In a week when my term of office as President of the Royal Town Planning Institute came to a close, I also faced being made redundant.
This largely inconsequential article that I wrote in 1997 is redeemed by the photo of me wearing my Eric Cantona T-shirt while meeting a pirate. It also provides some reflection on the Beveridge Report, which laid the foundations of the post-1945 welfare state, which aimed to banish the five evils of Ignorance, Disease, Want, Squalor and Idleness. For commentary on how the Ken Loach film Kes depicted the welfare state at the endof the 1960s, click here.
