About Me

Clive Durdle MSc BA (Econ) Hons FCIH Dip Soc. Studies

4 Toronto Road

Ilford Essex

IG14RB

0794 198 8846 0208 554 5889

clivedurdle@mac.com

X @Clivedurdle

https://social.coop/@clivedurdle

https://clivedurdle.wordpress.com/

Sunday, 17 December 2023

Dear Reader

I am attempting in the following to communicate briefly my thoughts, my philosophy and my experience. I am structuring this as a letter that also contains a summary CV. I am attempting to thread together my experience and the conclusions I have drawn from this into one whole picture with some tentative proposals. The references are sometimes to items in this blog. The following appears to jump randomly from one subject to another, but everything is connected and the following does have patterns!

Current Situation

I am 70. I retired following a stroke in 2014 and the discovery of a long-standing neurological issue. I am registered hard of hearing and on the autistic continuum. I had to relearn to walk and I am no longer safe to drive. My primary mobility aid is an e-assist Christiania cargo trike that I purchased after an email conversation with a Danish neurophysiotherapist who said they are commonly prescribed in Denmark as core to habilitation pathways. I received 100% on a falls test – likely to fall at all times.

I have recently been working with a disability history project and am attempting here to sketch out some possible future steps. Looking at and writing up history is only one step in a process of defining where we are from, where we are now and where we wish to be.

We need to curate, record and audit carefully so that what we do can be replicated by others.

We are building a Von Neumann machine, something others can use to develop and carry out similar tasks.

“The Leonov crew flees Jupiter as a mysterious dark spot appears on Jupiter and begins to grow. HAL’s telescope observations reveal that the “Great Black Spot” is, in fact, a vast population of monoliths, increasing at an exponential rate, which appear to be eating the planet. By acting as self-replicating machines, these monoliths increase Jupiter’s density until the planet achieves nuclear fusion, becoming a small star.” ^[1]

Living Laboratories

I propose that a governance model based on Von Neumann machines using principles of cooperation, commoning, universal design, knowledge hubs, forensic auditing and mapping and the exponential power of computing needs to be developed. ^[2]

Future search

“Transport” is a subset around big, large scale and heavy mobility solutions.

Mobility requires asking can someone get out of bed, down stairs and out of their homes to the specialist transport mode.^[3]

Do we need a right to mobility? A Right of Way?

To untangle these issues, I recommend Future search, asking where are you from, where are you now, where do you wish to be.^[4]

Richard Bennett ^[5]

Before he died I worked closely with him at Wheels for Wellbeing. My background includes social policy, welfare rights and housing law. I regularly used the Encyclopaedia of Housing, Child Poverty Action Group National Welfare Benefits Handbook, Clements Community Care and the Law, the Disability Rights Handbook and more.

I think there is a huge gap around mobility that needs to be urgently filled with an Encyclopaedia of Way with supporting summary rights focussed handbooks. This might be dedicated in Richard’s memory.

Way Law

Law needs complete revision, building on concepts from Justinian and earlier of the commons and commoning, understanding ways as commons and standardising law and practice of ways with appropriate variations. Trespass, assault, harm and nuisance on the commons requires careful definition. Our habitus of enclosure and assertions like “there is no such thing as society” have led to us falsely believing that trespass nuisance and harm only apply to the private realm. The BBC, NHS, and “roads” are commons. There are ridiculous, discriminatory and dangerous differences between health and safety law about foot ways, carriage ways, motor ways, rail ways, and air ways. Regulations about mobility contradict the Equality Act. Why do British Transport Police not deal with roads?

We do not have a coherent approach to prostheses^[6]

Concluding remarks

The following section develops the background to my comments above.

Karl Popper wrote;

“I think that there is only one way to science – or to philosophy, for that matter: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it and to live with it happily, till death do ye part – unless you should meet another and even more fascinating problem or unless, indeed, you should obtain a solution. But even if you do obtain a solution, you may then discover, to your delight, the existence of a whole family of enchanting, though perhaps difficult, problem children, for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days.” ^[7]Charles Leadbetter spoke at the Enabled by Design Unconference at the Design Museum on Thursday 17 June 2010 and said:

“In the spring of 2010 I began work on a project called For, With, By and To, which argues there are only four main ways in which we organise most social activities or address social changes.

• For solutions are delivered to us.

• With solutions we devise cooperatively with other.

• By solutions depend on self-motivation and DIY.

• To solutions depend on instruction, command and coercion, to get things done.

Crudely speaking the 20th century was shaped by the rise of more complex, powerful and sophisticated For and To solutions in virtually every walk of life, at the expense of With and By solutions, cooperation and self-help. This dependence on For and To solutions has come at great costs, not least the ability of those delivering to abuse their power. We need to redress this imbalance and develop more effective With and By solutions in virtually every area of life, from learning and health, to ageing and dying, to politics and the environment.” ^[8]

Everything is Connected

Disabled people use concepts like a chain is only as good as its weakest link and nothing about us without us. These are very similar to ideas of whole systems^[9] and participatory democracy. ^[10] Spinoza wrote that everything is connected. I understand these relationships of ideas have not been yet fully explored and already existing solutions are not yet often used in other areas. There are technical terms for this; silos, holistic,^[11]joined up thinking, habitus, liminal. Solutions exist in specialist areas like logistics and mapping that are often not read across to disability issues. Should not a disabled person have a life map? ^[12] There are often real reasons for this, the guard’s van for example.^[13] What appears to have happened is that solutions that work have been rejected because they failed to be implemented appropriately, not that they didn’t work.

Politics and media

I use twitter extensively and regularly make comments on the Financial Times comments section. I have stood twice as a local council candidate for the Green Party. I was a member of Network Housing Group’s Audit Committee and have been a Company Secretary. I do not really see my views as political but as being science and ethics based.

A Social Security Appeal Tribunal decided a married couple was not a married couple following my presentation. This decision was part of the move to Supporting People. I have been involved with High Court action around care plans and disabled adaptations. A barrister commented I take a robust perspective on the law. I have been a Health and Safety and Welfare Rights trainer. My consultancy work included extensive work on extra care and for a County Council Disabled Persons Housing Service.

Library

I have a large specialist library including urban design and architecture, science, complexity, commoning, medieval history, disability and transport. My blog contains brief summaries of my thinking and experience. Recent reading includes Five Times Faster, Everyday Utopias, Electrome and On the Origin of Time.

Education

2012 Coursera Health for All^[14], various short courses on mobility.

2010 Access Auditing

1994 South Bank University MSc Urban Policy

Dissertation: Quality Systems in Housing Associations

1990 University of London Certificate in Ecology and Conservation

1983 Hackney College Professional Qualification of the Institute of Housing.

Dissertation Ecosystems, Shelters and Societies

1977 – 1979 Polytechnic of North London Certificate of Qualification in Social Work course.

1972 – 1975 Victoria University of Manchester

BA (Econ) Social Administration Diploma Social Studies

1971 A Levels Mathematics A Geography B Physics E