Carolyn Cross, 9th March 2023, Wotton-under-edge
Introduction from John Cook
In an interview in January 2023, as part of my series ‘Living under the Cotswold Edge’, Moe Morgan mentioned that Carolyn Cross may let me speak to her about her work on Edge Radio. After a few text exchanges in FB Messenger, Carolyn and I met on 9th March 2023 at her house. We had established that my (former) fellow Angels One 5 band member, Cressida, now worked in a similar area to Carolyn and that the name was familiar to her.
Jimmy Cauty & Bill Drummond of KLF burnt £1 million on the Isle of Jura, Jimmy was Cressida’s partner at the time I knew them; I was in the Indie band called Angels One 5 with Jimmy and Cressida in the early 1980s.
Carolyn has provided me with old photos that are included below. Also note that on June 1st we visited a spot on the River Severn to take portraits of Carolyn. These photos are all mixed up below to enhance the photo story element of this post. I used a lightweight ethnographic interview approach, particularly descriptive and structural questions (see my post on this).
John: I asked about the overlap with Cressida.
Yes, it is interesting that people from our past, what they're doing now isn’t it? I was aware of the KLF, but mostly the hits, I didn’t know much about them. I wasn’t really into the rave scene then. In the traveller scene in the mid-nineties, there was a lot of crossover when I was doing it, I think, between a slightly older generation who were a bit more kind of Stonehenge-style, and then the free party scene. I was probably more of the generation of the free partiers but I wasn't a free partier. So I wasn't that into that kind of music. We had parties on site a few times and I’d always be in my truck making cakes and giving people tea. I was the chill-out zone.
I didn’t come to dance music till much later, after it had mutated, added a bit of punk and funk and a bit more stomp. I still have no idea what what different genres of dance music are. But I was aware of it [the KLF story] because they were on the radio and people used to talk about how they were using stuff from Illuminatus, and then the burning a million quid was a big thing wasn't it? But again, it wasn't my sort of thing really but I was just aware of them. And then I think more recently, when Banksy’s Dismaland was on, I went and his piece [Jimmy Cauty’s] was actually one of my favourite pieces in the whole show. And so that's really, I got interested in the KLF through that, not through any of the music. But that made me go and look him up a bit to find out more about him. And then more recently, a friend of mine – so I work mostly in the waste sector and there's a big crossover in that particular area at the moment in terms of packaging, it’s become more about the design of things like packaging materials for how they can be recycled – there's a quite big crossover between the waste people and product design, which is quite new. And so recently one of my friends who used to run a charity, she's like the cleverest woman I've ever met I think, she just does amazing stuff, and she mentioned this woman in a work context, she mentioned this woman Cressida. I didn't know her, so I went and looked her up and I found what she was doing in waste and then found out the link with KLF. She was a founder of the KLF Foundation. So it's kind of like “oh” you know. And then I thought well that's interesting. So I just found that interesting and I kind of wondered if our paths would cross at some point because she's in my industry.
And since then, I asked a friend, “What are you reading?” And he said “I'm reading the best book that I've read”. So I got a book token for Christmas, and bought, KLF, Chaos, Magic and the Band that Burned a Million Pounds. And the opening paragraph of this, [looks through the book] no, that's not the opening paragraph, oh that's the prologue… no the opening paragraph of the actual book is about Bill Drummond and Julian Cope, I guess squatting, driving a stolen mattress in a battered Transit Van to Devonshire Road in Toxteth. I used to live in Liverpool, and that’s the area I lived in and where some of my friends used to squat. And, I didn't know that there was a Liverpool connection with them [KLF] until I read this. As I’ve read on, I’ve found a load more connections – like in the early 2000s I spent a bit of time working on this Christmas tree farm in Scotland with a couple of Lithuanians, a Russian and Czech guy. The village nearby was where they shot a load of the Wicker Man. And turns out the nearest town, where we used to go shopping, is where Bill Drummond’s from. Spooky haha! So I've only read this far of this book, but so that's another link. Anyway, so yeah so they're my very minor links.
John: I think they're interesting those links. So that puts you more in the centre of what I'm interested in really. I plan to follow those links between the squats and the housing co-ops. I'm using that as a kind of a route map, the one I'm going to talk about in the Subcultures conference paper. Because a colleague, who’s a Professor, he said, "Well, why don't you look at the wider squatter networks?", you know, and he mentioned the Crass in Westbourne Park squat. But I can't find a link between us and them. At least I've done the basecamp now and there's a link to Liverpool from you.
Okay. Yes, a lot of us were squatting. I only did a bit, but then left and moved onto traveller sites. I moved to Liverpool in 1988, and I was at college. I spent my first year mainly just with college people, and then I didn't. It all became like the hippy squatting scene. But my friends are all probably 10 years younger than that group of people [in the book i.e. Drummond etc.].
John: So going back to Cressida then, and the waste management, I know she's an academic at University of Plymouth I think, doing science.
Yeah, I think so. She's working in plastics. So from when I looked her up, after I spoke to my friend, I think what she's doing is, plastics, it's textiles possibly, or have I invented that? I don't know, it's plastics. I should have looked it up before we spoke. I don't remember, yeah, it was a couple of years ago since I looked her up.
John: So what do you do in that direction?
I do communications for environmental companies, but mostly in the waste and resources sector. Shall I talk about how it started? So I had, when I was living in my truck, I kind of knew that at some point I would want to get a job. I wasn't working or else I was working at festivals or I was picking vegetables, you know, and I thought… do you want the short version actually, or the longer version?
John: No, it depends what you think is important to you.
So I started thinking about what I might be able to do. When I lived in Liverpool, no one I knew had a job, and there weren't really any jobs, nobody worked. All my friends were musicians or artists.
John: What year was this?
I moved there in '88, left there in '92. Everybody was an artist or musician and a lot of them have gone on to have good work in those areas now that they're working. But I remember somebody saying to me, "What would you do?". And I said, "I have absolutely no idea." And I had these books, there was a book company called Element which did kind of new-agey books and I said, "Oh, if I could work for them, I'd go and work for them". That would be, you know, that's what I'd do. And then by coincidence, I ended up, when I first moved into my truck, well I was in a caravan to start off with, it was outside this town called Shaftesbury in Dorset.
It was quite a fixed site. I went on to move a lot later, but at the time I had no intentions of moving. You know, this site had been there for a long time and it was still going to be there for a long time. After I'd been living there for a little while I found out that this book company was based in Shaftesbury and that people I knew had worked in the warehouse and stuff like that. And one day I got a lift, I was going to sign on I think, I got a lift with this guy and said, “What do you do?” And he said, “Oh I've got a book company”. And I said, “You own Element don't you? And he said, “Yes”, and I said, “I want to work for you”. He said, "Well come and see me then". And I was completely covered in mud, you know, I was very crusty, kind of had dreadlocks down to, you know, but I went to see him, he was a really lovely guy, and he said, "What do you want to do?". I said, "I don't know, I guess I'd be a proofreader." So he got his head proofreader in, and said, "See if she can work for us." And she gave me this test. She was meant to help me, but she didn't help me. And so I failed the test, but she said: "You would be able to do it, but you need to go and study. You need to get a qualification." And so I spent a few years after that, I got a job on this farm, and I did the qualification. And then I ended up going off and doing something completely different, I moved to Wales and kind of forgot about it. And then came back, via various places – you know, I went to Scotland, and later I ended up back in Dorset, at the same farm. I was 32 I think and I just thought “if I don't get a different kind of job now compared to veg picking, then no one's going to give me one”. You know, I was quite happy doing what I was doing really. But I thought I need to make a change now because when I'm 40 no one's going to look at me, you know. Anyway, so I started writing to people. And I ended up, through a friend, I got this two-week job stuffing envelopes at this publishing company that did magazines. They also did phone books, and I had this job for them for a little while where I rang everybody in the phone book, it was the most dire thing. And then they bought a new magazine and this woman came down one day and said “he's buying this new magazine and he's going to need an editor, can I get him to talk to you?” I was like “yes, amazing”. And so she pulled me into this room and my interview was two questions with this guy. He's a self-made millionaire, he used to buy failing magazines and then build them up and then sell them is what he did usually. And he asked me if I was intimidated by him because of his money and that's like a real, that's a really weird question. And the next one, so the magazine was a recycling one, it was for the recycling industry, and the next one was “do you think you could talk to scrap men?” And, recycling isn't about scrap at all anymore, well you know not really, but he didn't understand that. And when I'd had my truck I'd had no money and I had to keep it on the road and I was really good at talking to scrap men. So it's like “yeah that's what I can do” and so he gave me the job. And so I edited this magazine about recycling. One of the things that convinced him was my proofreading qualification so it did have some use in the end!
After the first job, I moved to Bristol to a different recycling magazine and then I left, in 2008, I left to try and do something completely different but I ended up, by chance really, people offering me work as a writer mainly and people would get me to write an article, and then say, "Oh, do you think you could help to get it published?" And through that, I accidentally became a PR person. That's what I do really.
So yeah, so that's what I do. It's all really writing-based. I do PR, write reports for people, or I write magazine articles.
John: What's your angle? Are you more into the process of it? Or is it like a political stance for you? Are you like a Green person?
I am a green person but for a long time I didn’t think my job necessarily reflected that so much. Yeah, I'm definitely green. The industry has changed a lot. So my time in the waste industry, (I don't want this all to be about the waste industry!). But when I started, it…
John: Sounds like a euphemism for the mafia, but hit people!
It has become much more green than it was when I started. When I started it didn’t really feel so much about being green at all, it was more about shifting rubbish. But now there's loads of cool stuff going on. But yeah, I feel like I have become a much more, kind of corporate person through my work.
John: You engage my eyes very directly there. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
I don't think it's a good thing. I don't know. It's given me, you know, this is just on a personal level, my job has given me a sort of confidence that I never knew that I had. You know, I'm good at what I do. But I think in a much more business-y way, and that's not really who I think I am. But then I think I probably am now; that is who I am now.
John: Yeah, so what made you move to Wotton then?
To Wotton, it's quite a dull reason in a way I suppose. So we were living in Bristol looking to buy a house. I wasn't very keen on leaving Bristol really, partly because I work from home and I, you know, in Bristol it's quite easy to go out and be around people. But we were walking the Cotswold Way and the Monarch Way, and things like that, and just, yeah, walking out of Wotton quite a lot. And Bristol's really expensive and so when we started looking for houses we were looking on the edge of Bristol which didn't really feel like a community. It felt very, you know, it was like an estate of houses with a sort of Spar shop, maybe a school, nothing else. And then this house came up here and I agreed that I could move out of Bristol possibly if I lived in Wotton. It was the cinema and the swimming pool that did it, and the fact that they were community-run made me think, “well, there's stuff going on”. We didn't know anybody here when we moved here.
John: What year was that?
2012.
John: Do you think it's been borne out of that kind of hunch you had? Has it proved to keep your interest?
I'm not sure. No, I'm not sure at the moment. I’m not sure if it’s post-Covid, the way I think of it has changed. I’m missing that easy access to culture, to music, and just the variety of people. Though there are interesting people here and a good community, and I’d miss the nature if I was in the city. That’s always the conundrum isn’t it? I’m pretty happy here really, I don't know where else I’d go. And also I've always moved, like all my life. So I've never, you know, growing up I never lived anywhere longer than…
John: You're an army brat aren't you?
I'm an army brat, yeah. So, the shortest time we lived anywhere was a month and the longest was three years. So I get itchy feet wherever I am. And I've lived in really remote places where there's been nothing and I've lived in cities. And when I'm in the remote places I miss the people and when I'm in the cities, you know, I always want a bit of green… So this is a good mixture. And I've been here for 10 years and I don't feel like I need to get up and go, which is a first.
John: That sounds positive [cut] … Are you quite argumentative? I think you said you like political debates back up in Liverpool in one of your emails or messages.
I don't think I am, I don't know, am I argumentative? I don't know the answer to that actually. I'm wondering if people would say that I was, I don't think so. Not with random people definitely, I don’t just argue with random people. But I'm quite direct, I am quite direct, yes. And I expect that of other people, and I don't think people… I think a lot of people find that quite challenging. I know sometimes I say to my partner, like I'll meet someone just in a shop or something. And I could just maybe ask them a question that’s a bit too close to the bone and I know that I've made them uncomfortable. And that's not my intention at all. I come back and I say “Eurgh, I've made them uncomfortable with me”, and he's like, “Yeah”.
John: Where do you think that comes from, that approach to interpersonal interactions?
Partly from Liverpool.
John: Is that where you're from?
No, no. But I think I learned, I don't know, like when I was young, I was incredibly shy and I'm still quite shy in some ways but I've learned to… I think being in Liverpool, people are just very open and much more, you know, just chatty, and things are kind of more direct I think. And then when I moved on site, one of the reasons that I did it – if I was thinking about it at all – I don't know, really, it sort of was just a path, I think. But it was partly that I didn't know how to do anything practical. I'd never done anything practical because I'd grown up living in army houses where they'd do everything, and then I went to boarding school, so I'd never changed a light bulb in a house, nothing at all. And I was really conscious of that when I moved into my truck. It was partly because of that that I wanted to do it, and I was just so out of my depth, you know, it's unbelievable really. But it did teach me that, and it also taught me – it's a bit of a façade I think in some ways – but it’s kind of the traveller way you know, that if you're challenged – and I don't always do this – but it taught me to be able to kind of stand up for myself.
John: So did you move around in the truck as a traveller?
Yeah, well the first site that I lived on I didn't plan to move at all. You know, it was a beautiful place and really nice people. A friend of mine lived there and he went away to India. I bought his caravan. So I didn't really know any other people there when I moved there. But yeah, it was very good. It's quite a long story, so I won't go into that. Basically, it was evicted in the end as a test case for the Criminal Justice Bill with 100 riot police.
I wasn't there. Everyone I knew had left and it was quite full on. And I'd gone up to Liverpool. I'd left my truck and had just gone, thinking I need to work out what I'm gonna do. And I got stuck up there for a bit longer than I meant to, I went for two weeks, ended up there for a month and the night, no, the morning that I hitched back down again, the site was evicted. The night before, I was sat round a fire, thinking I was saying goodbye to Liverpool, then I got home and it was all gone. My truck was gone, everything. Luckily I got it back, and after that I started moving.
John: Where was that site?
Near Shaftesbury.
John: Near Shaftesbury, which you mentioned earlier.
And so after that first site, I did travel, it was mainly in Dorset. I mean, most travellers don't actually go very far! So it was, I'd say Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire I was travelling in, Brighton a little bit. Yeah I've forgotten what I wanted to say? I was on a roll before you asked that.
John: It's about the eviction. I asked you, yeah, I guess. You said did you travel but I can't remember why, what we were talking about before that. Did you ever name the truck?
No. No. Er, I just never. No. People that I knew called it the snail because it looked a bit like a snail. But no. I don't think anyone I knew named their vehicles actually. That wasn't a thing.
John: So is that when you had dreadlocks?
Yeah, I had dreadlocks for 11 years. So from when I was in Liverpool, I think, probably, yeah, till 2000. I went to Africa that year and cut them off before I came home.
Carolyn: "Me in Liverpool, with Thumper the dog, my partner in crime for about 15 years".
Carolyn: "The only photo I know of of me living on site".
John: Were you glad you did all that in travelling? And you described yourself as a crusty, so I'm not trying to...
No, that's fine. Right, so this goes back to what I was talking about when you said did you travel? So I've been thinking about this because of talking to you. If I go back to that time, I think times are so different now, and I don't just mean in my life. I think the world is so different now than from when I was growing up. In the late 80s, it just felt like there was nothing. It felt like everything in normal society was just, I can say sham but that's not really the right word. It was just not possible for me to function in that, I didn't think. So I don't really know what else I would have done, you know. I've been thinking about how people think about squatters – people who have no idea about it. And they sort of, I can't even vocalise what I think they see, but it's not what it is, is it? I think it's much more political, it's much more actively thought out. People just think it's a load of no-gooders kind of breaking into your house and wrecking it, but all the squats that I knew were in a better state than most of the houses that people were renting. You know? And it's that thing isn't it, of learning practical stuff and a political angle of just not being part of the rest. When I look at that now I think, “well, why didn't I want to be part of things?” I was unemployed for a long time. And I think if I'd spent that time earning money, then I could have been in another country doing something interesting. And what I was actually doing was living in a vehicle in rainy Britain!
You know, why was that? And I think it was, there was a split as well. So from when I was in Liverpool to being in my truck, in Liverpool a lot of my friends were artists and musicians. And travellers, well you can't really generalize I suppose, but in the groups that I was in, people were just surviving, you know? It was much more… a lot of your time was spent getting wood, getting water. But when I think about it, I like being around artists, you know I like that creative thinking. And when I look back to site, I think “Oh, so where was I getting that from then then?” Because nobody was really doing anything artistic. But I think it was almost like it was its own art form. Like people, people who lived in houses who were a bit crusty, definitely within the traveller scene – and I don't know if squatting was the same – it was like, if you weren't living it all day every day, then you weren't, you know, you were just a bit of a fraud. So that was, it was very time consuming, just surviving. But then to me, the whole environment was art, people’s homes, it was all really DIY and its own style.
Carolyn: "Talking about whether I’m practical or not, everything you see in the truck was built by me, from the ceiling to the carpet. I had this fear when I built the bed (seats turned into a bed) that it would just collapse. Gav came round with chips when I was making it and said, ‘Well, can it take the weight?’ and we both jumped on it. That became a kind of mantra for anything I did in any phase of life after. ‘Can it take the weight?’ ".
John: These travellers, are you in contact with any of them?
Yeah, yeah. And everyone looks back on it as being their halcyon days. Community, the community. And the wildness of it, not having the same rules as anyone else and being able to play around a bit more, with ideas, looking a bit out there, or pushing things a bit. And living partly outside, there's not so much of a distinction between your indoors and outdoors. And I feel, I mean even here really, I have that lovely view [window overlooks fields], but it’s not the same. We had to go outside for everything, to get your water every time you want a cup of tea, get wood, or just always moving from one person’s vehicle to another – we spent a lot of time hanging out with each other telling stories – you see things, like you know what's happening with the moon all the time, or the seasons. You kind of know, you just know what's going on around you in nature, in a way that you don't when you're walled in a bit more.
John: It's really interesting [JC calls time]
Footnote from John: For a while Carolyn conducted a series of local radio station (Edge Radio) show called In The Kitchen At Parties. Here is a link for one that includes a really interesting interview with local person Paddy Doherty.