it. I've become fascinated by gates, fences, latches, clasps and hasps. I try very hard to understand barbed wire and electric fences. Perhaps I’ll start a Sears Roebuck style catalogue listing all the impediments to easy walking.
The more I learn the more I enjoy my walks. The more I walk the more I learn.
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There's an excellent programme of events at our local bookshop Heron and Willow (who hosted yours truly on guitar last week). Although the picture doesn't show everyone it was actually a full house which is promising for the future.
But that's about it. There's still nothing much else going on in sleepy old Jed. Deadburgh they call it in other towns. No movement on the Town Hall, the library, no public spaces to meet or to develop creative and cultural activities. Lots of meetings, secret committees, minutes, agendas and points of order but no spaces for people. A new community school bristling with features but so expensive to rent for creative or community activities. That leaves expensive piss-ups that ordinary people either can't afford or get invited to. Not the best use of a community school is it?
This is all to be expected win a town where people vote Tory. Not all but most. It's as if they want to be worked over. Tories hate giving things to people. Their ideology is based on rent and profit. Plus they're useless and always seem to run out of money. One can only speculate as to why. But there's a by-election coming up soon so maybe we'll get someone new with fresh ideas on creative placemaking. I won't hold my breath, nor will I stop being a pest and reminding people that they're chopping themselves off at the knee by voting Tory. Anyway here's a few recent pictures taken around the town which, in spite of everything else, is still a beautiful town.
But that's about it. There's still nothing much else going on in sleepy old Jed. Deadburgh they call it in other towns. No movement on the Town Hall, the library, no public spaces to meet or to develop creative and cultural activities. Lots of meetings, secret committees, minutes, agendas and points of order but no spaces for people. A new community school bristling with features but so expensive to rent for creative or community activities. That leaves expensive piss-ups that ordinary people either can't afford or get invited to. Not the best use of a community school is it?
This is all to be expected win a town where people vote Tory. Not all but most. It's as if they want to be worked over. Tories hate giving things to people. Their ideology is based on rent and profit. Plus they're useless and always seem to run out of money. One can only speculate as to why. But there's a by-election coming up soon so maybe we'll get someone new with fresh ideas on creative placemaking. I won't hold my breath, nor will I stop being a pest and reminding people that they're chopping themselves off at the knee by voting Tory. Anyway here's a few recent pictures taken around the town which, in spite of everything else, is still a beautiful town.
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I live in a small town. Here's how things work in my small town. Old people who have lived in the town for decades get together and pack out all the groups who decide upon and implement important local decisions. They then make decisions that suit themselves, based on their values, experience, biases and so forth. At least eighty percent on average of these decision makers are men. Young women from the community, that is, women who live, work (or not - there's a lot of poverty and an embarrassing lack of jobs in my small town), raise children in the town, are largely ignored. Most of the decision makers went to school together at the same time. They are cohorts of each other. An increasing proportion come from outside the town, mostly from England. They are often relatively affluent retired professionals or professionals who still have some skin in the game. Of course I can't blame retired or semi-retired people for wanting to make things better, even if I don't want to be helped across their road. I would imagine that there's a blend of wanting to put something back into the world, socialising with your cohorts and possibly seeing oneself as a kind of elder, someone whom the people in the community respect, nod to on the high street and talk about respectfully.
Then we have elected representatives from 'The Council' who frequently come in over the top and tell these groups what they can and cannot have. I practice this means that decisions are made outside of local 'democratic' structures and imposed upon the community. There would appear to be very little in the way of questioning, demanding or holding these officials to account, which is what I would expect from a democratic balance of power between community and 'public servant'. With one caveat on the holding to account - the people keep voting these officials back into office. I've yet to work out why this happens. It's like asking to be beaten up and robbed every few years.
The small groups (actually group because they're largely the same people) therefore slow things down or block things. By things I mean progressive ideas around local democracy, the arts, creative placemaking, cultural development or any events and proposals that might get in the way of their agendas, personal or collective, how they believe the town is or should be. The inertia and blocking are often be done unwittingly, though this doesn't lessen the blow. These behaviours are akin to a habit, more specifically a habitus (Pierre Bourdieu), the norms, values, attitudes, and behaviours of a particular social group or social class.
I read a lot about this kind of thing. This is a double edged sword. I would consider myself to be an anarchist with a small 'a'. In practical terms this means that in small communities like mine I want to see horizontal structures of governance as opposed to top-down models. To be fair to people I don't believe the movers and shakers in my small town realise that they don't actually live in a democracy, so how on earth should I expect that they'd be able to avoid blindly replicating the structures they see in 'big' government and swallowing the prevailing right-wing media narratives? It's all the more problematic in that I've observed excellent practice elsewhere, in fact not far at all from where I live, in a region with many similarities to my own. This excellent practice came about over more than a decade because of a very few individuals with a shared vision, which gradually evolved into a complex and nuanced approach to placemaking.
Living as I do in a socially conservative town, probably at the extreme end of the scale, I can't expect to easily find people who believe in social progress at the grass roots level of community development and who are prepared to take action. It doesn't help that I've just finished The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. The book covers a lot of ground but the main thrust is that for thousands upon thousands of years human communities have experimented with social organisation, adopting this, rejecting that, going back and fore or moving on to something new. The idea that we are somehow at the end point of a qualitative evolutionary trajectory with respect to democracy, equality, representative decision-making and so forth is not backed up by the archeological and anthropological evidence.
Because of this I remain hopeful.
Then we have elected representatives from 'The Council' who frequently come in over the top and tell these groups what they can and cannot have. I practice this means that decisions are made outside of local 'democratic' structures and imposed upon the community. There would appear to be very little in the way of questioning, demanding or holding these officials to account, which is what I would expect from a democratic balance of power between community and 'public servant'. With one caveat on the holding to account - the people keep voting these officials back into office. I've yet to work out why this happens. It's like asking to be beaten up and robbed every few years.
The small groups (actually group because they're largely the same people) therefore slow things down or block things. By things I mean progressive ideas around local democracy, the arts, creative placemaking, cultural development or any events and proposals that might get in the way of their agendas, personal or collective, how they believe the town is or should be. The inertia and blocking are often be done unwittingly, though this doesn't lessen the blow. These behaviours are akin to a habit, more specifically a habitus (Pierre Bourdieu), the norms, values, attitudes, and behaviours of a particular social group or social class.
I read a lot about this kind of thing. This is a double edged sword. I would consider myself to be an anarchist with a small 'a'. In practical terms this means that in small communities like mine I want to see horizontal structures of governance as opposed to top-down models. To be fair to people I don't believe the movers and shakers in my small town realise that they don't actually live in a democracy, so how on earth should I expect that they'd be able to avoid blindly replicating the structures they see in 'big' government and swallowing the prevailing right-wing media narratives? It's all the more problematic in that I've observed excellent practice elsewhere, in fact not far at all from where I live, in a region with many similarities to my own. This excellent practice came about over more than a decade because of a very few individuals with a shared vision, which gradually evolved into a complex and nuanced approach to placemaking.
Living as I do in a socially conservative town, probably at the extreme end of the scale, I can't expect to easily find people who believe in social progress at the grass roots level of community development and who are prepared to take action. It doesn't help that I've just finished The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. The book covers a lot of ground but the main thrust is that for thousands upon thousands of years human communities have experimented with social organisation, adopting this, rejecting that, going back and fore or moving on to something new. The idea that we are somehow at the end point of a qualitative evolutionary trajectory with respect to democracy, equality, representative decision-making and so forth is not backed up by the archeological and anthropological evidence.
Because of this I remain hopeful.
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Nothing too exciting here, just some documentation of a walk round the town.
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A game of ends viewed from the middle.
An anthropology of working people at play.
Part of the Jed Project, a study of the river, its landscape and people.
An anthropology of working people at play.
Part of the Jed Project, a study of the river, its landscape and people.