Description: Video of a slide lecture.

A film about the progress mankind has made through science and technology and the problems the progress has brought it in its wake. Science and technology does not bring a solution to these problems. Film will look at the possibility that we have to look at ecology and biology for solutions. One man who did that was Dr George Scott Williamson and film presents an account of his work and his major findings.

The most spectacular of man’s achievements must be transport: aircraft, car and train and we are on the threshold of space travel. Equally part of our lives is communication: the phone, the radio, and TV. The modern town is an achievement in itself: by the end of the century 50% of the earth’s population will be living in a town or city each with water, gas, electricity, sewers, roads, transport links, shops, schools and entertainment centres. All these services are organized and planned by elected governments paid, officials industry and professions and agencies. Food is now grown in larger quantities, brought over longer distances and sold in larger stores, even sold pre-cooked and table-ready. Transport is faster, education is longer, TV is 24 hours a day, contraceptives are permanent, unemployment does not imply poverty. Does it not seem unreasonable to assume that progress will continue and that any problem will eventually be mastered? But there are two things that make us stop and think again and stop us from being complacent. The first is that although our medical provisions increase all the time, the occurrence of disease - physical, mental and social - remain high. The second issue is what drives society into the future. The biggest single drive comes from commerce, concerned with what we eat, what we wear, the home you live in, the work you do. We accept and condone this fact but we are investing in products and practices that are not moving towards a happy and healthy society. We know very little about healthy societies and happy towns and cities; and what we do know is very often ignored by planners, builders and politicians. There is a parallel in agriculture. Industrial farming practices have meant greater yields but with land quality soil erosion, poor quality crops and impact human health and livelihood of those who live on the land. If you don’t maintain the right balance of organisms, plants and creatures in the soil then your soil will suffer. It has taken 25 years for these problems to be recognized as ecological problems. Has the same thing happened to human society? There are ecological principles that apply to human society but little understood. Many prominent sociologists and ordinary people recognize that environment that we build and the traditions that we inherit, the expectations inspired by the media and commerce are producing populations with the seeds of dissatisfaction and disorder already within them unable to progress in health beyond today’s levels. Dr George Scott Williamson, who pioneered the Peckham Experiment from 1926 – 1950, recognized what happened when ecological principles are exercised in the community. He was interested in health and how people behaved in health. He set up a family club in a building –The Centre – accommodated the leisure activities of up to 2,000 families. It was open-planned to facilitate communication and observation between staff and families. It had a gym, theatre, pool, café, badminton and nurseries. Practices unusual in that there was family membership, freedom of choice and annual health check-up and consultation for the family. What the family members did in the centre was entirely up to them. Nobody to tell them what to do, or what not to do, provided they did not interfere with other members’ freedom of choice. But they all had to present themselves for an individual and family check-up. In her book, The Quality of Life, Innes Pearse says at the beginning activities were organized for the children but with no compulsion to attend these opportunities were rejected. But chaos subsided when children found interesting things that suited their interests. This affected parents’ behaviour and family development too. The Centre had a purpose and a calm. Children’s health from birth to puberty was efficient, smooth and progressive with few instances of precociousness, bullying and tantrums. They enjoyed their own company without supervision every afternoon there were 200 children doing their own thing, integrating naturally into adult society. Adults developed their own interests, activities and friendships becoming integrated even where there had been breakdown. The Centre provided a rich soil for the nurturing of families. But post-war lack of finance and a clash of interests with the newly formed NHS forced the centre to close. Its purpose lives on and it’s imperative that we look again at how we plan and run our communities today; communities which produce unwanted pregnancies, puzzled parents, unwanted children, domestic abuse, family breakdown, loneliness, etc. The knowledge is there. Arthur S Farber, eminent American sociologist says The Peckham Experiment needs to be revisited.