What I was going to suggest we started with, as I say we could start looking at where you are now.
Right And then we can go back in time, Okay Okay We can see how the time goes. What energy levels we both have; Right. And sort of see where it goes. And it is going to last roughly ..30 minutes...15 minutes well at least 30 minutes, at least 30 so it could be a little bit more. We might need more time Right, because when someone is 85 there is quite a lot of life history to cover. But don't forget my memory problem. Well I am sure that it will be more than enough.
Anyway the reason why, apart from the fact that your my father and I think you have an interesting personal story I am interviewing you because your personal story collides with a lot of educational history. Right. so actually it is quite interesting to know what you are doing currently and then as I say we will look at where you started from, so we will look at the current situation, because downstairs (we had a brief lunch at the RFH prior to doing the interview) you were telling me you are involved with some kind of intergenerational project, that you currently got into that.
The link, one of the current links is that ever since my professional career in adult education started I've been associated with the Educational Centre's Association and the ECA recently decided that it wanted to become an intergenerational orgnanisation and got the Charity Commission's permission to for that purpose. So having started out as a beginner with the ECA, and I will tell you more about that in a moment, I then became President, and then I felt that I had been President for long enough, of this organisation, so they said oh, alright Brian and invented a title for me and I am now President Emeritus (laughter)
Oh, okay and what do they do, I will be honest I have never heard of them, so it's a bit embarrasing
There are less member organisations than there used to be for various reasons but they are extra-ordinarily active nationally and internationally in terms of policy formation and improvement and the link with them goes right back, not to the beginning of my work as a tutor, but to the beginning of the first full time job I ever had which was in Letchworth, in North Hertfordshire, where I was the Principal of a Voluntary Organisation, which was then known as and is still known as Letchworth Settlement, and I had only been at Letchworth Settlement for two years, when I got nominated to go on a UNESCO Regional Conference which brought together people from the Allied Countries and from the former enemy countries so there we were mixing with Germans, and Finns, because the Finns were not allies of the Germans but they were co-belligerents they had no alternative - So this was in the early 50's - So, this was in the early 50's, that's right, so I am sorry I have to go back to the past as well as to the current story, but in order to explain my connections with the ECA I have to explain they go right back to the beginning of my professional career and it was a marvellous opportunity to be given because it immediately gave me an international perspective it immediately introduced me to three Nordic countries because it was not in Finland but the Finns came to it. It was in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and it was extra-ordinary, does not happen these days, this is a three week seminar, so the first week we all spent together, and I cna tell you more if you wanted to know more. The second week we split,one group staying in Denmark, the other one going to Sweden, the other going onto Norway and then the third week we all meet together and compared notes in Norway. I happened to belong to the group that stayed in Denmark and I became immensely close to the Danes I had been extremely left wing while I was at university for a while and the fact that I was at universityis itself a bit amazing, but I had become extremely left wing, because I was very anti-capitalist but one of the many, many changes that came upon me, by visiting those three countries, was that I discovered for the first time really that a society based upon the market could be civilized as well - the market could serve its purposes not the whole set up was to serve the market. Yeah, I understand I hadn't realised all that ( i.e. that he had learned this there) which is - in America, in the United States and Britain still to this day to an extra-ordinary degree the society was meant to be serving the market which is the wrong way round and on the whole the Nordic countries have got it the right way round. So now where are we, ECA that is how I got connected with the ECA.which I hadn't ever heard of before it stretches right the way back. It goes backI should think to about 1927 when it was known as the Educational Settlements Association oh okay, that makes sense, the reason there are so few member, member organisations, is largely to do with changes in legislation, changes in funding and ..........However, two or three years ago the ECA and this is relevant I think to your story to my story, the ECA was original enough to have a project which was called the Teddy Bear project, which they got a number of different countries involved in, the Finns, the Italians, the Brits , and there were different centres in all these three countries, and the Teddy Bear project was a project which was deliberately encouraging work between small children and not only grown ups but preferably grand-parents. Alright yeah. One of the events that was organised by the Teddy Bear project funded very largely by...anyway one of the European fundings was in western Finland a part of Finland that I have never been to before and I went with them. Ah, I think this is the thing you did fairly recently Well, two or three years ago...so yes relatively recent andYou may have seen a photograph of me I think you had some nice inter-reactions with some nice young Finns that's right you might have seen some photographs of me with Eta,Eta oh right I think her name was and she was 8 years old, so there's the connection if you will between me, Finland and an orgnaisation that I have been associated with on and off all my life I say, all my I say, on and off because I have not been a member of the ECA because
I wasn't a member of the ECA all the time because I have had a portfolio career doing almost every job in adult education that you can think of.
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