Conway Hall: Where Ethics Matter

Kerry Hudson discusses her book Lowborn with James Bloodworth. Lowborn is a powerful, personal, agenda-changing work of non-fiction on poverty in Britain – a book like nothing that’s been written before, and a book that we all need to pay attention to.

Kerry Hudson grew up in all-encompassing, grinding poverty. Always on the move with her single mother, Kerry attended 9 primary schools and 5 secondary schools, living in B&Bs and council flats. Kerry scores 8 out of 10 on the Adverse Childhood Experiences measure of childhood trauma. Whilst many people would like to think that Kerry was an exception – that she was unlucky, or a one-in-a-million case. Sadly, this just isn’t true. All of the people Kerry grew up with were experiencing exactly the same as she was. Some a little less, and some far worse. The difference is that Kerry saw an opportunity for a different existence and ran for it.

What do we see when we watch a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat or read a person’s mind? We are captivated by an illusion; we applaud the fact that we have been fooled. Why do we enjoy experiencing what seems clearly impossible, or at least beyond our powers of explanation?

In this talk Dr Gustav Kuhn examines the psychological processes that underpin our experience of magic.

How we lost our green and pleasant land, and how to take it back.

For centuries, England’s elite have covered up how they got their hands on millions of acres of our land, by constructing walls, burying surveys and more recently, sheltering behind offshore shell companies. But with the dawn of digital mapping and the Freedom of Information Act, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for them to hide.

Trespassing through tightly-guarded country estates, ecologically ravaged grouse moors and empty Mayfair mansions, writer and activist Guy Shrubsole has uncovered a wealth of never-before-seen information about the people who own our land, to create the most comprehensive map of ownership in England that has ever been made public.

The new neuroscience that shatters the myth of the female brain. This is not feminist science – it’s just science. - Prof Gina Rippon.

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99.

Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018.

© Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99.

Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018.

© Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99.

Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018.

© Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99.

Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018.

© Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99.

Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018.

© Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99.

Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018.

© Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited