This is for me a blog with a difference. Ever since my undergraduate days, 1968-71, I have been attracted to the writing of C Wright Mills. It is of course a common form of magnetism. For a variety of reasons I have re-read his The Power Elite, a report and analysis of America’s ‘governors’ in… Read More »
I did not meet Margot Jefferys immediately on crossing the threshold at Bedford College in 1972. Based then in Peto Place, it was George Brown’s office I entered. But this was her Unit, and I came to know her well and to appreciate – no, more than that – the deftness of her political touch,… Read More »
We had moved to a rented flat – 45 Sandown Lodge – in Epsom in 1972. In fact we could have moved anywhere south of the Thames, it just happened that an opportunity arose in Epsom. We were to spend nearly 20 years there as our family multiplied. Three of our four daughters were born… Read More »
As my allotted three year stint as a research officer at St Bart’s neared its end, the Dean of Charing Cross Hospital Medical School contacted George Brown to enquire about any suitable candidates for a half-time lectureship in sociology. The appointee would join David Blane who already occupied a half-time post there and had no… Read More »
Asher Tropp at Surrey had urged us to get our hands dirty doing research rather than sign up for a taught Masters. Now, esconced at Bedford College and taking stock, I began to wonder if anyone lacking Margot and George’s M.Sc in medical sociology could land a teaching post! But in the meantime I had… Read More »
Such was my enjoyment of philosophy at Surrey that I determined to continue my studies. Pat Smart suggested that I apply for the B.Phil at Oxford and garnered the enthusiastic support of Daniel O’Connor at Exeter. In the event – once again – I tripped up in my examinations (it seems, embarrassingly for an academic,… Read More »
In my second year at Surrey, 1969-70, the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein cropped up on Irene Brennan’s reading list for metaphysics and epistemology. He was the first genius I had encountered, at least in the guise of a thinker. I lapped up Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, notwithstanding the fact that Anglo-Saxon philosophy had moved on. It remains… Read More »
I eventually went to university in the autumn of 1968. The route had been circuitous. I had somehow gone from being an ‘Oxbridge possible’ in 1966, to exploring a course in economic history at Nottingham (and buying my first pipe) in 1967, to A-level re-takes and a choice between Hull and Surrey in 1968. Why… Read More »
This fragment makes good an omission. I have been only too aware that so far my father Ron has outshone my mother Margaret. Margaret’s presence has been a shadowy one. This is no way reflects any differential of love, parenting, significance or causal input into who I was or have become. I have been following,… Read More »
For a long while I assumed that I was a laggardly reader in my early years, but I am no longer sure this is true. Certainly my parents helped teach me to read and kept me supplied with reading matter, mostly through attendance at Worthing library in the parsimonious1950s. I was familiar with Enid… Read More »