Knock Three Times

Description

With dazzling and original twists this new collection of modern folk tales explores everything from mobile phones to the refugee crisis, celebrity, climate change and the banks. Uniquely, the contributors are not just story tellers, but leading, independent authorities on the earth sciences, the environment, finance, economics, inequality, social policy and more.

Informations

• Publié par: The Real Press
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780995662360
• Langue: English

Extrait

KNOCK THREE TIMES
More modern folk tales for a troubled world …
 
This book is part of an ongoing project of the New Weather Institute . After decades of campaigning for a better world, our times seem ever-more troubling, standing on the verge of potentially irreversible ecological decline and in the grip of toxic social division. Knock Three Times is our third volume of tales following There was a Knock at the Door, and Knock Twice .
This edition brings together leading experts in climate hazards, earth science, zoology, health, finance, and progressive business together with storytellers, poets, artists and activists. Each contributor works in different ways to make the world a better place and safer from systemic threats, but also sees the limits of simply throwing facts at people in the hope that this will lead to change.
Here they take a different approach and turn to telling stories. Some reveal the unsafe foundations we stand on, others suggest the way ahead. We thank them for their contributions and being willing – in fact enthusiastic – to try something different. These tales are very modern, yet rooted in ancient story telling traditions. We need detailed plans and policies to prevent climate breakdown and build a world where all can thrive. But we also need better stories to first imagine and believe in its possibility. Here are some. We hope you enjoy them. If you haven’t before, and are moved to write your own, we would love to hear from you.
 
 
 
 
Knock Three Times
28 modern folk tales for a troubled world
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Edited by Andrew Simms & Bill McGuire
 
 
 
 

THE REAL PRESS/New Weather Institute
www.therealpress.co.uk/www.newweather.org
 
 
Published in 2019 by the Real Press with the New Weather Institute.
www.therealpress.co.uk
Introduction is © New Weather CIC, while all rights to other contributions are all held by the individual authors.
The moral right of the authors to be identified as the authors of their own work in this collection has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise for commercial purposes without the prior permission of the publisher. No responsibility can be accepted by the publisher for action taken as a result of information contained in this publication
ISBN (print) 978-0995662353
ISBN (ebook) 978-0995662360
 
Contents
 
 
Foreword – Caroline Lucas MP       
Introduction – Andrew Simms & Bill McGuire       
The Boy with Four Ears – Sarah Deco       
No Apples for the Pig – Jan Dean       
As if by Magic – Kate Potts       
Loch Nowhere – David Boyle       
The Blame Salesman – Gregory Norminton       
Pigs – Fred Pearce       
Pintura, One Two Three – Deborah Rim Moiso       
Briar Rose and the Trees – Hamish Fyfe       
The Lokator – Andrew Simms       
The Red Shoes – Anthea Lawson       
Songbird and the Bwlch – Chris Nichols       
Foxhole – Emily Spiers       
View From the Train – Nicky Saunter       
Fairy Dust – Nick Robins       
The Partnership – Ed Mayo       
Outnumbered – Geoff Mead       
The Sleeping Giant of Lomah – Katie Kedward       
The Great Glass Stopper – Chris Nichols       
The Town Musicians of Naarich – Bill McGuire       
The Woman on the Road – Peter Spooner       
The Loves of Wolfdog Aurora – Lisa Rabanal       
Tipping Points – David Cross       
No More Worlds to Conquer – Corrina Cordon       
Shapeshifter – Kate Vick       
The Bright Side: A cautionary tale of optimism – Hugh Montgomery       
A Partridge in a Pear Tree – John Jackson       
The Fool – Geoff Mead       
A Song: This Much is T rue – Allan Nicholls       
The Interception of Things – Sarah Woods       
Biographies of the Authors       
 
“We sense new weather
We are on our marks
We are all in this together”
 
Carol Ann Duffy
 
 
Foreword
 
 
We understand the world through the stories we tell and use them to pass insights between generations. The extraordinary challenges faced by this generation need new stories and storytellers to make sense of them. Knock Three Times is a collection that does just that. It steps forward boldly, with wit, twists and creativity to reveal threats to our common future, and suggests how they might be overcome.
 
Caroline Lucas MP
 
 
 
 
 
Introduction
 
“People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
Greta Thunberg, addressing the United Nations, September 2019
 
 
It could be something taken straight from a folk or fairy tale. A young child with a gift for seeing the truth, and the courage to tell it, sails across a great wide ocean to a land with a palace where the most powerful people on earth gather. Fearlessly, she berates them for the suffering their complacency is causing and the perils people face as a result. Then she tells them what to do: act on the science of the climate emergency.
Most powerful of all, and again like something conjured from a firelight story, her impact comes from a complete lack of guile. Her earnest delivery comes unfiltered, straight from the heart. The directness is part of what she calls her ‘gift’. Because the Swedish schoolgirl, Greta Thunberg, has Asperger’s Syndrome. She describes herself how one consequence of this condition – the difficulty she finds in being with others – contributed to her decision to begin the lone protest which sparked a global movement. Another effect is that she holds herself to very high standards and expects others to do so too. She does not set out to please people or be liked, and is not interested in excuses. The tale continues.
In the summer of 2018, Sweden was suffering record heat waves, it was the hottest summer since the country’s records began and wildfires were burning through its forests. Elections were due in September. In the midst of this conflagration, Greta began her solitary protest – Skolstrejk för Klimatet (school strike for climate) – outside the Swedish parliament. Soon others joined and the #FridaysforFuture school strikes spread around the world, fuelling other protests like those of Extinction Rebellion.
Greta’s approach was coolly logical, she questioned why she should attend school and listen to teachers when politicians weren’t listening to the facts. She committed to strike each week until the politicians acted.
It’s ironic that the young woman whose recent life carries the contours of a slightly unlikely story, rightly accuses the powerful of believing in ‘fairy tales of eternal economic growth’. Of course, she is right. ‘Fairy tale’ is a synonym for something that cannot exist in the real world. Much the same is true when something is described as being an ‘old folk tale’ – it is not to be believed. Both types of story, however, aren’t meant to be plausible in their worldly details; they are about revealing deeper truths.
There are plenty of myths, fables, folk and fairy tales that warn of the destructive power of greed and of disregarding natural limits. From the Midas touch to the flight of Icarus, King Canute’s inability to halt the incoming tide, and the abuse of the goose that laid the golden eggs, there is wisdom embedded in our cultural heritage that could better guide us.
Another function of folk tales, written about in the introductions to our previous story collections – There was a knock at the door and Knock Twice – is to help people come to terms with extremes of human experience. Tales often have their roots in times of struggle, during wars and the famines that result from them. In the light of our current political and ecological upheavals, and the great displacements of people driven by climate extremes and blocked by intransigent borders, we need new tales more than ever for this reason.
But even greater, as the forms of an old culture of unbounded consumerism die, we need new stories to help us imagine and make the rapid transition to a different future. ‘Stories are one of the most ancient and most effective ways of making sense of the world,’ wrote the author Philip Pullman in a foreword to the first collection of stories in this series, adding: ‘When we try to live a good life in a world we seem to be simultaneously destroying, there is nothing more valuable or worth encouraging.”
In this regard, nothing has changed since our last collection. In other, very important ways, many things have. Partly because of the real life tale of a Swedish child with a very special gift, the world is dramatically more aware of the critical threats to the biosphere and our life support systems. Millions are taking to the streets and taking risks to push for change from below, because those on high have failed to act on the science.
There are too many rich tales here to pick out any one, but we can guarantee you a rich and surprising variety. All, in different ways, seek to reveal a truth or light the way ahead. We invite you to knock three times on this book, turn the page, and begin a journey that may contain some peril, some surprises and doors that may open, hopefully, to new possibilities. Although to sometimes highly differing degrees, this is the prospect and predicament facing us all.
 
Andrew Simms & Bill McGuire
 
1
The Boy with Four Ears
Sarah Deco
Once there was a boy who was born with four ears. Two were just like yours and mine, the ones that fan out like shells on the side of your head. But inside those, deep inside, there was another pair. They moved, furling and unfurl