Common Cause

It was not until many years later, with the ‘fall of communism’ on the one hand and the movement to ‘reclaim the commons’ on the other, that I began to see that aspects of the commons had a long, long history and could be in some senses universal, like air or water. This understanding has grown slowly, beginning with the persistent glow of childhood memories.

As a child in post-war London I explored bombed-out buildings, taking what I pleased with disregard of danger and private property alike. A year or two later I collected horse-chestnuts on Hampstead Heath for the game of conkers. Once two older boys took from me an air pistol I had taken myself from the rubble of a bombed-out building. ‘All right, mate, you want a fight?’ I discovered the philosophy of ‘easy come easy go,’ and saved myself a bruising. Such were childhood lessons in the ambiguity of English commoning.