Oh, and history walks around Margate, too.

1. Craters in the Sussex Bay, the Sussex Kelp Recovery Project say, are lunar-pad nesting sites – an indication that black sea bream is returning to the county’s shores.

2. The floating platforms of a windfarm off Portugal have created a reef in an otherwise sandy, soft-bottom environment. Initial colonization was dominated by mussels, followed by barnacles and kelp. That, and the reduction in damaging fishing, have created a rewilded undersea landscape.

3. Leasowe is home to what is considered to be the oldest surviving brick-built lighthouse in the UK. Since closure, it’s been maintained by local people. The Ragged Optimist is currently obsessed with lighthouses.

4. Not as obsessed as Veronica Skotnes, who crashed into the northernmost lighthouse in the world, then decided she liked it so much she persuaded the lighthouse authority to let her move in. Hero.

5. Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them. Or — saving them for later. The Ragged Optimist lives in a bookshop (at least, until he finds a willing lighthouse), so piles of books to be read is a constant hazard.

6. Rewilded land remains green amid the drought that’s hit the UK. Spotted by Janet.

7. The best jokes at the Edinburgh Fringe. Richard Stott: “To the person who stole my bank card and spent all my money on ancestry.com – you know who you are.”

8. Library as ‘a living room for the neighbourhood’, designed to be demountable so it can be moved and refused on another site.  Central in the design is ‘a giant pink sitting hill’, and the building includes library, work areas, cinema, and maker spaces.

9. Beaver Parade in South Norwood.

10. And finally - using beavers to stop fires

1. Puffins are not indigenous to the uninhabited Lighthouse Island, so no population existed there until an introduction scheme was launched around 2013. There are now around 30 breeding pairs of puffins on the island.

2. One of Australia’s greatest cultural ambassadors has been recognised posthumously for dedicating her life to sharing, preserving and promoting First Nations culture. Proud Widjabul Wieybal woman of the Bundjalung nation Rhoda Roberts was posthumously awarded a lifetime achievement award.

3. AI companies are buying books published before 2022 as material to train AI, because books published after 2022 might be polluted by material that could have been generated by AI. Which pretty much proves how rubbish AI is.

4. “I’ve never been so excited to see a poo,” says Pia Trevelyan-Ashby.

5. Twenty-one white storks have been released on Bodmin Moor where it is hoped they will breed. ‘Storks don’t engineer landscapes the way beavers do. Their function is different, and quietly profound: they reconnect us to the wild.’

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6. “Jones has planted more trees to help keep water in the land and to provide shelter for cattle. He also practices rotational grazing, which involves breaking fields into smaller paddocks and moving the herd frequently so it only comes back to the same spot every three to six months. But Jones’s best asset is a family of beavers who, although kept within a relatively small enclosure since their introduction nine years ago, have built a reservoir that contains 3m litres of water.” Farming in difficult times needs beavers.

7. A new £4.5 million project has seen the return of the tide for the first time in over 200 years following completion of the Environment Agency’s Greatham Marsh Restoration Scheme in Hartlepool.

8. Stephen Moss and Stephen Moss (no relation) both write letters to The Guardian about being confused with the other Stephen Moss. They both write for The Guardian.

9. Sail-powered cargo ships and steam engines in use everyday, in a vision of North Kent in 2046 that ends this collection of short stories inspired by Sittingbourne’s Steam Railway.

10. This short video is a good introduction to regenerative agriculture. Seaweed, food forestry, and crop diversity to rebuild our soil and feed the world.

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Since the last edition, I’ve jumped into the sea a few times (there’s a mildly secret Thanet bay, less frequented by tourists - perfect). And have been down to Folkestone, to see the work of archaeologists (one of my daughters included) on a Romano-British villa site.

We caught Folkestone Pride while there, which was absolutely glorious. It felt like it mattered to people, while some Pride events these days feel a bit like a big noisy middle class party. On an old BBC documentary about the seaside, John Walton speaks about seaside as a place of experimentation, of trying on new things, and I think that’s why they’ve always been places for queer life. I spent a too-hot afternoon at Folk Week in Broadstairs, which feels like another expression of that spirit. Morris dance is a very queer space.

The exhibition I’ve curated in Dover is open for visitors at the Pines Garden. Cross Channel is embedded in the work of The Bay Trust, and weaves together chalk and communications, sea swimming and self-exile.

Meanwhile, a series of short videos made with Coast Projects in Margate have been something of a local hit. In them, I tell a story of Margate’s unreliable history. There will be more videos soon, and a new pamphlet about the town’s history to accompany the series. So this month, an exclusive short extract from that, for paid subscribers only.

And of course, yesterday, there was an incredible eclipse, with crowds filling the beaches and bays along the North Kent coast for the best views, possibly in the whole of the UK.

Dan Thompson’s Seaside History Club and Marine Studios present First Friday: Lighthouses. Friday 4th September, 6-8.30pm, at Marine Studios, Albert Terrace, Margate. Featuring more than 100 paintings of lighthouses by Dan Thompson, and a chance to make your own (miniature) lighthouse. Free admission.

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From An Unreliable Historian’s History of Margate …

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A quick catch-up with The Ragged Optimist’s recent work -

• Writer-in-Residence on Sittingbourne’s Steam Railway. Read the stories here.

• The Whitehawk Great Map is on show in Brighton, after a UK tour.

• The Cross Channel exhibition at the Pines Garden Visitor Centre at St Margaret’s, near Dover.

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  And now, this week’s list -

1. In Queer Religion, photographer Frances Marshall has taken portraits of religious leaders of all faiths. The work is currently on show at St John the Baptist Church as part of Margate Pride, and The Ragged Optimist will be in conversation with Fran on Weds 5th August, from 7pm.

2. Beaver news! Baby beavers have been born in Glen Affric in the Scottish Highlands for the first time in about 400 years.

3. And - baby pine martens have been born on Exmoor for the first time in more than 100 years, too.

4. Keeping secrets from the robots. New font designed to be read by humans, but not by AI.

5. The Tree Council and Defra are working in partnership to deliver the Trees Outside Woodland Fund, to establish trees outside woodland. Open until 31st October.

6. Diggers & Dreamers has been following those living the dream of communal living for more than 35 years. The 13th edition of their directory of UK intentional communities, including urban, rural, spiritual, secular, cohousing, and low-impact living models, is out now.

7. A three-bedroom home on a back-garden site at the rear of a Victorian terrace. “We see community and citizen-led housing delivery as a way to deliver more sustainable and better housing, and it could be the future of housing delivery for urban densification.”

8. A guide to blue butterflies, from Kent Wildlife Trust.

9. Eight lovingly reworked songs from Exotic Monsters, the 2021 debut Penfriend album, are released (or re-released?) as Monstrous Exotic.

10. And finally - solar power made up a record share of Britain’s electricity mix in July, and there’s been a surge in new installations (including The Ragged Optimist’s dad).

The Ragged Optimist is all hand-crafted. There’s no sneaky AI in here. Please share it with your friends, and show them it’s not all bad news right now. Thank you.

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While there, The Ragged Optimist and family accidentally stumbled into Folkestone Pride coming up the hill, which was rather wonderful and a little bit emotional. The Ragged Optimist remembers old Brighton marches, some thirty years ago, and helping to stop traffic for a Margate Pride that the council wouldn’t give permission for, but which went ahead anyway. Pride as protest, and all that.

All of which is to say, right now we need hope and optimism and joy more than ever. So here are ten good things, found by The Ragged Optimist this last week, in that spirit.

Scroll down for news about Margate Zine Fair - this weekend!

1. On the National Trust’s Holnicote Estate, where conservation experts have been restoring the landscape by allowing a river to return to its natural course, rare heron, white-tailed eagles, white storks and cranes have been seen. They have beavers, too, of course.

2. Amy’s Place is ten years old. It’s a rehab centre for women, founded by Amy Winehouse’s family, and has helped more than 90 people.

3. ‘A gallery built on optimism’. Last year Sam had to quit his job after a stroke, and his ten-year-old daughter Daisy encouraged him to paint. After a pop up in Margate’s Old Town, they have opened a permanent gallery and work is selling fast. A couple of minutes talking to Sam will leave you feeling happier.

4. Newhaven Town Council has voted unanimously to officially endorse the River Rights Charter for the River Ouse.

5. “Our fathers taught us to live with the forest without causing damage.” Sustainable forestry in Guatemala.

   It really does help if you share this with somebody, and they subscribe. It’s good to know this stuff is being read. Thank you.

6. Bio-designer Lucia Giron has worked with the University of Cambridge’s Department of Biochemistry to develop prototypes of an algae-based battery alternative, which harnesses the power of photosynthesis for electricity.

7. A record number of osprey chicks have been born at a nature reserve. Five chicks have been given leg rings and tags after their birth at Foulshaw Moss Nature Reserve in Cumbria.

8. Councillors have voted unanimously to take more action to protect the River Avon following a campaign spearheaded by a woman who “married” the waterway three years ago.

9. “We are just going to have to be OK with grass being yellow. We can’t water grass. It’s not the right thing to do. But we have to tell people why.”

10. Looking at rewilding our waters in an era of offshore wind, a new report explores how offshore wind can become more than just a tool for tackling the climate crisis. With the right approach, it could also enable the restoration of marine ecosystems, strengthen coastal economies and create a better future for people and wildlife alike.

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Parish Notice: Margate Zine Fair is this weekend (1st and 2nd August) at Marine Studios, Margate. The Ragged Optimist will be there. It’s a joyful celebration of the love of small things - zines are made by people excited about something, and wanting to share it. That might be music, philosophy, art, a political point of view, or … lighthouses. 11am-4pm each day, part of the Margate Pride Art Map.

1. The 30th nationally significant clean energy project approved by the government since July 2024, a new solar farm will generate enough clean energy to power half the homes in Lincolnshire. “The only way to have energy security is if we take a pro-growth approach to building more clean energy in Britain. For 2 years that is exactly what this government has done.",” says Ed Miliband.

2. Explaining how rewilding makes economic sense.

3. RSPB Cymru has purchased a 96-hectare upland area of land to support rare Celtic rainforests and woodland birds such as pied flycatchers.

4. Kent Wildlife Trust has secured £1.28m for wildlife schemes including beaver work at River Stour.

5. And a wild beaver has been born in Staffordshire for the first time in more than 400 years.

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6. Yinka Ilorin has designed duvet covers, chairs, cushions and more for Dunelm. “My work is very much about inclusivity and how people enjoy design.”

7. ”When we go to the water, our shoulders drop, our eyes and face soften. We start breathing more slowly. We’re concentrating but we’re not concentrating … we’re in a state of drift.” More about the mental health benefits of water.

8. Margate Zine Fair is back in August, a co-production by Dark Entries, Dan Thompson Studio, and Marine Studios. A dozen zine makers and distributors will be there, and you can book tickets here.

9. Midsland an Zee is a Dutch dune-backed village that is a popular spot for holiday homes, many of which date back to the 1960s. Unknown Architects has completed House on a Dune, which sinks down into the sand.

10. The Rewilding Network is a growing community of people who are rewilding land and sea, and membership ranges from farmers looking to diversify to conservation professionals to community groups. It connects over 250 large-scale projects and hundreds of smaller rewilding projects, meaning they can navigate the complexities of the rewilding journey with support.

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I’ve been busy this month, designing and installing a new exhibition for The Bay Trust, at the Pines Garden cafe and visitor centre in St Margaret’s Bay. I’ve been working with them for five years, helping them understand their work in a different way. The most pressing issue humanity faces together is adapting to a changing climate. From building the carbon neutral Pines Calyx building and making their Hugelkultur beds to experiments in producing Biochar, they have been working on things to help with this for a long time..

And they used to have a ramshackle ‘museum’ on site, that had lost its accreditation, committee, curator, and most of its collection in about 2014. It was limping on with a few odd Second World War objects in old cases, and every space on the wall covered in prints, photocopies, and old exhibition panels from the 1990s. We have cleared all that way, reopened windows, and made a simple cafe and visitor centre that can house exhibitions about the environmental work of The Bay Trust, the Pines Gardens, and St Margaret’s Bay.

Cross Channel, the new exhibition, includes images from The Bay Trust’s archives, alongside contemporary art work. It also connects to objects in the gardens, seeing the whole of the site as a museum. It looks at the Cross-Channel Geopark, and the English Channel/La Manche not as a contested border, but as a place of connection, shared culture, and coming together.

I’ve included the staff magazine for the construction companies who worked together to build the Channel Tunnel, and a Roman oil lamp, that tells the story of the trade networks joining the Romano-British people living in this northern corner of the Roman Empire with people living in France and Germany, the Mediterranean countries, North Africa, and the Middle East. There’s a contemporary work of art that connects the Somme battlefields to Kent, and a map made by an artist who chose self-exile to France after Brexit. There’s Mini Moderns wallpaper and work by Margo in Margate and Vanessa Daws channel swimming paintings. There’s the story of a Jewish refugee whose statues of Winston Churchill can be found across the world. It’s complex and subtle and tells a big story in a simple way. If you can find the time, please go and see it. Enjoy the gardens and pop down to the bay for a paddle while you’re there.

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Here’s another piece, roughed together as a story of Worthing’s Twentieth Century reinventions from scraps I’d written previously. I suspect Worthing needs a whole book, not a chapter, which is what I was aiming for. It’s a bit ragged, but there’s the start of a story in there:

In 1933, architect Charles Cowles-Voysey built a new Town Hall for Worthing’s self-important councillors. Refused permission for a plaque with his name on it, he instead hid his name in the design of a circular carpet at the centre of the council chamber. Woven among the sea creatures and fronds of seaweed are the letters of his name. Won’t be druv, indeed. Every councillor has to look at those letters. In memory of the ones who didn’t want his name remembered.

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1. The people discovering they want to join the circus in older life. The Ragged Optimist has a secret hankering to become a clown.

2. An exhibition exploring the urge to collect, sort, and catalogue, and how that feeds an artistic practice. May include badges, teapots, vintage stationery, matchboxes, postcards, OO scale buildings and more. 17th & 18th July, in Margate.

3. A natural solution that tackles climate change, flooding, wildfires and biodiversity loss all at the same time. Restoring peat bogs in Wales.

4. The RSPB have a bunch of wildlife cameras. Snoop on Goshawk, Osprey, and Swift.

5. Inspired by an ancient Celtic zodiac rooted in the thirteen lunar months, each associated with a different tree or plant, Luke Adam Hawker has created a series of thirteen intricate etchings for an exhibition at Stourhead.

6. When you’re employing an architect to design your chicken shed, you might have too much money. But it is a very good chicken shed.

7. “I married my river in Bristol but I spread the love upstream and downstream and suddenly you’re looking at the whole planet.”

8. in the Young Planetary Stewards programme, participants are matched with local organisations – from farms to conservation groups – and receive funding of up to £4,000 per person alongside mentoring in project management. Most importantly, the project ideas come from the young people themselves.

9. Kent Wildlife Trust are holding an open day at their HQ Tyland Barn Nature Park & Gardens. They’ll be demonstrating how to wild a garden with a dry garden, vegetable planters, winter flower beds, fruit shrubs and pollinator planting.

10. The BBC Archive on YouTube is full of quirky and interesting old documentaries. Always a good diversion. A traffic-jammed Covent Garden in 1972 or the optimistic early days of the internet. Take your pic.

*Sorry, readers in the Midlands. For the sea bit. You can still have icepops.

1. Do watch An Incomplete History of Music - wildly ambitious, broad in scope, presented by Charlotte Richie who is now a National Treasure and jolly funny. The kind of epic thing the BBC used to make, but now it’s made for YouTube. “A triceratops is more likely to like Tom Waits than Minnie Riperton.”

2. They asked everyone they interviewed for the piece of music that always excites them, makes them smile or cry. At the end of each episode, their house band cover one of those pieces. The Ragged Optimist picks Don’t Forget About Me by Dusty Springfield. What are you choosing?

3. “[We need] an objective-oriented economy, where how we all relate to each other matters as much as what we’re doing.”

4. Two baby beavers have been born at Wyre Forest.

5. The Wilder Parks initiative sees leading protected areas across Europe unite to demonstrate the transformative power of rewilding, with things like natural grazing and the free flow of water given more space and freedom to accelerate nature recovery.

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6. Like a 21ts century Mini Moke, Amble is a lightweight, road-legal electric vehicle that’s … well, not really a car.

7. Marine Studios’ First Friday is back, with ‘Something About Trees’ on Friday 3rd July, 6-8.30pm. There will be games, exhibits, and activities made by artists including Twinkle Troughton, Sara Trillo, and Dan Thompson. Bring your own curiosity. For all ages. Drop in any time.

8. An interesting look at different cohousing communities in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Home of the MC5 and Iggy Pop, and the only place in the United States that The Ragged Optimist has visited.

9. Conservationists, farmers and volunteers have helped to increase the population of a rare butterfly in Kent by 9000 per cent. “We are absolutely overjoyed about how successful this work has been. When we first started counting the Duke of Burgundy in the 1990s we usually counted fewer than 50 butterflies all year.

   “This incredible increase in recent years absolutely proves that good conservation work can save rare species.”

10. An finally, for beach-starved readers in the Midlands - Warwickshire Wildlife Trust’s nature reserves.

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1. This is a lovely bit of storytelling: might two post-holes found by archaeologists represent the working-out for Stonehenge?

2. A rare pine marten has been spotted in a back garden in Worthing — Worthing! — and it’s the first of its kind to have been seen in Sussex for more than 100 years.

3. The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music is dedicated to telling the story of music in the USA, and celebrating Bruce Springsteen’s contributions to that tradition. “Architecture exists in space, whereas music exists in time. How to create a physical space to honour a temporal art was a guiding question for the design.”

4. The UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (remember Dominic Cummings…?) is funding a programme to rethicken Arctic sea ice. 

5. Tens of thousands of pages to enjoy in the Bidodiversity Heritage Lab’s free online archives. A web 2.0 project, made when 10 prominent museums and institutions in the UK and the US digitised their historic biodiversity literature collections to create one online library that every scientist around the world could access for free 

6. RSPB Saltholme, in Teesside, is home to yellow wagtails, skylarks and short-eared owls and … Tamworth pigs. By digging, rooting, and shitting, they’ll make the soil more suitable for wildflowers and native species that will support bugs and birds.

7. When you’re out looking for beavers - follow the Beaver Code.

8. DSDHA has transformed the Sheep Field Barn at at the Hertfordshire home of the sculptor Henry Moore. Originally an agricultural building, It was used for storage by Moore and later adapted as a gallery in 1999. DSDHA have doubled its footprint, creating new workshops for learning, making and engagement.

9. Co-housing is gaining popularity in a post-pandemic world where loneliness, the housing crisis and costly care are forcing a drive for new solutions. Would anybody - either in Margate or Ramsgate, or Shoreham or Worthing, like to talk with The Ragged Optimist about what a local project might look like?

10. And on the other side of the world — decades after their local extinction, a handful of burrowing bettongs have been released in the outback in New South Wales.

1. A solar-powered rubbish-eating boat - this is the future we deserve. This vessel is chomping plastic waste out of the sea.

2. Author Joanna Foat is working with Forestry England, on an exhibition to tell the story of women in forestry during the Second World War.

3. Rammed earth is an ancient construction method that mixes earth with demolition aggregate, water and local stone fragments. The Pines Calyx at St Margaret’s, near Dover is made from rammed chalk. And this beautiful (and huge) country house in Wiltshire by Tuckey Design Studios shows the technique can make something that feels very contemporary.

4. There are plans to release Beavers in the Western Rother catchment and there’s a public consultation. Go and have your say.

5. And - The Wild Otter Trust is now in a purpose-built new rehabilitation centre in a new location, after being threatened with closure last year.

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6. Pluckley Nature Reserve in Kent, owned and managed by the Parish Council, has been officially designated as a Local Wildlife Site. It’s a small but species-rich site that features grassland, scrub, a small area of woodland and three ponds, and is home to dormice, nightingale, grizzled skipper, grass snake and slow worm.

7. And RSPB Scotland have bought Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth, home to the world’s largest colony of northern gannets. It’s where Puffins go to breed. Spotted by Connor.

8. A new Natural History GCSE will look at biodiversity, climate change, and wildlife in the UK.

9. For Coventry’s Third Friday, Media Mania are running a SoundMapping Workshop, where you can try your hand at making some field recordings around the local area, then see how your sounds can be edited together into a soundscape. Friday 19th June at Talking Birds HQ The Nest.

10. Marta Nowicka has used an entirely reclaimed palette of scaffolding planks, hollow concrete blocks and wood-wool boards to bring an organic feel to a small studio in East Sussex, built on a scrap of leftover land.

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I’ve been working for a year and some months on what a book about the seaside might be - one that explores culture and social class, social history and psychogeography, architecture and a real understanding of living by the sea. Something that’s deeper than the London journalist’s standard take, ‘it’s beautiful, it’s undergoing a renaissance, and something about poor people’. It’s taken a few different shapes over that time, but here’s … well, what might be a starting point.

‘True guidebooks should lead you to things and leave you at the door. If you are reading you cannot see. Travellers should only read after dark.’ Robert Harbison.

Everyone in England knows the seaside. More than any other nation, we are defined by our coastline. Shaped, made, and our story woven into the coastal hinterlands, not the land they surround. A 2007 definition of the coast starts out at seas and ends 100 kilometers inland. The most inland parts of England are only 110 kilometers from the beach. Inland is the exception, not the rule.

Writers have long misunderstood what this island is about. Paul Theroux, JB Priestley, Orwell, and Bill Bryson all took great journeys to understand us. But those writers all headed inland, obsessed with our great cities - London, Manchester, Leeds, Stoke-on-Trent, Liverpool. Easily distracted by industry, by what we make, by trying to find the centre where things might make sense. They saw the seaside towns as the edges of the country, borderlands, liminal spaces somewhere between the real England and Foreign Parts.

More contemporary writers have followed their example, and seen the seaside as edge, outlier, extremity. Mistaken the line for the form. They have often come from London, to the seaside, in search of meaning. But that’s doing it the wrong way round, assuming London is the important part. And that error in the foundations makes everything built on them skewiff.

It’s just not like that. By any realistic definition of what a country is, England’s coastal regions are the centre. The country’s economics are based on what happens at the edges, from pre-Roman trade routes to the vast shipping container ports of today’s global economy. Then as now, ours is an economics that sees the sea not as a boundary or a division, but as a connection between places. Everything else is built on that wealth.

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He visited Comrades in Art at Towner Gallery in Eastbourne. It’s a comprehensive exhibition on the anti-fascist Artists International Association (AIA) that weaves together familiar artists from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s like Barbara Hepworth, Tirzah Garwood, Laura Knight, John Piper, Laszlo Moholy Nagy, Duncan Grant, and Paul Nash, with lots of unsung artists - Cliff Rowe, Nan Youngman, Pearl Binder, Betty Rea. The exhibition loops and twists and makes connections, pairing things, works calling you back from one room to another. It’s threaded through with ephemera and posters and photos. It is historic - but let’s be honest, it’s incredibly contemporary - a show about anti-fascists right now?

There are hundreds of works: the captions document is over 320 pages long. It’s the first show in over 40 years to focus on the AIA as a central theme. But that’s not why you should go. You should go because the art is wonderful, the curation outstanding, and Towner’s bravery in going anti-fascist right now is exactly what we need from institutions - a reminder that we have to fight for a better world. It’s on until October.

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1. The UK’s Green Economy is worth £100bn a year. And there are more than a million people working in it. Now, that’s a thing worth celebrating.

2. The Bank of England asked people what should go on the next issue of banknotes (designs are changed regularly for security), and people said ‘wildlife’. Now you can vote for which animals should be on our banknotes. Sadly, despite some people getting angry about it, there are no beavers.

3. The Global Justice Project attempts to set out a new vision for global progress in the 21st century. It looks at how the world could move, suggesting an economical and ecological transition path from 2026 to 2100.

4. During his time as Children’s Laureate, the bestselling author Frank Cottrell-Boyce travelled the country, meeting children and young people where they were. As he met these children, he began to reflect on stories from his own childhood and on children’s lives in Britain during his lifetime. His new book, A British Childhood, tells the story of what it means to be young in modern Britain - and calls for action for children. The Ragged Optimist is reading it now - it’s out on 18th June.

5. The Ragged Optimist is also reading Braver New World by John Kampfner, which looks at how countries around the world are solving the big issues - aging populations, environmental collapse, housing, and healthcare. It’s not just optimism - it’s about the bravery and imagination that is making things actually happen, right now.

6. Built from over 30 tonnes of soil and clay infused with spices, Colombian artist Delcy Morelos has created ‘Origo’ in the Barbican Centre’s Sculpture Court.

7. Birmingham’s last surviving example of the ‘back-to-back’ houses that once defined industrial working-class life in the city is hosting an exhibition of work by Fashion and Jewellery students at Birmingham City University, who’ve responded to the area’s history.

8. The Wildlife Trusts and Beaver Trust are calling on the Government to provide long-term funding to farmers for the creation of beaver-friendly habitats, such as restored riverbanks and wetlands. They also want farmers to work together, across neighbouring farms.

9. In the Orkney Isles, the Growing Sanday project is tackling coastal erosion by revitalising kelp forests, saltmarshes and dune habitats, creating a self-sustaining defence for the island’s 500 residents. Much of the island of Sanday lies just a few metres above sea level, with dune losses of up to 37 metres already recorded in some areas.

10. The Guardian visits Kielder, to see how a working, managed timber-production forest can also incorporate wildlife and nature restoration.

    Optimism is contagious. Do your bit - pick one friend who needs a bit of hope and joy - and forward them this week’s edition of The Ragged Optimist’s newsletter. And - share it on your socials. Thank you, kindly.

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An early-ish visit to Pegwell Bay this morning, where there was a refreshing breeze and plenty of green shade, made up for a week spent hiding from the hottest of the weather.

1. A Green council purchased land to stop it being developed, and it’ll now be used to improve access to a local river.

2. A bird survey has revealed the highest ever number of Dartford Warblers recorded on RSPB nature reserves, with 264 pairs counted in 2025 – that’s a 44% increase in just five years! The wider UK population estimate has also reached 4100 pairs, up from 3200 during the last national survey in 2006.

3. The Silk Wood Playscape in Gloucestershire uses oak from the surrounding forest to create “informal, unprogrammed” play structures.

4. The Ragged Optimist is sorry to see that Nigel Dunnett has died, a wonderful designer of loose and shaggy gardens and public spaces like London’s Olympic Park. 

5. One thousand years of lead mining has led to some incredible meadows on contaminated land.

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6. A Bee Sand Planter in Margate will be a home for mining bees. Phoebe from the local council was planting it up (on her day off!) and it was attracting bees and butterflies as she was working.

7. From 29th May to 2nd June, the world’s leading oncologists and researchers meet at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting. There are a whole bunch of incredible new treatments being tested, with great results.

8. A new London toilet block using recycled stone is a statement about accessibility, and about the importance of civic space.

9. Have some Puffins, as a change from the usual Beaver News. No, you still want beavers? Alright then. Oh, and how about some otters, as a bonus?

10. This energy-efficient desalination system produces fresh water without chemical additives and transforms leftover salts into useful materials.

The Ragged Optimist comes from Sussex stock, with a South Downs shepherd on the family tree, and a scattering of agricultural labourers (and a bit of radical Primitive Methodist preacher, too). And comes from a town once known for the quality of the things it grew, but nowadays mostly known for being near Brighton but cheaper.

In At Work In The Ruins, talks about finding the dropped threads of skills, practices, or knowledges that we thought were obsolete, but that may be woven in to an onward story.

So perhaps The Ragged Optimist sees the things in this weekly newsletter as less an overthrowing of a current way of being, more a rebalancing, repairing, picking up threads that ties past and future together.

1. The entire catchment of the River Wye has been formally recognised as a living ecosystem with intrinsic rights in a charter, which includes the right to flow, to biodiversity, to be free from pollution, to be supported by a healthy catchment, to regenerate, and the right to be represented. The Ragged Optimist has written about the Rights of Rivers campaigns before so great to see this in action.

2. NPR look at how and why the Great British Beaver has been brought back from extinction.

3. The Rewilding Innovation Fund has reached a major milestone - £1 million in grants awarded to rewilding projects across England, Scotland and Wales.

4. An interesting article touching on how rewilding can offer an opportunity to restore local identity to our landscapes.

5. Portuguese architecture studio Atelier Backlar have used recycled ocean plastic and locally sourced timber to create The Blue House. It sits within the ruins of an older building, an idea they’re exploring elsewhere too.

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6. “Many people believe the scale of the climate challenge calls for immense technological innovation, geoengineering, or the transformation of our economy. … There is one set of solutions, however, that present no trade-off at all when they are done right. The restoration of natural habitats like forests is an exception in our climate toolkit because it draws on the same network of connections that allowed life to flourish in the first place.”

7. Fine Arts students at West Dean College are holding an online auction in support of their summer shows. Work starts at £30. Go on…

8. Waugh Thisleton Architects have done lots of interesting things with timber construction, and all their research can be read for free online.

9. Talking Birds are a wonderful theatre company in Coventry, exploring ideas around a more regenerative creativity, citizen assemblies, and increasing access to the arts. They’re looking for new board members. You don’t have to be in Coventry.

10. And … some music. The wonderful Gwenifer Raymond live in concert, little hints of Davy Graham maybe.

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1. Maidstone Borough Council has become the first council in the UK to formally adopt a Rights of Nature framework. This means the council will embed the principle that nature has an intrinsic right to exist, thrive and evolve across its governance, decision‑making and service delivery.

2. Wild chough in Cornwall.

3. And wild beavers in the Rover Lowther in Cumbria. Cumbria Connect confirmed rumours of the animals being spotted in the first wild population of beavers in the county.

4. Scientists are improving apples’ resilience to wild temperature swings and drought. “We need to be mindful that the rootstocks we select are adaptable. It’s not that they’re adapted to a future climate, but that they’re adaptable.”

5. A group of prominent people are leading a National Conversation, to find out what the UK’s really all about. It’s a bit like the ongoing Agora project, only without the personal connections.

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6. There are some rather lovely pieces in Ikea’s PS furniture collection, which is only available initially in store. Remember when you had to go to the shops to buy things? The Ragged Optimist would like the birch folding chair, if anyone’s near an Ikea.

7. And the company are opening a Museum of Furniture in 2027.

8. Warwickshire Wildlife Trust are offering women a chance try a range of bush craft skills including traditional fire lighting, knife skills, shelter building and woodland crafts.

9. Headphones for children, made from recycled plastic, that arrive unassembled - so children learnt to make and to repair their own kit. Wonderful idea.

10. Sibsey Trader Windmill is one of England’s only remaining six-sailed mills, and it’s opened after a five-year conservation project by English Heritage.

As always - The Ragged Optimist kindly requests that you share this week’s post with one friend who might need a little hope and optimism to start their week. Thank you.

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1. “We wondered what a field guide or bird book would look like if it asked not ‘what is that bird?’, but ‘who is that bird?’; if it worked to help readers not only identify birds, but also identify with them.” The Book of Birds by Robert Macfarlane & Jackie Morris.

2. Super Biochar are a company tailoring biochar to individual locations to improve soil fertility and structure, rebuild microbial life,, improve water balance and aim for long-term carbon stability. They’ve also developed an app, to allow the biochar use to be measured and monitored. So there’s a proper way to track results over time to prove the work is real.

3. Now, this is niche, The Ragged Optimist admits, but … there’s a new type of cardboard for food packaging, made from recycled card and recycled plastic. But here’s the good bit: the plastic content is low enough that the packaging can be popped into normal paper recycling bins after use.

4. Councillors in Leicestershire have backed the release of beavers, even though their party is opposed to rewilding. Which just goes to show - people don’t understand what ‘rewilding’ means until they see the benefits. They should probably subscribe to this weekly publication, The Ragged Optimist thinks.

5. And beavers have been spotted at Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve, near Ringwood in Hampshire, for the first time.

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6. Biodegradable drinking glasses made from 3D-moulded paper covered in beeswax. Neat.

7. From the BBC Archives - Mick Farren and co talking about the Alternative Press. A fascinating little time capsule.

8. The National Trust is partnering with collector, author and curator, Karun Thakar to invite visitors to see things differently at a property with strong links to global trade and Empire through the East India Company.

9. Last year, China installed three times as much wind power capacity as the rest of the world combined (making them pretty resilient as oil prices increase). And its turbine exports jumped - the world’s six largest wind turbine manufacturers are now Chinese.

10. A few weeks ago, ArtBomb put on Beyond The Scroll, a day of conversation and exploration of how socially-engaged practice can reclaim focus and meaning in a digital age of distraction. It’s led Charlie Waterhouse to ask ‘What if Church did the decent thing and handed their spaces over to be of service to neighbourhoods first, God second?’