"We Call Ourselves Childhood Conservationists"

In this episode of Play Attention, we sit down with someone we’ve admired for many years - Ash Perrin, co-founder and CEO of the Flying Seagull Project.

Timberplay and the Flying Seagulls have crossed paths time and time again through shared conversations, workshops and events, and through a deep, mutual belief in the power of play. We have enormous respect for the work Ash and his team do, bringing joy, laughter and meaningful play to children and families living through conflict, displacement, trauma and isolation, both across the world and here in the UK.

But this conversation isn’t only about extraordinary places or extreme circumstances. What becomes clear as you listen is that everything Ash does, believes in and talks about is hugely relevant to all of us who work in, design for, advocate for, or simply value play.

Ash challenges us to move play beyond the idea of “wouldn’t it be nice” and towards recognising it as something essential, something that supports healing, connection, development and dignity. In his words, play isn’t an add-on. It’s part of how children survive and thrive. 

Throughout the episode, he shares powerful reflections from nearly two decades of working directly with children in some of the most complex environments imaginable, and reminds us that the lessons learned there apply just as much in our schools, parks, communities and neighbourhoods.

We also get a special sneak preview of Ash’s forthcoming book, Forgotten Games: A Compendium of Play, due for release in early 2027 - a joyful collection of more than 100 children’s games from across cultures and history, celebrating the timeless universality of play. 

Find out more:

The Flying Seagull Project

Play Attention is a podcast from Timberplay - exploring the thinkers, designers and changemakers shaping the future of play.

Hosted by Beth Cooper, Independent Play Consultant.

Theme music by Dave Mullen Jnr 

Connect with Timberplay:
Instagram
LinkedIn 

Find out more: Timberplay 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

This is Play Attention, a podcast from Timberplay, exploring how play shapes our world. I'm definitely playing. And these are conversations with thinkers and doers from design, policy and culture about the opportunities and challenges of creating a more playful world, one project, city, and idea at a time. Our guest on this episode is Ash Perrin, co-founder of the Flying Seagull Project, an organization that brings laughter, play, and connection to children affected by war, conflict, displacement, and crisis around the world, even here in the UK. Through games, performance, and simple moments of shared joy, the flock of seagulls, as he describes them, deliver these moments of joy, bringing childhood back. He describes himself as a childhood conservationist. The work that he does, the thinking that is behind his work and the learning that he has experienced through being present with these children is relevant to anybody working with people, with space, and with play. We hope you enjoy listening. I have the absolute pleasure of introducing Ash Perrin. And Ash is, oh, I don't actually know what your official title is, Chief Ringmaster, I'm not sure, at um the Flying Seagull project. So Ash, would you like to uh correct me on your title, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about the work that you do?

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Of course, yes. I mean, in terms of my title, I think you can choose one you like. I like Seagull Ringleader. Uh, I'm officially the founder and CEO of the Flying Seagull project, but it depends how full the conversation is. So let's go with Seagull Ringleader.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah, we like that. We like that. So tell tell us a little bit about the work that um Flying Seagull Project do, because I'm not sure if everybody in our audience is aware of you as an organization yet, but they should be.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Yes. I mean, I imagine hardly anybody is because we've been uh we've been solely focused really on delivery, and it's only in the last years we've realized how much advocacy um is an empowering next step for what we've learned. So going back to the beginning, we started 18 years ago in 2008. Uh, and we started with a really simple single focused mission, which was that we wanted kids everywhere to have a meaningful bit of play and good times in their childhood. And it came really from an instinct rather than a professional recognition of a gap in humanitarian work or anything as high-falluting as that. We just thought, you know what? Kids deserve to have a good time. They deserve to belly laugh and play in the innocent, I don't know, uh liberated space of childhood. And we were noticing, you know, before that I was a professional clown, and I'd travel, and every time I travelled, I noticed more and more the disparity between uh, you know, the UK, where I was making a living, delivering essentially playful shows and playful workshops, to other parts of the world where they weren't even having access to the space to experience that, you know, in their own village, in their own school. So yeah, we set up with that intention and we went to Romania as our first point of call. And I think almost immediately we all realized that more than just a nice thing to do or uh or a fun thing to do, actually it was an essential thing to do because, you know, in um putting it into context of Romania, for example, we'd go to kids' homes or orphanages as they used to be called, you know, institutions for for sheltering kids. And of course, if you've got a tight budget, the last thing you're gonna spend money on is play materials. You're gonna cover food and healthcare and housing. Um, but but children aren't plants, you know, they're they're not something that needs basically fundamental sustenance and nothing else. They need, I, you know, I think they need food for their souls and food for their imaginations and and more just more than in a I don't know, uh kind of spiritual way or ethical way. It's actually, you know, later on as we start to look into it, it's in a neurological development way, you know, without being held, without access to play, children's brains physiologically don't develop in a way that allows them to meet the challenges of teenage and then early adult life and then the rest of it. Uh so yeah, so we sat delivering sessions and they were really just for fun. Magic shows and circus performances and workshops with tons of musical instruments. In the first year, we used my favourite one was we'd put a massive roll of paper out and put big trays of paint, and then we'd have live music in the in a bunch of hippies with accordions, and the kids would dance down the paper, and then we'd cut that paper up into frames and put it up on the wall. So, you know, really just messy uh output not being important, experience being everything play. You know, after six, seven years in Romania, we expanded the people we worked with to include anybody really who had a barrier to access to play. So uh across the world, Roma communities are, you know, they're basic they're stateless, they've been stateless for a thousand years. So those kids grow up in a community that is not welcome anywhere. And then about 2015, um, the so-called refugee crisis, you know, the humanitarian disaster across Europe that was coined the refugee crisis. I couldn't drive past a camp of a thousand kids to go to Romania. It felt strange. So we said, well, let's go and see if there's see if it's appropriate. This is a really extreme moment for the families in that spot, but let's see if play has a place there. And that really was a turning point. We've now spent the last 11 years highly focused on supporting displaced communities and and again ensuring, we call ourselves childhood conservationists. So it's ensuring that we preserve the sacred moment. You're a bubber, you're a baby, you're just a little human. This is the only childhood you're gonna get. And if you've been forced to flee your homelands because of conflict, and you've had to go through journeys that most of us would shudder to imagine a day of, let alone the years that some of these families have faced here. What do you need? Yes, food, yes, accommodation, yes, healthcare, and then you need to feel good, you need play, you need to feel like a kid again, you need a favourite song, and you need a best mate, and you need playtime. So we have just been devoted to you know, crowbarring at times into places where it's really not um made space for, and then just proving every time that the children respond with absolute wonderful grace and playfulness, like kids do wherever they're from. Yeah, and then that led us into understanding the impact of trauma. So for the kids we work with there, you know, the trauma was present and ongoing. But actually, we work a lot across the UK in many different scenarios, but one of them is working with children who are living in the refugee shelters, which obviously there's a lot of controversy around the last months. And people say, but they're fine and they're living in a hotel and whatever else. But anyone who knows about trauma knows that it's often at the point of arrival when the when the active trauma is over that the the immediate consequences and impact are visible.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

It's really interesting because obviously I knew we were going to be having this conversation, and I've been, you know, I've been aware of your work on the periphery for a long time, and I was thinking about that specific aspect of trauma, and I think play is such a vital aspect of children's lives. As you say, it's an absolute essential ingredient because it is the the breath of of childhood. You talked about being a childhood conservationist, but I think the unique thing that I've not experienced in the way that you have is that it's not the individual or the family that are facing trauma, it's an entire cohort of people who all bring their own individual traumas. You know, when you're working in those spaces, that the trauma's universal, even if it's different for each person, isn't it? So you're you're working within that environment where there's um yeah, it's not in individual trauma. And I mean, is is that is am I completely off the mark there?

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Or is that no, you're totally right. I mean, obviously each each individual has their own experience, but then there's a cacophony of clashing traumatic experiences. So, you know, imagine being, I'm not a parent, but I've met many, many parents in this in this journey. And imagine being a parent, and I'm I'm 44 now. I still feel like an 18-year-old. I don't feel like a grown-up. And sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, we're the ones in charge now. Heaven help us. What we're gonna do? And it's the idea that you know, we've got parents who have made a decision. It's the first time they've been a parent of a five-year-old. It's the first time there's been a conflict in them in their home country or domestic violence in their home or a health crises of their kid, and they've got to make profound immediate decisions on the on the best outcome for their family. So then imagine you've got, you know, a mother or a father who have also dramatically experienced extreme chaos and change, and they're trying to provide a healthy communication pattern and a healthy support basis for a kid who's also dealing with all of those things. And you know, it's just an incredible thing. And the longer it goes on, the more complex it becomes. I mean, so you probably know this already, so but maybe many of your listeners do, but um, adolescence in humans is 12 to 25. Most people say, well, 18, you're not, but it's 12 to 25. They don't consider us to be fluent as an emotionally able to express our innermost nuances until we're 21, if we've grown up immersed in our mother tongue and and and native culture. Yeah. So imagine if you've left Syria, age 10, you've been in Turkey, you've been in Greece, you've been in Croatia, you've been in France, you've battled across to England. You haven't got a single stable cultural reference or linguistic reference for you to find what your expression style is even about. And you're you've spent six years or eight years of your adolescence in change, in continuous flux. So it's you know, it's it is so long-term damaging and so long-term impactful that you know it without without immediate in interaction, without immediate uh disruption of that narrative, they you know, they can be imprisoned for for the rest of their lives in in a cage of insecurity or or you know, many of doing it insecure is easy. If you can spot a kid who's withdrawn, you go, ah, that kid's withdrawn, they're experiencing something. But actually, loud behavior, aggressive behavior, obsessing about micro details, unable to sit still in school, all these nuances could look like bad behavior. And I work with kids that the teachers or the staff call naughty. I don't believe there is such a thing as a naughty kid. I don't believe in them. I believe there is challenging expressions of self, and it's our job to meet that challenge. The best way I've found to do that is be by creating the pressureless world of playful interaction.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

And a lot of the, you know, we we talk about play theory, but like a lot of the a lot of the sort of buzzwords or phrases when people talk about unstructured. So that whole thing about play being unstructured, again, in in in thinking about this conversation we were going to have, I was thinking, well, you're you're kind of in an environment where all of the structures are removed in one way, or as you say, if people have been traveling through different environments, different constructs of state, different spaces, they're constantly having those structures uh taken away and redefined. So that idea of a kind of freedom and unstructured I was thinking about that, but then also there must be so much structure imposed, and then having this opportunity to experience play, freedom, joy, laughter must be must must change that dynamic. So yeah, yeah, I mean it's amazing that you're able to go into these spaces and work with them. And you're not doing it alone now, are you? Your team has grown to to quite a number, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Yeah, we have we have uh we have a load of a load of seagulls, a flock of seagulls. Just to go back on the one when you talk about structures, it's a it's a really good point you raise because so, for example, and it's there's different nuances everywhere you go, and every every different place we work, we have a different challenge. And for example, in we went to Ghana, we worked across Ghana in in every school for um deaf children and every school for uh for children with disability. So we we had to figure out how we're gonna work. And call and response is what we do in the camps. It it brings us back in, and it's normally with a song or with a simple phrase. Uh the challenge in Ghana was that that's the learning style in school. So every time I said something, are you ready? They go, we are ready, and it became almost militant. I thought, okay, so I'm not achieving, I'm not achieving in individual exploration or individual expression. Whereas when I'm working with a camp of people from all over the place in this kind of chaotic sense, then actually without a structure, it's it's it's just chaos and nobody enjoys themselves and nobody feels safe. But then the one more nuance I wanted to say, which made me think, I thought of, sorry, when you were um speaking, is kids in the displacement uh, you know, caught in displacement cycles, and especially when we've been meeting them, they will not stand in a line. And that's because they've learned what a line is. You line up for food in a camp where there's not enough, and you at the back being polite, you're not getting whatever it is, a blanket sometimes, you know, survival essentials. So we can't do things like line. We get kids going, no line. I'm like, so we do everything in the circle, the sacred circle, duera, duera. And this is the Arabic word for circle. And we we begin every session in that circle.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

And in the circle, it means that then we create our own space. We're looking inward at each other, and therefore we're blocking out and creating an energy barrier against whatever's the other side of our circle, a hostile camp or a chaotic uh transition environment or a you know, an unkind institutional care unit. We create a space and we start with our names. My name is Bash. Hey, Bash. And then I get each kid, if I can, I invite them to offer their name. Um, but the one essential thing, and then I will move on. I know I'm laboring a point you we both agree on, but is around authority, the problem with the structures that have been enforced on them or stripped from them is they're all authority-based. Authority says you cannot do that, or authority says you must do that. And I'm a real deep believer that there is no such thing as enforced authority. Not really, not genuinely. The only authority that I ever won from a child is one that they choose to offer me because I've offered to guide a session or I've offered to run a show. So they don't have to stay, they don't have to join the circle. There's never an enforcement. My job, or our job as the flock of seagulls, is to make the invitation so energized and so positive and so accessible that they couldn't choose to be anywhere else. And and and that's that's the joy. And we we set our end goals based on that. My end goal one session might be I hope they all choose, choose to join in. Whoa, they all joined in. Right. Next goal is I hope they will join me in a circle. Whoa, we made a circle. My next end goal, I hope they join my song. So it's like it's really, you know, people talk a lot, one of these buzzwords, about you know, child-led or participant-led. And most of the time, I have to say, I think it's lip service, I think it's box ticking. In ours, because of the environment, I now have a choice. They don't want to be there. They can walk off, they can stand in the middle of the circle and throw stones at me if they want to. So, you know, it's it's wonderful because then it means it's genuine agency to participate, and that's where they belong again. That's their space because they've chosen the invitation and they've chosen to accept it and they've chosen to enter play.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Because I was trying to think about, you know, what what what it is that you're taking into these spaces. So, you know, is it is it's really hard to from an outsider's point of view to sort of define or try and describe what you do because it, you know, you is it you're taking performance into these spaces, is it you're taking play activation in? But it's something, it almost feels like it's something completely different. It's taking that joy of life or joy of play, and as you say, igniting it in these spaces where it's not as normal. We had um the the last podcast episode that went out, we were talking to um a designer called Cass Holman, and they've done some work in um in a Mexican refugee camp, and they were actually designing a kind of physical area for play. They ended up just putting it smackbang in the middle between in a kind of thoroughfare so that those moments of joy and ignition couldn't be hidden. It wasn't hidden away in a corner. It was so as you were going to get, you know, to go to the kitchens, the you could hear the laughter and and even play yourself as a as an adult. I mean, do you get the adults joining in or watching or modelling, or is it kind of a a moment where they can step away?

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Well, a mixture. Obviously, we have to be very careful because we're working in an open, an open camp many of the times, and you know, we need to know who who if there's an adult, female, male, whatever, standing nearby, I have to know that they are they're meant to be there, is is one of the kids yours. So obviously, like beyond the safeguarding aspect, which we take incredibly seriously, yeah. Um, absolutely, and I'm I say all the time, and people think I'm being glib, but uh childhood isn't age specific. Like it isn't. I I'm I'm 44 and I absolutely love me and my mates will often go to the woods and play manhunt, you know, the hide and seek, and we'll play it for hours. Like if you if you allow yourself, even like if you think going to the theatre is an act of play, singing in a choir is an act of play. It's just we we make a more formal as in order to give ourselves the excuse. Kids don't need that. Um, but yeah, we we often have the grown-ups joining in, and especially I like to target the really tough ones. There's a real tough dad stood there and he's you know at the back looking grumpy. He is gonna be my volunteer in the chef routine because he he wants to play too. Like everything they're showing is what they've done to survive in life. All of us do. Whatever we are is what we thought would keep us safest or take us further or or keep us hidden, whatever. But um, no, we love it. I absolutely love, and especially when we get the mamas joining in, we had uh we had a quite an elderly lady the other day came to play the hula hoop game with us, which is musical bumps, but when the music stops, we jump in a hoop. And it was just glorious, you know. It's a chance for the for the parents to breathe and see their kids having the future they hoped they might have. Yeah, but it's also a chance for them, as you say, to hear the sound of song or to hear the the the sound of play, and that's also normality for them. I mean, that you know the neighborhoods of Damascus were filled with children playing before the conflict. So that that's a sound that they yearn for. And and you know, we don't do it for them, but the fact that they're there, I'm you know it's it's a community experience. Pram tan is my age bracket. So amazing pram tan.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

I like that. Wait, because I think you know, we talk about all children needing to play, and then you know, within certain areas that becomes diluted down to there being particular demographics you're trying to reach or people with particular needs that you're trying to reach, but you really are extending it out to be be inclusive for all, but but uh uh everything is fragmented. So these traumas that you're talking about, actually, there are there are you know children who've experienced trauma within you know these lovely communities here in the UK, and it's you know, it doesn't have to be so segregated. The idea that humanity's experiences are is kind of pocketed into, well, these people have had this experience, and these people have not had that experience. There's you know, I think everybody, every community has incidence of trauma, and these lessons that you're uh learning and sharing and talking about are actually applicable everywhere because in any environment there are going to be children who've had stressful situations and can engage in that, and equally the joy that people who have less pressured environment uh in less pressured environments can feel is just as valid and applicable and necessary, if not more so, in these environments where their their lives are so um yeah, fragmented, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

No, it's totally makes total sense. I think it's important that that we we cure and we meet the trauma rather than judge the cause because everyone's brain is their own experience. It doesn't matter where you got troubled or where you felt traumatized or what the root of that. And that could be living in the home counties and having a tough, a tough day joining a new school. It doesn't matter. The point is the brain does what the brain does regardless of its trigger. The consequence of that is something that I would like our organization and our and others just to try to heal and to touch with compassion. Because otherwise it's that of judging the cause. Well, they're fine. I mean, they they didn't grow up bad. Doesn't matter. The brain doesn't judge, the brain only knows what it's experienced, and that's if that's growing up in home counties and never traveling, that's what it's experienced. And rejection sensitivity can be right back to you know, I was born um with hearing impairment. So I had an operation when I was two and a half, but before then I only had about I was about 80% deafness, about 20% hearing. So that's why they didn't spot it till later. Later on in life, as I've been reading these books and studying this stuff, and you know, we will get counseling as part of our um keeping our tools sharp as we also have to make sure that we're having our counseling throughout.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

Or we provide it for all the team. Everybody has regular counseling, access to full therapy if need be. But through mine, it was an interesting discussion because my mother was present, but when I was calling for something as a baby and she was cooing or using her voice, I wouldn't have heard. The care response that I was seeking. So you can say, yeah, but I grew up here and I had healthcare and I got my hearing and moved into music to help me recover. All that's true. But the brain doesn't know the context of what it felt. The brain just knew that I wasn't receiving a care response when I wanted to. So and I'm using it as a dummy, I'm I'm I haven't got some big ongoing things, but it definitely helped me to realise there's certain situations that are still affected by that. So yeah, it's it's that point.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

So I um I'm gonna move completely exploit the point where you were talking about yourself playing in the woods, and I'm gonna bring this conversation which is broad into into you, Ash. So you've talked a little bit about the growth of the flying seagulls. I'm really interested to know how did you how did you go from that two and a half year old who suddenly started to hear again to to being to being the the ring leader of all the seagulls?

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Yes, the ring leader. Well, I mean I've thought about this a lot, and obviously, like I don't know, as as an adult, you kind of think everything's been random, and then you write a CV one day, but not your actual professional run. Write write your experienced CV, and you'll see that everything leads up. I was a removals man at 18. Now I pack vans really well for circus tours. It's all in there. But um, I think, and I'll say it because I hope she hears it. She doesn't listen to everything that's recorded, but but my mum was uh Montessori trained. She was a nurse and a health care and um a healthcare visitor, a health visitor, sorry, and all sorts of things within that. And then she went into early years um psychology and early years education. So, you know, she had a very deep connection with um with childhood and with that. So she never told me I had a speech problem. I didn't know I had a speech problem. I didn't know I couldn't hear, I didn't know I was different at all. All I knew is Wednesdays I got to leave school at lunchtime, have lunch with my mum, brilliant, and then go and see a therapist, who I didn't call a therapist, who had these toys that you know help me to learn to speak. So I think it was only when I was 18 she gave me a folder with all my school reports for my whole life. And I was reading them, and it was like when I'm 13, 12, it said Ash's speech problems don't get in the way of his confidence. The reason why is because I didn't know I had speech problems. My mum didn't see that as relevant to who I was, she saw it as something that I would move through. So having one person, you know, I have a lovely family, and my my brothers and my sister was was also a big part of it. But having that my mum, like really dug in, believing that I could have any future I want and telling me that all the time. We didn't have wealth, we weren't, we didn't grow up wealthy at all. I shared a room with both my brothers and then thankfully just one. But what we had was a wealth of care. We had a wealth of my mum would look at me like I mattered and like I was valuable and like I could do things. And so I thought I was valuable and I could do things. That and music. So when I was, you know, I got my hearing back around four or five years old, they recommended that music would be good. So we actually moved to Bedfordshire from Kent because it had a better music system and my dad's work and stuff anyway. But um, so in a music class, I was equal to everybody else. No one had played violin before, so I was on the same level, but I heard violin and I heard music in such a way that yeah, I mean, even to this day, I I'm I'm music obsessed. I have music on 24 hours of the day. I'll listen to one track 60 times because I love the way that one bit changes to another bit. So again, like music gave me confidence, and music made me feel like I belonged. And that with my mum. So, anyway, long story short, that all happened. And then I wanted to be a performer. So I went to uh I went through all of my youth. I was in orchestras and bands and things like this. And but yeah, and then I went to drama school. I didn't really dig the idea of theatre. I it wasn't enough interaction. I wanted to speak with the audience. I I liked the bond, and I was doing kids' parties and clown work through drama school, loved it. And then um, yeah, I told you I worked as a clown, well-paid street work and corporate work, and then traveled. And then one day I was in Cambodia meeting my sister and having um journey, like I could work half the year. I don't know what sometimes I say to you and think, what did I do? I was working half the year and then traveling half the year at 18 and a half, 19 years old. Glorious. Anyway, I saw these, I saw this group of kids and I was playing guitar, and they were so affected by me playing a few chores and a guitar, and then I had a few magic tricks and I did them, and it was like a kind of shattering moment of like it doesn't like no one is there to care for these kids as they are as a person. They're in an orphanage or in a kid's home. So yeah, so I came home, sold everything, bought a van, and Romania was the first place because my mum went to Romania as a nurse in 1989 after the revolution. So I had in my head that picture. Um, and as I say, day one, it was like, it was like those words were put to the breath that I'd had in my life. Like there was, I'd always, you know, felt an energy, but then there was a place where it could flow. And it wasn't, it's not martyrdom, it's not philanthropy. It was I have I get so much energy back. You know, I'm I thought this the other day, someone asked me. Um, I was chatting with a pediatric nurse, and she said, Well, how do you have the energy to keep, you know, and you meet so many groups or whatever? And I was like, we hold a mirror up, we just shine back their energy. Like the kids will glow with the simplest of tricks, and we glow back and we take each other out.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

That idea of community, community and the people that you're going out there with. But community is so important in those play moments as well. It it's almost like yes, you can play with the environment. You can play alone. I mean, there is a there's a real playfulness about being on your own, and but I think often the bit the beauty of those play moments is when you make that community, even if it's a temporary community that you're just moving through, and in that moment it's everything, and then it moves on and dissipates. And I imagine for the for some of the um spaces you're working in, those communities they're very brief and then may never see each other again. There's a there's a lot of flow in terms of the people that come through them, but um but I think community is really, really important, and whilst in a completely different context, this humanity that's shared, you know, we talk a lot about loneliness here in the UK. There's you know, loneliness epidemic, you know, the impact that has on health and well-being. And I do think these play moments can really it helps connect us, and I think yeah, it definitely helps make that understanding.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

So for those it helps you get out of that rut, doesn't it? Sorry to interrupt, but it helps you get out of, I don't know. We all do it, we all get in, you know. I was in a bit of a rut last week. I got in a bad mood, can't remember what it was even about, but I was in a bad mood, and then I think I was stressed about something, and the stress gets on top, and sometimes you just need the excuse to let it go, and you get so stuck in the mood that you can't get out. Now that's a very flippant comparison, but all it takes is, you know, I went and played with my band. I play in a Balkan band here in Greece, and on Saturday I went to join them, and we paid for five hours on the street, and just we're outside, we're playing Balkan, we're not exceptionally precise, although some of the band might say that I'm the problem there, but um yeah, it's we're with the kids on a much more profound scale, a much more important scale, and with these communities, is our job isn't to make them play, our job is to create an atmosphere that that that they feel able to let go of some of the heaviness and join in with. That's all we're there, and that's why it needs a gang to create an atmosphere where they feel safe enough to express their playful nature. We don't give them anything, we create a space for them to let out what's in them. It's you know it's so it's so key.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Yeah, and I think I suppose so for a lot of the people that Timberplay work with, um they're thinking about creating space, but in a very different way, because it's almost like creating the same level of variety, engagement. But I think the principles are really the same, aren't they? I mean, I talk a lot about the Peace Gardens here in Sheffield, where you know, there's a real sense of permissiveness, and that's because it's been designed in such a way that you will see people having very formal, beautiful moments of you know, wedding photographs, but then there's also kids who are running through fountains or somebody might be taking a nap on a bench, or it doesn't matter how much money you've got in your pocket, your ownership or enablement in that space is is the same regardless. Are there any principles that you can, I don't know, share, but for people who are trying to create physical space that's about enabling children to feel at ease, families to feel at ease, communities, adults, whoever?

SPEAKER_02 30:39

I think that one of the main principles we have for everything we do is is genuinely and honestly putting I might I might enter into a uh a session with an idea of what's gonna happen. I've got a van full of staff and I'm planning to do this. But that should be the starting point of of what happens next, not the script of what happens next. Because kids have just got to have their own script, and that means you have to be brave enough to to practice total acceptance, you have to be brave enough to have an idea as an adult that kids don't like, or not don't like, just find boring. Like I say it to think like uh my when I'm doing training with the new teams and stuff. I'll say, like, if they're not laughing, it's because it's not funny, and they're like, what? And I was like, it's just true. If it was funny, they'd laugh. Like, if they didn't laugh, you can't make them laugh. It just wasn't funny. Take the feedback, just listen. And then if they do laugh, even if it shouldn't have been funny, do it again. Figure out what it was that was funny. And that's what like the idea of participant led. So I think if I was designing a space, it's my mum as a say it's like better an ugly truth than a pretty lie. You know, you can try and tick boxes and say, we provided this much climbing materials and this much for outdoor play and blah blah blah. But if all the kids are on the climbing frame and they're not on any of the other stuff, yeah, there's your message, there's your lesson. So I think it's that of being genuinely uh humble enough and non-adult egoic enough and non-dictator enough to actually accept that. And you know, I I've again no end of respect for people who have social scientists, psychologists, practitioners who have deep dived into real quantitative and qualitative studies into play. I think that's awesome. The issue is, and I I think I heard something years ago, and it talked about, it was just after we became a little bit well known, and I decided to coin my my approach as dynamic play technique, and I started writing up the tenets, this is how it's done. And then I realized that I'd heard this talk, and it talked about the fetishizing of method. And it's a very uh it's a very tempting thing to say, this is the method and this is how it's done. And that's when you realize, like, there's no way I can write that for play, because it would only apply the day that I wrote it. The next day I'd meet a different group of kids. So some of the flows and some of those things are important, but I feel like, especially around academia and especially around um syllabus and syllabus-focused play resource, you know, there's some groups that are out there looking at schools and how to integrate play. I think that's fantastic. But if it comes from the adult perspective and you know, the client for the playground or the uh offstead for the schools, yeah, then it's already limited because the first place it should come through is shoe is through the people that are revealing their needs or their desires or their or the gaps, which is the kids. Society, education, government policy, uh, humanitarian response, healthcare practitioners, whatever it is, if you're going, which you should, to accept the absolute relevance and necessity of play in all those environments, start with where it starts. Kids, don't start from where it was studied in books or in you know, integrate them all, I think. Read the books, sieve out what you like. But you know, I say this all the time, and I'm a bit bored of myself saying it, but I've never read a book where I said, if it's windy the day before, you'll have to change a plan.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Oh it's never been mentioned. Yes, no, but honestly, walking past a school when it's windy is the best thing ever. Because the the the the sound level, everything, it suddenly just activates in a way.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

And they can't, like if I'm going into a camp and it's been windy the night before and they're living in informal structures or tented settlements, that changes. I can't say sit down and do a circus workshop. We get the tug of war rope out. They've got to let the elements matter, all context matters, and you can't know context before you arrive. Yeah, how interactive society, how play is seen, or how that sort of provision is seen. I I think we're in danger because for the first time in my career, it's now really being spoken about. And I'm hearing it everywhere. But I I fear that it's being spoken about by adults to other adults about what adults have found out about play. Yeah. And that's not my experience. I've been lucky enough to be taught all my lessons by the kids that we met over the last 18 years. So, yeah, I'd say without taking anything out of those studies, they're incredible resources, but they're resources.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

You're creating an environment where, you know, you said about this, you know, the output's not important, it's the experience. You're creating the foundation and the framework. And I think theory is the same. It's a foundation, it's a framework, but where that then goes, who knows? I mean, play is so fundamental. And what I observe in the people that I'm with is that you know, the adults aren't playing, they're not playing um, you know, hide and seek in the woods when they've got the chance and and the stresses and the pressures, and therefore they're modelling that to the children that they're spending time with, rather than learning from those children, regaining that sense of joy and actually then you know being playful to move things forward.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Yeah, it's it's the idea of go with the flow. And again, like I hate all the well, don't hate them. As I'm getting older, I just realise how true cliches or these kind of you know memey statements are, but like you got to go with the flow, otherwise you disrupt it. Kids that I work with, they don't want to make a line, so we make a circle. I was in one camp where the kids were so there was a lot of violence, they they'd come from very different backgrounds, squeezed all together, and the camp was pretty, pretty edgy. So I don't want to say no, no, no, no, no, stop, stop, stop, because they need to express it somehow. So I bought sumo suits, giant, massive sumo suits. Could we go with the flow? They want to fight each other, they don't really. So I bought these sumo suits, they exhaust themselves, they end up laughing because it's so silly. So it's like go with what they, you know, they're gonna do it anyway, so why not make it playful rather than trying to restrict you adapt and you go with the flow.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

I worked very briefly as part of a consultation down uh um in a in a town down in uh further south from Sheffield, but they were having a lot of issues with um sort of small bikes. A lot of the young people were were acquiring small bikes and riding them around, motorised bikes. And um, and there was one occasion where it actually did feel like a problem for me because we were on the on the play area and there was small children around and they just came and sort of rode up the slide and stuff. But I just thought it's amazing, isn't it? It's like there's all this knowledge they know how to acquire, they know how to fix, they know to modify, they know how to mend. And you just think this would be an amazing place to immediately this is where you want your research and development for a motorbike uh company, you know, this is because there's already this existing knowledge, but all they were trying to do was suppress it and stop it. I understand why. I could see what the issues were, but the issues weren't necessarily the thing itself, it was the context. So it's like we'll change the context.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Yeah, it's focusing on the symptoms and rather than looking for the cause. And then, like, you know, that's the first point, of course. Like, we we we I can't solve the cause of of the kids we're working with. The cause is displacement, domestic violence, health crises, whatever. But if you're if you're a planner, if you're a space planner, and exactly as you say, the kids have all got mini motorbikes and they're buzzing around. What do they need? We need a safe place where they can buzz around on their motorbikes. What would be even better? A motor mechanics course offered free of charge with a workshop set up. And then you've got young people who are doing what school would like them to do, taking on a technical apprenticeship for something they're passionate about. Isn't that what we'd like? Everyone just needs to find something they're passionate about and then offer that to society as a whole. That'd be the best motor mechanics in the region, given the chance. Instead, they're a menace buzzing around public spaces causing um discomfort for everyone. So, yeah, I'm I'm a big believer of go of go with it. Saying that, I will add one uh caveat, and this is something I've learned as I've got older, is that I believe the most loving thing we can do, uh other than obviously play and noise and energy and all that, is to set and uh not enforce is the wrong word, set clear boundaries and and and maintain them. Because a boundary is a kid then knows I care if you go too far. So the boundary has to be set like that. The reason I would like you not to go two on the zip wire and any one is because if there's two, you could fall and I wouldn't like you to be hurt. And for many of the kids I work with, and these kids in Sheffield you're talking about, and the kids in them, the kids on the street causing trouble, get off, leave them alone, they're not causing trouble, they're on their bikes. I went on my bike. Why is it different? It's just that the way they express themselves seems uh confrontational. But if you've been confronted in life, you're gonna come out confrontational. So I think it's that thing of uh, yeah, I I would like us to um to see people as a whole and to witness these kids as a complete person to look for the reasons why they might express that way. And is there a healthy flow that can maneuver them to a happier space or a more healthy, a more healthy interaction? Because I don't believe there, I said earlier, there's no such thing as a naughty kid. Nobody wants to be hated by the town. Nobody wants that.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

And play and play in all its many different forms, you know. I love the fact that I've met lots and lots of people and we've had those conversations where they're very kind of prescriptive or restricted about play, and then they start remembering about their own play experience. Um, but talking about, you know, the this the fact that we've all played, that there has play been part of humanity for such a long time, this brings me very neatly to to a compendium that you've been putting together. So I believe that you've been collecting some of this, collecting some of this history of play and games um in a book.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

Yes, yes, I did. And I and by writing this book, I completely proved the opposite point of what I set out to prove. So my whole my whole concept was that every country, every culture, every historical heritage has a unique set of games, unique to them, that reflects exactly what was going on at that part of the world in that stage of history. And I thought, I'm gonna collect a hundred games none of us have ever heard of.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Whoa!

SPEAKER_02 40:58

Then you get looking and realize even more beautifully that, for example, hopscotch or duck duck goose or any sort of catch, they were simultaneously played in numerous different places across thousands of years of history. You'll see a game in like um ancient China and then it will pop up again in modern day Iraq, and then you see it's transferred to Liverpool. So actually, I proved that I proved the opposite point is that not that we're all unique in the games we play, we are all so alike in our desire to play. And thankfully, there was at least a hundred games, which is in the book that are different, many of which you've never heard of. But also excitingly, there's also the roots of games, so games that you might know really well. Um it it's it's written for kids, so grown-ups you can read it, but only if you only if your kid allows you to, because it's theirs.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

So if you're if you're a a grumpy clown and enjoy the idea of proving Ash wrong, or if you're an open-hearted clown and just want to learn, this book is called Forgotten Games, a compendium of play. It's published by What on Earth, and it's coming out coming out early next year.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Yes, it is. It's gonna be very exciting. And the wonderful thing is every page, about 50%, is hand-drawn illustration. So it's it's beautiful as much as it is fun.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

So we've covered your authorship, we've talked about your work. We know that you're heading out to um to Romania. When this comes out, you'll already be in Romania. So hopefully you'll be able to listen to it from there. But um, what's what's next, Ash? What's next?

SPEAKER_02 42:31

Um, unfortunately for us, uh the world has decided, you know, as it always has, to choose conflict over over community time and time and time again. So I'm you know, we've we've got a huge amount of work um to that we're currently engaged with. I mean, that even you know, domestically in the UK, uh the spike in domestic violence linked to cost of living and you know and the difficulties that causes. And um, and yeah, there's a lot of things uh we would we would love to return uh to Lebanon when there's peace. We've done a lot of things there. You know, all the that whole region is going to need a huge amount of of support at some point when this horrible situation is is done with. Um, and I guess my my personal aims, I'm I'm in my mid-40s now, which is young enough, but I'm certainly not, I can't, I can't tour 12 months a year in a van like I used to. So uh I I'm really keen to to step this up in terms of the relevance of play. That there's still, even though people take it more seriously, even though there are now conferences and books, there is still a slight smear of flippancy when they talk about play. And and I think it's time that we that we recognize that play is is more than a possible add-on in in these situations. It is a vital founding principle. If you're going to do humanitarian response in a natural disaster, in a conflict zone, and there are children there, beyond food, housing in it, and and and health, they must have access to play for them to have a healthy um developmental uh experience. And because they're just kids. So again, I said it earlier: school, hospitals, these uh crisis zones, domestic violence shelters, anywhere, we need to take a step forward, except now that the quantitative studies are there, the qualitative studies are there, the you know, hugely skilled and talented academics have proven now time and time again. I'm I'm my patience has run out for kind of sweet chats and nice books and TED talks. I think it's time that we we scale this up and recognize it as an essential right. I mean, it's written in the rights of a child by the end, but it's never enforced. It's it's never acknowledged on the same length, uh the same level. Um, and my life's mission is that uh I think it should be. I'd like to be sitting at the table with, you know, if you're listening, UNHCR, Board of Education, Children's Play Association, like pull me in. I may not speak as fluently in academic terms as you guys, but I've I've I've seen first I've personally met over 350,000 kids in my work. So I've got a perspective and it it's at least relevant in those contexts for it to be.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Hugely relevant. I mean, I know I know your organization, like at this point, you've reached over, as an organization, you've reached over 500,000 children. We always end our podcast by asking our guests um this particular question. I think you've already started to answer this in some ways, this idea of what needs to happen. If you could change one thing, what would it be to progress play? It feels like you're talking about action, but is there is there something that particularly you think could change that would help progress play and and help embed it?

SPEAKER_02 45:42

Hmm. That is a big question, and I've only got a couple of minutes to answer. Let me I mean, there's there's a couple of big, more kind of uh existential answers to that. Number one, there is no less value to a child than an adult. There's no less intelligence, there's no less validity, there's no less uh understanding, sensitivity, or cognitive capacity to know the world. And um, and adults need to to remove that hierarchical assumption of superiority because we're grown up, because we were kids and we are still kids, just big. Our experience and value in life has got to be considered equal. Um, and I think that would change a lot of a lot of the policies towards it. Um, and then the next one is I think there can be no justification for the uh extended suffering or lack of safety of a child for any reason. There is no political justification, there is no economic, religious, financial. None there's nothing can justify the fact that any world, any country, sir, any society in the world is willing to see children living in extended suffering when that situation could be changed. And I'm talking about immediate housing, safe and proper resource housing for for children seeking refuge. I'm talking about funding for uh women and children's refugees in domestic violence, all the places we work in, they there's no, well, it's difficult this year because everything should come after that. You know, healthcare for all, yes, but healthcare for for kids does mean safety in play. That that that's part of um that's part of the essentials of survival for a kid.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

So yes, didn't really answer your question, but kind of did in that No, I think you answered it in a very full and honest and real way. And actually, if these things happened, then it would have a huge impact. Ash, it's been an absolute, absolute pleasure. I've felt all the emotions whilst been talking to you today, and um and yeah, hopefully we'll get the chance to speak again. But thank you so much for your time. Absolute pleasure, and thanks for the invitation. Yeah, thank you. As ever, that conversation could have gone on for hours. Ash has so much to teach us, it was very emotional, it was very educational, and above all, it made me feel really human. Thank you, Ash.