King Charles has cancer.

I wish him well, but in his age group (over 75s) cancer is a common experience. I was both glad, and at the same time disturbed, to hear an announcement from the palace that his cancer diagnosis would ‘shine a light on cancer, enabling better understanding of the condition’. Well, perhaps it will, but not necessarily in the way he would have meant, because it might show us that not all cancers are equal, and not all cancer sufferers benefit from the same treatment.

There was an article in the Mail online yesterday (I will not share the link because it is a rather despicable publication) with this headline;

How much would you pay for healthcare fit for a king? As Charles and Kate have medical treatment, all you need to know about private health insurance

It will come as little surprise to hear that the king was diagnosed, and will recieve treatment (within ten days of his diagnosis) at a private hospital. In other words, he will recieve healthcare fit for a king.

Meanwhile, reports up and down the country tell a rather different story for the healthcare being offered by our glorious National Health Service – that grand old flagship of the British Welfare State (more on this later) which promised care for us all from cradle to the grave.

Yesterday, it was announced that a woman had died huddled under her coat in a Nottingham Accident and Emergency department after waiting to be seen for seven hours. This appears to be far from an isolated incident, which should be no surprise, given this trend;

(table from here.)

There is a strange narrative in this country about the National Health Service. In the shadows, politicians describe it as the ‘national religion’, and like other religions, it contains an unhealthy amount of hypocrisy. After all, most of the elites in our country (including our politicians) use private health care.

There is also a common narrative which describes the worsening performance of the NHS as ‘not about money’. We spiral into anecdotes about ineficiency and waste, alongside carefully curated statistics and examples of beaurocratic idiocy. It is also true to say that even our slash-and-burn taxation and public spending current government, spending has increased, but the degree to which this increase is real is very complicated to pin down, with huge variations and almost deliberate confusion. This article spells out some of the problem.

Of course, part of the problem is that the NHS is a huge monolith that will always tend towards what Ivan Illich would describe as unconviviality, which is another way of saying that it is not on a human scale. The tool we have created then becomes more important than the people who are dependent on that tool. Our last bastion again this kind of unconviviality is always the staff who work in the NHS, and it is fairly safe to say that morale is not high.

Perhaps too, we often forget that the NHS is the end point of national health and welfare – the last resort – not the starting point. In other words, you can not improve the health and well-being of nation be only treating sickness. We know, through extensive research into the creation of wellbeing over decades and in all sorts of different societies, some of the things that help, and many of the things that hinder.

We know the relationship between inequality and mental wellbeing, spelled out well in this article.

We know the relationship between wellbeing and general health, including our immune systems, as this government document spells out.

We know to the immeasurable value of that complex web of small voluntary groups, societies, clubs, religious institutions, cultural events, arts and charities that bring us together and give life meaning. Many of these groups have lost previous sources of funding as local authority budgets have been cut and then cut again.

Those same cuts to the funding of local authorites has had a massive effect on social care provision. At a time when the national demographics have trended towards a big increase in very elderly people needing complex care, we have had over thirteen years of cuts to councils, who provide the bulk of the support to vulnerable people. Even where councils have performed fiscal alchemy to preserve funding for social care, it is not enough, because of the aforementioned demographics.

Perhaps we have deliberately forgotten that the number one way to improve health is through stable income. The infamous Black report in 1979, investigating inequalities in health outcomes, made this rather obvious point and as a result was buried.

Meanwhile the real terms value of benefits are at an all time low, and the punitive unemployment and sickness benefit processes has adopted an almost inhuman cruelty – which has in part achieved its purpose of forcing people into work. This work however, tends to have certain characteristics– low paid, insecure with little or no hope of progression. In other words, the very kind of work that makes profit for others at the cost of worker wellbeing.

So, what is happening here, and what can we do about it? Or rather, what COULD we do about it if we voted in a government that was prepared to bring about the radical changes that appear to be required?

I would suggest that in order to look forward, we also need to look backwards, in this case towards an old idea known as the ‘welfare economy’ (a society which benefits as a whole because its citizens are being taken care of), which here in Britain, was known as ‘The welfare state’.

It was the coming of the welfare state in the wake of the second world war that promised a different kind of society. No more would the citizens of post war Britain be subject to the boom-and-bust uncertainties of capitalist industrial barons. Neither would the poor laws any more be an acceptable model of managing the welfare of the most vulnerable. In fact, means-testing itself was to be abandoned in favour of ‘national insurance’, paid by workers in good times to ensure their survival through the hard times.

Oh, and the welfare state also included a health system known as the National Health Service. Arguably it is only this part that has survived relatively unscathed. The rest has been systematically attacked and villified by news and media outlets (owned and funded by billionaires) to the point where the very word ‘welfare’ has become a synonym for ‘scrounger’ or ‘waster’.

The inverted logic of neo-liberalism has held sway for decades now, telling us that a healthy society has to be moderated by the insatiable belch of the free market. It is only (we have been told) through shrinking down the previous excesses of the welfare state and allowing the self regulation of pure market forces that we can know prosperity.

To be fair, it has worked for some.

(But not for the many.)

Is there hope yet for a welfare society?

Can we wind back time to what we once aspired to? If not, what might such a society look like under the harsh pressing reality of climate injustice as well as economic injustice?

It is these questions I am intending to ponder in the next wee while.

(To be continued…)

Over the last few months, I have started to become a potter.

That may seem an odd statement from someone who has made a living from a ceramics business for close to a decade, but until recently, I messed around at the edges of the actual potting. The hands-on-clay stuff has been Michaela’s passion, and I have been her helper, provider of words and maker of frames. I always made things and have done a lot of glazing, but it was not really my thing- but this has changed, to the surprise of many, including myself!

What changed? Well, I have been working on a new collection of ceramics, which we are calling ‘seatree elemental’.  Here is the blurb.

‘Seatree elemental’ refers to a range of ceramics using rough clays and alternative firing techniques, such as pit firing or raku firing. All pieces are hand built and unique, each one is different and one-of-a-kind.

Although they utilise original poetry – just like other seatree work – you may have to work harder to read it, as we are  sometimes happy to let the words be absorbed into the piece itself, as if they form part of the fabric. In this way we try to allow the different firing methods to shape the words too.

Why are we doing this? 

Well, it was necessary for our work to grow, to experiment and find new expression. I love the new rough clay, as it offers many redeeming features in its plasticity and drying qualities. Michaela hates it though, as she has a wierd intolerance of the scratchy rough texture and likes her surfaces to be much more smooth.

I am also loving the alternative firings, and how the organic shapes of the new work are transformed by the elemental nature of fire and heat, as if emerging from the very place they (and we) are planted.

Much of this process is rather hit-and-miss, with as many failures as successes. Partly this is because of our learning curve (which shows no sign of levelling off!) but also the very nature of firing large pieces like this one is challenging!

The poems chosen for seatree elemental are often more challenging in nature, as this work has emerged as a way for us to explore our relationship to all that is broken and all that is beautiful in this world shadowed by climate injustice. Just like our other work, you will see a colour spectrum inspired by the wild western fringe of Scotland.

A lot of these pieces use a firing process known as raku (which our Japan-based friend tells us means ‘easy’ in Japanese – something I feel might be intended as irony!) Raku is a process by which a pot is heated quickly to around 1000 degrees using a gas burner, then it is placed in a reduction bin (a sealed metal bin containing combustable material.) By controlling the amount of oxygen reaching the glazes, the potter can produce a range of different colours  (although much of this is also down to chance for relative beginners such as ourselves.)

Slowly, firing by firing – sometimes by firing pieces a number of times – I am starting to get the colours that thrill me. It is mesmeric.

We mentioned earlier that this work is in part a response to climate change and mass extinction, and we hope to pull together an exhibition of our work in the future, but for now, we have uploaded a small selection of our work in to our shop, which you can see here. 

Here are a few more images of recent seatree elemental work. Most are not in our shop, but if you see something you like, feel free to drop us a line…

Another Christmas…



Another generation wraps up hope in polished paper

Laying it under Christmas trees, unlabelled 

Because we all long for better.

Despite the darkness

We still hang lights.

Because of the cold 

We still make fire.



Another holy family sets out on dangerous roads

Carrying their own precious gift, wanting only kindness

Because we all need compassion sometimes.

Despite house prices

There are many warm rooms.

Because of hunger

We share food.



Another baby pokes the membrane between there and here

Slides out into another manger full of short straws, 

Because we all need to be held sometimes.

Despite our common comings

Every child is special.

Because of them

Our world turns.



Another Eastern ship comes in, full of Chinese electrics

Promising a flash of plastic pleasure for an hour or so

Because we all need satisfaction.

Despite the loneliness of our condition

We are ankle-deep in love.

When we are at our emptiest

We are most easily filled.

The nativity story is full of ordinary people; shepherds, innkeepers for example, not to mention Mary, her cousin Elizabeth and Joseph the carpenter. I think it is important to look to the margins when we consider great events, even more so when we consider the coming of this king-like-no-other, who was rather adept a inverting power structures.

I am reminded of this quote;

If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected – those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most! – and listens to their testimony.”

James Baldwin, from No Name on the Street

Baldwin would know. He grew up in pre WW2 Harlem, and later added his incredible creative voice to the liberation struggle of black Americans during the protest movement of the 1960’s. He also said this;

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”

We live in a world in which inequality is widening, but then this is an old problem, perhaps as old as humanity. Perhaps the goal was never full equalty anyway – after all, it has been said that communism is a Christian heresy – a slight distortion of the kingdom of God as teased out in odd parables by Jesus.

What seems to emerge from the gospels more clearly is that we do not start with economics, but rather with compassion. The big truth, as revealed in the gospels, turns out to be concerned with ordinary people turning away from anything that gets in the way of love.

A few years ago I participated in an advent project in which I contrbuted a lot of poetry, some of which has featured in this (and previous) years advent series on this blog. Here is another, featuring an ordinary hero from our nativity story…

Big man



He was as wide as the city gate

(Although half of him was heart)



Arms like beer barrels

Fists so big that even fighting men 

Thought twice despite the libation



In the post-clatter calm that follows closing time

He lifts a broken man from the gutter

Props him on a wall while he 

Wipes reek from wrinkled mouth

Lifts him like lost luggage, then

Carries him home



He was a big man.

We draw closer. The season of waiting will soon be over. Presents, wrapped so enticingly, will soon be revealed. Feasts will groan in our bellies. Carols will have been sung.

But for now, let’s rest in the arms of anticipation. Lets be grateful for the good things in our lives.

For the people who hold us, nourish us, cherish us. (But let’s remember also those who spend too much time alone.)

For the security we feel – the roof that shelters us and the money that pays the bills. (But let’s remember also those who have no home and those caught up in the curse of scarcity.)

For the peace we dwell within – the safety of our streets. (But let’s remember that in other places not far away, children are sheltering from bombs.)

Before all the feasting let’s find some stillness and sit with gratefulness for a while.

Peace be with us



In the quiet space between snowflakes

We listen to sad songs, and

Feel the prickle of tears, pushed

By beautiful broken things 

Less than half-perceived

But never forgotten



In the warm space you made for me

I hide, guilty for those we left outside

Wishing our table was bigger

That every mouth was filled

Every refugee was home

Like we are. Hoping that



In the dark space between all those twinkling lights

Peace is waiting

Like scented water

Fingered by frost and ready to fall -

Ready to anoint our dirty old ground

Like Emmanuel

We are not only this. There is not only this. There is not only me.

If our adventing is about anything, then surely these statements might make a good beginning? They are statements of hope and longing, but also ones which can be partially supported by experience- not in that old sense of trying to ‘prove’ the divine, but rather by our own sense of what I have come to call ‘the depth of things’. This concept is hard to describe, unless we use poetry. I was striving in that direction when I wrote this;

The life singing in you is not just journey, 

Nor located at some distant destination.

It is here. It is now. It’s what happens

When wounds half-heal but bleed not

Blood, but good. It is not in the width of things

But their depth. It is the rediscovery of love.


from 'Brave', published in After the Apocalypse 2022.

What more can be said about this depth? Is it like old paint showing through, or the peeling back of onion layers, or the clearing of morning mists? No, all of these images have been overdone and also seem too concrete. The nature of what I am talking about always seems more ephemeral and more subjective than that.

I think we sense it first in its absence, as a deep longing for something better, more beautiful. At this level, we experience it as there must be more than this.

But there are always glimpses – fleeting though they always are – which give us hints. For me these come through things like this; poetry, through music, through wild places, and through acts of simple kindness. I sense them mostly deep in the dirty soft emotional part of me. As soon as I start to codify them in consciousness using my head, they dissolve.

Sometimes we can share these experiences with others. Perhaps religion can help us do this, but it can also hinder. There is another defining feature of these highly individual transcendent events however – they connect us. What they connect us to remains an open question, but the mystical traditions of all the major religions seem to agree on this. Some call it ‘oneness’ others ‘the ground of all being’ others simply describe it as ‘god’.

Again, in the absence of any other language, I turn to poetry;

Light of the world



The low winter sun takes power from 

Puddles of last nights rain and I turn away

Resonating to signals sent from distant stars.



Something glints in the tops of bare branches -

A flash of wing or a white tooth or the

Coming together of choirs of angels.



And in a wet manger of clogged earth, summer 

Sleeps, waiting for light to burst out

Brand-new hallelujahs.



For behold, the light is with us. The light is 

In us. The light shines in the darkest places -

It even shines in me.


printed in After the Apocalypse 2022