Before his arrival at the Guardian, the journalist David Hencke worked for the Times Higher Education Supplement. In 1975, he got to hear of a new professional training course for community and youth workers at Bulmershe College of Higher Education, which became part of Reading University.
The prospectus boasted that it would employ a community development approach and offer students a “self-generating curriculum”. Within two weeks of starting the course I was part of a small group that spent a morning being probed by David about the demands that would be placed on participants, and invited to offer opinions on how we would change the world.
That experience encouraged me to follow his journalistic career closely and I learned a great deal over the ensuing years.
