Dave moved into 12 Tolmers Square in the autumn of 1976 and lived there until the evictions in 1979. He came to London to undertake a PhD at the London School of Economics, following his MA at the University of Manchester and a year’s lectureship at Preston Polytechnic.  His first encounter with Tolmers Village was a meeting at a squatted office in Drummond Street with Dave Clark to discuss the setting-up of an independent left-wing magazine. Along with several others, Dave founded The Leveller magazine whose first issue was published in November 1976.

He had known Sacha Craddock since they both studied A level art together in Oxford and Sacha invited him to move into no 12. It was a life-transforming experience and so many good friendships were made which survive to this day. Dave obtained his first academic position in London in 1978 at the then Polytechnic of North London. In 1979, following eviction, Dave took on the lease of 89 Great Russell Street, where he moved with Sacha Craddock, Corinne Pearlman, Jamie Gough and Sally Craddock. He lived in ‘GRS’ until 1989 when he moved to Stoke Newington with his partner.

Dave taught at North London Polytechnic for 20 years until he left to take up a position as Head of The School of Applied Social Science at the University of Brighton in 1998. During that time, he held visiting positions at City College, New York for a year in 1984-5, and at the University of Sydney in 1995-6, where Jamie Gough was also living at the time. He became Professor of Social Theory and Social Policy at Brighton and, in 2009, was appointed Dean. He went on to become Dean of the College of Social Sciences there until he retired from his post in 2017.

In 1980 Dave was one of a group of academics who founded the radical academic journal Critical Social Policy, and he has remained on the Editorial Collective ever since, acting as Editorial Coordinator currently.

Since his retirement in 2017 Dave has returned to his first love – painting. He lives in Queens Park in London and has a studio in North London where he paints mainly abstract expressionist work (www.davidtaylor-artist.co.uk). He also continues to write and undertake editorial work.