Seven features about practical attempts to create the ideal society 5: Our Heads with the Stars by PETER FRAENKEL
The story of the Whiteway Commune in Gloucestershire - one commune among a dozen founded in the 1890s to build the New Jerusalem on England's soil with Rosemary Leach as Nellie Shaw
' At Whiteway ideas were not simply debated. They were put to the test of practical experience. Every one of Tolstoy's thoughts was tested: the abolition of private property, non-violence, sexual abstinence, the abolition of money and of every form of authority. We had a simple child-like belief in the inherent goodness of human nature, and imagined that. given good conditions, equal and loving treatment, people would respond and give of their best.'
With JOHN LIVESEY and KATHERINE PARR Songs arranged and conducted by DOUG WOOTTON and sung by the BBC SINGERS Directed by JOHN TIIEOCHARIS
(Rosemary Leach is in '84 Charino Cross Road ' at the Ambassadors Theatre, London)