Craig’s Cabin
ROD WEBB
I’d arranged to meet Craig at the Hidden Eden Wellbeing Garden, an early project of his that involved turning a disused playground into a multipurpose place for the community. On this particular day, it was being used as ‘Aileen’s Kids Corner’, with activities for local children. Aileen was organising with the help of Sarah (Craig’s partner) and Denise, a volunteer who also runs her own community garden. Craig was in the thick of it, decorating wood for making totem poles.
Craig has lived his whole life in Hastings and he has hardly travelled beyond the borders of Kent and Sussex. However, he is passionate about the outdoors, something he first experienced in the Boys’ Brigade – where, among other things, he learned to make rope out of stinging nettles.
He went back to foraging and walking in the woods about five years ago to improve his own mental health when he was suffering from depression and in a difficult relationship. He taught himself about plants and made YouTube videos documenting his experience, and as he says: “Things sort of spiralled from there.”
He was soon drawing on his childhood experiences with the Boys’ Brigade as an organisation, getting the local community to join in his outdoor activities. He seems to have a ‘Pied Piper’ effect on the people around him, managing to build a range of peer support services and encouraging others to join him as volunteers: running community walks, organising talks, leading foraging and litter-picking expeditions and setting up workshops – most of it outdoors and much of it in and around the local area. His monthly men’s health walks around Alexandra Park start at 9pm – the time when his own mood tended to be at its lowest.
He also seems to have been adept at getting the backing of organisations such as Southern Housing (formally Optivo) as well as help from councillors such as Maya Evans (former Labour councillor) and Jo Walker – one of the first to volunteer with him and now the Green Councillor for Ore. He’s also involved with Arts on Prescription – Wellbeing Wednesdays.
He’s done work with other volunteer organisations such as Surviving the Streets, but as an ‘ideas man’ he’s found he likes to develop his own projects in an organic way with like-minded collaborators rather than have them incorporated into the plans of others.
In fact, Craig says he has so many ideas about building community that “I can’t switch off”, a comment that raises the subject of his neurodiversity and how it can be both a blessing and a curse. Which is why he’s so full of praise for the volunteers who help him get things off the ground, saying: “They help me more than I help them.” (He’s a keen delegator.)
Last October Craig found himself homeless for a time, living in his car in Church Wood. It was during this time that he met his current partner, Sarah who “rescued and fed me” and is now very much part of the team, encouraging him to try out new ideas.
Our brief experience of Hidden Eden was certainly a very calming one: the kids painting butterflies on the walls, making wind chimes, listening to stories and practising first aid; Aileen was a smiling and reassuring presence amidst all the happy activity.
But it’s also about learning: “Our Forage for Knowledge sessions are based on the literal definition of foraging,” says Craig, “to search for knowledge, about ourselves, about each other, the world around us and our history, so we explore local areas such as woodland and other green spaces but also museums and other historical places to learn and expand our knowledge.”
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