Alex Smith was born on the 7th of November 1953, in the village of Butley, near Glastonbury. From the sacred landscape of Glastonbury, he has spiralled his way to King’s Cross, where, he told us, Blake took inspiration in the writing of Jerusalem. Alex’s is a life infused with the images and the shapes of myth.
In 1973 Alex started an architecture degree at the Bartlett, and moved into a squat in Tolmers Square. The square was a hub for architecture and law students intent on challenging the status quo of urban development and experimenting with radical alternatives. At the time it was in the process of being bought up by the property development company Stock Conversion and Investment Trust. The company planned to demolish the houses and build a hugely profitable office development. The squatters were undeterred, and mounted a long campaign that ultimately saw Camden Council compulsory purchase the square and redevelop it as housing.
Alex demonstrated his opposition to the developers by mounting a personal campaign to live for a year without money. He took his experiment to such extremes that he used a five pound note – a gift from his father – to light his fire. At the end of the year, his then wife persuaded him to return to using money. The very next day Alex found two pound notes (reminiscent of the magic beans in the fairytale Jack and the Beanstalk) in the street, and used them to set up a food business that eventually blossomed into the Muesli company Alara, which he still runs to this day.
Today Alex splits his time between managing Alara, tending his demonstration permaculture forest garden, and – true to form – envisioning the new Jerusalem (otherwise known as The Camley Street Sustainability Zone) here in the heart of King’s Cross.