A book that I have found both fascinating and helpful over the years – and one that I find myself frequently returning to – is Derek and Nancy Copley’s little book (first published in 1978) called Building with Bananas. Derek and Nancy chose the title after listening to a bricklayer on a local building site […]

Well I have been back in hospital again! I have to confess that it was my own fault. As regular readers of our blog know, I had a heart attack back at the end of February and ended up in hospital for a week as a result. I am now waiting for a triple heart […]

In the aftermath of the 1981 riots in Handsworth and Brixton, Norman Tebbit (Employment Secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s Government at the time) responded to a suggestion by a Young Conservative that ‘rioting was the natural reaction to unemployment’ by saying, ‘I grew up in the 1930s with an unemployed father. He didn’t riot. He got […]