An edited version of an email to Nick Wates, 25 January 2021

It’s good to know that Tolmers has had and is still having a long and well deserved afterlife and I am proud to see a first edition of ‘The Battle for Tolmers Square’ sitting on my bookshelf. Though I didn’t contribute anything practical to it (apart from a son) Tolmers informed my thinking and teaching for many years, and indeed through Joe it became part of our family history.  

I first got involved in community action through Leeds Civic Trust at a time of rolling slum clearance that was intended to be never-ending, so that, over time, the entire city would be ‘renewed’. As one would have predicted, this programme was to start with demolition of the ‘back-to-backs’ in viable working-class districts. Our successful opposition, with guidance from Robert McKie, actually had a direct impact on government policy, for it helped launch the General Improvement Area. This was on the cusp of the swing from demolition to conservation, and, some years apart, in two different Leeds neighbourhoods I lived in, I filled the (entirely self appointed) role of community planner. Both are now well established Conservation Areas, though of course their various problems didn’t end there.     

I should say that for several years (through the good offices of Howard Liddell) I got huge stimulus from Hull School of Architecture in its seminal years under Michael Lloyd’s leadership, and the AA workbase system he introduced there. After that it was downhill all the way for me as I taught for a number of years at Leeds Polytechnic headed by Patrick Nuttgens, a very disheartening experience in every way, though I did manage to launch quite a few of my students into careers in housing.  

Back in those years the ‘enemy’ were unenlightened and quite possibly corrupt city councillors and their planners. Now the enemy or enemies are more diffuse and alarming; but it’s wonderful to know that all that work and struggle are not relegated to a museum of good ideas, but are still being carried forward by you and Joe in your respective ways, and I hope by others. Your energy is needed more than ever now, and long may you flourish!

Postscript

From an email, 23 April 2022

Being present at the launch zoom (of this website) felt a bit like being a ghost at the feast for me. I did have my hand up for a long time but wasn’t called on – I wanted to tell my own little experience of sleeping on the floor in the dark in Joe’s Tolmers house (but a lot of the floor was missing) hearing (IRA) bombs going off and thinking I was back in the raids of the V1s and V2s in the ‘forties, when we also slept on floors in the dark in north London. In the end I reflected that a series of younger generations has taken over now, and they reflect on and interpret things in their own way.