Enjoying life, ice cream, Dale Abbey, Municipal Dreams and Five leaves Bookshop — what a way to spend a birthday!

I had a 74th birthday last week and chose to begin it at the Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory on the edge of Spondon, on the Nottingham side of Derby, in the company of Susan and close friends. I think it fair to say a good time was had by all, especially me.

More cards than a man of my age expects, and all from ladies I love. Susan chose one that I have since turned into my 'Old Age Passport', which will go everywhere with me from now on.

Susan and I met in the summer of 1975 and took off like a rocket. She was then Curator of Mansfield Museum & Art Gallery and I was Chair of the Midlands Area Museum Service. She 24, me 31. We were buying a house together within three weeks. I was also a Birmingham City Councillor working as the records and development officers (yes, two jobs) for a then high profile charity, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, and often found myself being asked to comment on this or that —which I did. Susan soon said of me that I was a typical politician, 'Able to speak with a confidence born of nothing but ignorance'.

She was right. I could happily be outrageous, making friends where I wasn't expected to. Called a 'Maverick' more than once, it remains a branding I am proud off.

Last week's ice cream adventure was fun and delicious — honeycomb, rhubarb and strawberries & cream, all yummy.

I even got to go two laps on a pedal go-kart. I could have done more. It was a great birthday. After this the day slowed down and we all went off to Dale Abbey to look at the ruins and the second smallest parish church in England, now part of a farmhouse which began life as monastic hospital.

Dale Abbey village is set on a road going only to church and a few houses. Off this road is what remains of Dale Abbey. How this much managed to survive is beyond me, set on the edge of a field it is actually the back wall to a small paddock. A public footpath runs through the field. 

It actually looks quite dramatic as my photograph shows.

One of my fellow ice cream eaters, Rosie (who also got me into blogging in 2007), took this pic of me snapping the ruin.

From the footpath you can see down the road to the church and the farmhouse of which it is part.

The church begins by the little door and goes to the left.

Up close the door looks suitably mediaeval. Having said that I'm not sure it is.

On the side elevation is this simple window. The church was locked and the farmhouse doesn't have a key, so we'll have to plan our next visit a little better.

In the small graveyard a friend spotted this gravestone. It mentions someone called Annie 'of Beeston House, Beeston, Notts'.

The wall around the church graveyard is made of blocks of dressed stone. The may well have come from Dale Abbey, but if it did I'm amazed most of it wasn't taken for use in new buildings following the Abbey's destruction.

It's isolation is somewhat illusory given how it sits between Derby and Nottingham, on the edgelands of two conurbations fast becoming one. Dale Abbey's Wikipedia page is a good place to start learning more. We will be going back with a key of that I am certain.

I finished the day in the ballroom of the Mechanics Institute in Nottingham city centre at a fantastic talk organised by Five Leaves Bookshop. 'Municipal Dreams' by John Boughton, who has a blog of the same name, long one of my favourites. The focus of his talk was council housing and it past, present and future. It was a lot to pack into 90 minutes but John did impressively well.

John was on BBC-TV's BookTalk programme a couple of weeks ago promoting his new book, Municipal Dreams (which you can buy in Five Leaves Bookshop, where I bought my copy).

Ross Bradshaw and his colleagues at the Bookshop were fair bursting with pride, having won the Independent Bookshop of the Year Award a couple of nights before. A well deserved honour. It appears on all my Nottingham city centre maps and I buy booksthere regularly.

I sat with Richard, another Beeston blogger who I know well and we came back to Beeston together on a 36 bus, both of us preferring the bus to the tram. His blog, NG and Beyond, is another of my favourites. His prose is close to poetry. He relies almost exclusively on words to describe the land and townscapes he explores in and around Nottingham. His writing is something I want to hold, to feel the page in my hand — he really is that good!

It was a good way to end my birthday.

Municipal Dreams must hear podcast about council housing

I am, at heart, a municipal socialist. I believe that local government is responsible, both historically and in terms of provision, for almost everything we like about public service. Centralising post-war governments since 1945 have been progressively weakening local government at every opportunity and council housing is a prime example of this fact.

A view of the now demolished Lenton flats from Church Square, which I knew well during the 35 years we lived in Lenton. In 2006, I received a £5,000 grant fro The Guardian, which I doubled to £10,000 with the help of local charities and Nottingham City Council. It is one the most enjoyable things I have ever done. I persuaded The Guardian to let me give the money away without paperwork in amounts up £500 to people living in Lenton Flats or involved in some way. Some of the projects started during the year I ran the project were still going when we left Lenton at the end of 2014. The five high-rise blocks were popular until the day the last one came down, because of their location. Nottingham City Council has replaced them with new council housing, including a scheme for flat residents who did not want to leave Lenton. It is a development the City Council can be proud of and is a great example of why council housing has a future. 

Council housing is a topic I have referred to on several occasions in the two years I have been doing this blog. Here is a link to a post about the history of Nottingham council housing.

The local historian in me ranks local authority housing above the NHS when it comes to the contribution it has made to public health and wellbeing, nor does the Labour Party 'own' these issues. Like it or not, it is a heritage it has to share with Liberals and progressive Conservatives. Once upon time the municipal ownership of transport and utilities was a shared vision, as was the provision of healthcare and housing for those who could not afford to buy their own home.

One of my favourite blogs is Municipal Dreams by the social historian John Boughton. His latest post links to a 50 minute interview he had on the Londonist radio station. For anyone interested in council/public housing this is really a 'must listen to' podcast. Whilst the focus is on council housing in London, John talks about council housing in a way which makes what he says relevant to listeners wherever they live in England.

If you would like to learn more about the history of council housing, you can buy the Historical Association booklet Local Authority Housing: Origins and development by Colin Pooley from Amazon. Before Susan and me retired in 2006 we published Local History Magazine and got hold of HA copies of the book when they decided to stop selling it. We've been selling the occasional copy on online ever since for £2.50 plus £2.80 p&p. It is a useful starting point for anyone who wants to learn more about council housing and its history.

Uncle Dave in Harlow, 1955, and municipal dreams

One of my favourite blogs, Municipal Dreams, has a post today about Harlow New Town in Essex, where I spent many of my school holidays throughout the 1950s staying with my Uncle Dave and Auntie Nannie. Uncle Dave was active in the Plumbers' Trade Union and Secretary of its Harlow branch.

I became a Labour Party Birmingham city councillor in 1971 and my Uncle Dave was elected to Harlow Council in 1972. It was one of the proudest days of my life. My Auntie Nannie also became a Labour councillor.

My aunt and uncle never bought their new town corporation/council house and lived in it until they died, my Auntie Nannie a couple of years ago. They were a living, shining example of what being socialists is all about.

I took the above photograph of Uncle Dave in 1955, when I was eleven with my first (second-hand) camera. We are standing on a roof overlooking Harlow town centre.

The reason I went to Harlow was to give my maternal grandmother a break from looking after me. I never lived with my mother.

If you have not yet visited Municipal Dreams, do it now! You will not be disappointed.