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Social Pedagogy and Critical Theory: A Conversation with Hans Thiersch
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1 The International Journal of Social Pedagogy is jointly published by ThemPra Social Pedagogy and the Centre for Understanding Social Pedagogy, UCL Institute of Education, London. Social Pedagogy and Critical Theory: A Conversation with Hans Thiersch Daniel Schugurensky*, Arizona State University THEORY PRACTICE RESEARCH Hans Thiersch was born on May 16, 1935 in Recklinghausen, Germany. His work became particularly influential since the 1970s, when he applied the concept of lifeworld orientation to social pedagogy. Indeed, Thiersch can be considered one of the representatives of a critical social pedagogy. Since his retirement in 2002, he has been a professor emeritus of Education and Social Pedagogy at the University of Tübingen. He has also co-edited the handbook of social work / social pedagogy. Professor Thiersch has published extensively on a variety of topics related to education, social work, youth welfare, residential care, morality and justice. However, because most of his publications are in German, his work is not well known outside of Germany. On a rainy evening of October 2013 in Frankfurt, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Professor Thiersch. Key words: social pedagogy; critical theory; lifeworld orientation; Frankfurt school Daniel Schugurensky (left) and Hans Thiersch (Frankfurt, October 2013) To cite this article: Schugurensky, D. (2014). Social Pedagogy and Critical Theory: A Conversation with Hans Thiersch. International Journal of Social Pedagogy, 3(1), Available online: All rights reserved. The author(s) retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2 5 SOCIAL PEDAGOGY AND CRITICAL THEORY Daniel Schugurensky: I suggest that we start from the beginning. When did you encounter social pedagogy for the first time? Hans Thiersch: It was in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. DS: How did it happen? HT: Well, before we talk about this, we need to go a little back, to the late 1950s. At that time, I had a humanistic formation. I had studied philosophy and theology, and also German literature and philology. During my doctoral studies I wrote an essay about Jean Paul 1, a romantic poet who had a cosmic vision. When I did my doctorate I was not particularly familiar with educational theories, but when I finished my doctoral program I received an offer from a professor of education called Erich Weniger ( ) to work with him as a postdoctoral assistant at the University of Göttingen. This was my encounter with social pedagogy. DS: Was Erich Weniger interested in social pedagogy? HT: Interestingly enough, it has not been the focus of his interest, at least not in the 50s and 60s. Weniger was a traditional professor of general educational theory. However, and this is the interesting part, I encountered social pedagogy at Weniger s house. DS: This is indeed interesting. Are you saying that Weniger, your mentor at that time, was not familiar with social pedagogy, but you found social pedagogy in his house? HT: Exactly. What happened is that in Weniger s house I learned about social pedagogy through some assistants who were doing social work not only theoretically, but also practically. One of the other research assistants was Klaus Mollenhauer 2, who was a few years older than me. He wrote his PhD thesis on the origins of social work. At that time I was not connected to community work, but other assistants were doing work in a community center organized by students. It was in that period that I started reading about social pedagogy. DS: Was that part of a program in social pedagogy? HT: No, at that time, in the late 1960s, there were no programs of social pedagogy in German universities. There were not even courses on social pedagogy in the faculties of education. There were typical education courses, with occasional references to social pedagogy. But at the same time, outside of those faculties of education, there was a literature and a practice in social pedagogy. Obviously, there was a gap. Klaus Mollenhauer was one of the first to teach social pedagogy in universities. The students were not pursuing any particular specialization in social pedagogy. His course was a general education course, but he devoted parts of it to examine social pedagogy. 1 Jean Paul ( ), born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, was a German Romantic writer who was famous for his humorous novels and stories. 2 Klaus Mollenhauer ( ) was one of the most important German educational theorists of the second half of the 20 th century and is regarded as a very influential figure in the field of social pedagogy. He was professor of education at the University of Frankfurt from 1969 to 1972 and at the University of Göttingen from 1972 until his retirement in 1996.
3 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PEDAGOGY 3(1) 6 DS: And what did you do at that time? HT: I became inspired by Mollenhauer and decided to work in social pedagogy. I was first a professor of education in Kiel, and then, in 1970, I was appointed a professor of social pedagogy at the University of Tübingen. It was there that I developed the first curriculum of social pedagogy for a course in a German university in order of diploma. DS: Congratulations on that accomplishment. If I am not mistaken, around that time you became familiar with the Frankfurt School. Can you tell us about that? HT: Well, I think that there is another question before that one. First we need to talk about the student revolution that took place in the 1960s and 1970s. This happened in many places, but in the western part of Germany that era marked the end of the post-war Restauration period of Konrad Adenauer 3. In this period there was a growing awareness that social pedagogy and social work were in the mainstream very conservative fields, not really liberating themselves from authoritarian thinking. It was in this particular context that the new generation of social pedagogues was seeking a new orientation. DS: What were the main features of this new orientation? HT: There were two main ongoing streams at that time that tried to go beyond the traditional philosophical orientation of social pedagogy and that brought a critical understanding to the role of education in society. On the one hand, we were reading the work of critical pedagogues who were influential at that time, and their ideas framed many of our debates about education and society. For instance, we had intense debates on the work of Otto Rühle 4, particularly around youth movements and the labor movement. We also had discussions about the ideas of a critical psychoanalyst called Siegfried Bernfeld 5, who wrote about the connections between psychoanalysis and education, and about the role of education in perpetuating social inequalities and in promoting social change. Another influential figure that we discussed was Heinz Heydorn 6, who at that time was working in Frankfurt and had a critical approach to education. That was the panorama of critical perspectives on education at that time in Germany. On the other hand, we became familiar with the progressive orientation of social sciences like sociology, political science, critical criminology and the like, and here we can find a connection to the debates that emanated from the Frankfurt School. 3 Konrad Adenauer ( ) was the first post-war Chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to He is credited with leading Germany from the ruins of the Second World War to a prosperous and stable nation. 4 Otto Rühle ( ) was a German Marxist who played an active opposition to both the First and Second World Wars. 5 Siegfried Bernfeld ( ) was an Austrian intellectual educator who studied philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology and biology. He was a key member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and was one of the few writers that explored the connections between Freud and Marx, and between psychoanalysis and socialism, and called for a non-authoritarian educational system. 6 Heinz-Joachim Heydorn ( ) was a German politician and critical educator who worked at the University of Kiel, the Jugendheim Pedagogical Institute and the College of Education at Frankfurt am Main.
4 7 SOCIAL PEDAGOGY AND CRITICAL THEORY DS: So, it seems that the turn of social pedagogy towards the social sciences took place at the same time as the turn towards critical social sciences. HT: Yes. Before that time there was not much connection between social pedagogy and social sciences. By the 1970s social pedagogy started to connect to the social sciences, and particularly to critical approaches to social sciences. The Frankfurt School was one of those approaches. It was about a critical rethinking of hermeneutics, which originally was developed in philosophy. DS: And all this happened in a period of social upheaval HT: Yes, those were interesting times. It was the end of the Restauration period, which was a conservative period, and the beginning of a new era, not only in Germany but also in many other countries. And here we have a third, important stream in addition to the ones I mentioned before, which was our links with student movements around the world, from Paris to Berkeley to Mexico. DS: Thank you for providing this important context. Can you elaborate a little further on the connections between social pedagogy and the Frankfurt School at that time? HT: Sure. When Weniger died in the early 1960s, some of his disciples remained alone without the teacher, and that was the moment for a new beginning, to connect what we have learned in that tradition with the more critical tradition. Mollenhauer was one of the leaders of this group. At that time we started to be influenced by the Frankfurt School, not so much with the earlier generation of people like Adorno or Horkheimer 7, but with the new generation of the Frankfurt School like Habermas. For us, Habermas was the bridge between social sciences and social pedagogy. In the late 1960s there was also the book of Ilse Dahmer and Wolfgang Klafki that discussed the approaches of Weniger and Habermas. Klaus Mollenhauer and I had chapters in that book. Then came Mollenhauer s book on education and emancipation in the late 1960s, and that was another important connection between social pedagogy and the Frankfurt School. DS: How was the evolution of social pedagogy in Germany since those years? HT: In order to answer this question, I need to clarify that in the German context, we make no difference between social pedagogy and social work. In relation to the practice, we have treated social pedagogy like social work. However, I also need to clarify that in Germany, unlike other countries, social work is not an academic discipline taught in the university. It is taught in the polytechnics. Social pedagogy, on the other side, is generally taught at universities. As you can imagine, this hierarchy has created many discussions that still continue and probably will continue in the future. DS: Is social pedagogy also taught in polytechnics? HT: Most polytechnics have only social work, and some combine social work and social pedagogy under one single curriculum, under umbrella terms like social issues. To a large extent, this makes sense, because social problems are one, and then we could organize interventions to address those 7 Max Horkheimer ( ) was a German sociologist and philosopher. Theodor Adorno ( ) was a German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist. Both played a very active role in the early phase of the Frankfurt School and collaborated on several important works on critical theory.
5 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PEDAGOGY 3(1) 8 problems in terms of family work, community work, counseling, etc. For this reason, in my view the difference between social work and social pedagogy in Germany is meaningless, both in practical work and in academic work. Having said that, it is also true that social work and social pedagogy have different theoretical roots and we were trained in different traditions. I come from social pedagogy, and my classic readings were Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Dewey, and the like. My friend Hans- Uwe Otto, with whom I collaborate, comes from social work. He has a social services orientation and has read more sociological theories dealing with issues related to professionalization, social services, and things like that. Andreas Walther, Barbara Stauber, Daniel Schugurensky and Hans Thiersch DS: You are credited for introducing the lifeworld approach to social pedagogy and social work. Can you say a few words about it? HS: In the 1970s there were two main critical camps, the reformists and the radicals, and although the social context has changed, both traditions are still present in Germany today, and the split between them persists. The radical tradition criticizes social work as a servant of capitalism that can only reproduce unequal social relations and prevent revolution. The reformist tradition has been guided by the assumption that our society has a duty to do social work. The argument is that we are a human rights profession in a welfare state society. This tradition argued that the state should provide the resources and that the obligation of social workers was to reform the welfare state and to build a relationship between social pedagogy and social work based on new principles. DS: Where were you situated in that debate? HT: I was more in the reformist tradition but had some connections to people in the radical camp. We regarded social work as a human rights tradition, and therefore we emphasized social help and social support. In this context, the lifeworld orientation was very important because it argued that we need to start with the problems and the needs of the people and their own interpretation of their
6 9 SOCIAL PEDAGOGY AND CRITICAL THEORY situation in their own situation. We were influenced by people like Siegfried Bernfeld, Ivan Illich and Paulo Freire, and by theories about everyday life like the ones proposed by Erving Goffman, Alfred Schütz, Berger and Luckmann, Habermas and Kosík 8. In 1978 I published an article on everyday life and social work that was the beginning of this paradigm in social work. It was called Everyday life orientation. My argument was that the everyday world of users of social work services are in between the system and everyday life, and that social work institutions are always at risk of colonizing the everyday world like any other system. DS: Did you propose an alternative to that? HS: My proposal was that our main role was to understand social problems and not to colonize them and that we should immerse ourselves in the places where social problems occur, in the complex realities and not just in theories, in the context of the rules of organizations and institutions that serve them. In short, we should immerse in the complex realities of people s lives, concerns and networks. A lifeworld orientation implies more than intervening in social spaces. The focus is coping with everyday life situations, in routines, and in pragmatic strategies. Indeed, the lifeworld orientation has four dimensions: time, space, social relations and cultural interpretations. The role of the social pedagogue is to help people to critically analyze their problems, reflecting on the social causes of individual problems and to find options for a successful everyday life. The focus is connecting help for the individual with political action in the context of social justice and well-being, while recognizing social and political resources. DS: Did your ideas about lifeworld and social work make an impact beyond academia? HT: To some extent, I would say yes. In 1990 we prepared a report to the government in which I introduced the concept of everyday life orientation and lifeworld orientation, and eventually this became the main paradigm in social work debates and in the training of social workers. As importantly, also in 1990 a law of youth and welfare that was inspired in the lifeworld approach was passed, and it is still in use today. I am regularly invited by polytechnics to talk about the lifeworld orientation, because this is a central topic in the training of social workers and social pedagogues. I feel very happy about it. DS: Have you noted some changes in the ground with the new law? HT: Yes, there have been some changes, but we need to put that into the larger context. Since the 1990s, partly due to the passing of the new law, you could observe an approach that has more elements of a lifeworld orientation. In the last decade and a half, many social workers have incorporated a lifeworld approach in their development work, be it in relation to street work, foster care, migrants, gender issues, youth, or seniors. The problem is that, during the same period, we had the ascendance of brutal capitalism and the dominance of market interests, and this led to the terrible financial situation that we have now in many parts of the world. All this came together with the hegemony of neoliberal ideas of the sort advanced by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. DS: What were the implications of the neoliberal ideology for social work and social pedagogy? 8 Karel Kosík ( ) was a Czech Neomarxist philosopher. His most famous philosophical work is Dialectics of the Concrete (1963).
7 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PEDAGOGY 3(1) 10 HT: One of the elements of the neoliberal ideology is the victimization of social problems and social needs. Those excluded by the system are labeled as lazy and are deemed unable or unwilling to participate in society. In this context, the state must develop new policies for the activation of people on welfare. People are seen exclusively as human capital that has to be activated, and hence the replacement of welfare policies to workfare policies. The argument is that every person should make an effort to work and contribute economically to society. And this is fine, but the limitation of this approach is that it is based on a debatable logic, which is the individualization of social problems. This approach sees the individual as lazy and weak, and focuses on changing individual s behavior through rewards and punishments. DS: How do you see social pedagogy today? HT: I think that there are two areas that provide opportunities for renewal. One relates to the main fields of intervention, like family support, youth support, youth education, and the like. The other is to focus on social problems, like migration, crime, delinquency, alcoholism, and the like. We need to understand that community spaces are spaces for social work. At a moment when individualized approaches are privileged, we need to recover the social dimension of social work, and this connects with issues related to infrastructure, resources, cooperation, civil society agents, self-help groups, volunteers, and other actors. I think that there are three dimensions that require our attention. One is the theoretical dimension. What are the theories that orient our work? For instance, can a lifeworld orientation help us to better understand what is happening, and to do a better job? The second dimension relates to the connection between education and change, that is, to the praxis of an emancipatory education in the Freirean sense. The third dimension relates to issues of professional work and the professionalization of social workers and social pedagogues. DS: What are your views on the professionalization issue? HT: On the one hand, social workers and social pedagogues should have expertise on certain fields like foster care or counseling. On the other hand, they should be able to work in collaboration with educators, the justice system, the school system, the health system, or the crime prevention system. In this case social work interphases with other tasks and fields. Community work should be done in collaboration with other actors like urban planners, employment services agencies or community police. Social workers are in between them, a sort of transmission belt among these agencies and between agencies and the communities. One of the issues that we see here is the identity and the status of social work and social pedagogy. DS: The issue of identity and status is an interesting one. Are there some areas where the role of social pedagogy is more recognized than before? HT: One example would be early childhood education, which is part of child and youth welfare, and this is traditionally the field of social pedagogy. DS: Is social pedagogy also connected to formal educational institutions like schools in Germany?
8 11 SOCIAL PEDAGOGY AND CRITICAL THEORY HT: Yes, the relationship between social pedagogy and schools is usually observed through projects. We also have social workers in schools, and this was something that we imported in the 1970s from the U.S. as a field of practice. In the 21 st century here in Germany we moved from half day schooling to full day schooling, and now there are more connections to social pedagogy via school social workers and youth workers. But then, a question that we can ask ourselves not only in relation to educational institutions but to many other institutions is this: Is this organization a form of lifeworld, or a system to execute rules designed by somebody else? DS: What type of lifeworld organizations are you thinking about? HT: I am thinking about the creation of new institutions, new types of social organizations. One example would be social economy organizations. This connects to the question of alternative economics, like cooperatives and the like. I find this interesting because here we witness the encounter of the old socialist traditions and the new social movements that are developing creative projects and new experiments. By the way, and this is encouraging, there are more and more social experiments with different groups, like with old people, with sick people, with the unemployed, with the disabled. We could see some of the seeds of these current projects in the community work and the alternative movements of the 1960s and 1970s and the unemployment of the 1980s. Today there are many new creative intergenerational projects, and this is a growing movement that includes a variety of interesting grassroots projects. DS: What role does social pedagogy play or could play in this context? HT: People are constantly inventing new things, like intentional communities, deciding on new housing models, and social pedagogy sometimes plays a role, and sometimes it could play a role. For social pedagogy, the call to action should be go out and experiment. The role of social pedagogy is to continue working for the rights of the poor, continue working to make a reality the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the rights that are included in national constitutions. Many of these rights are not respected. Our society has a vision, and this vision is based on human rights and the principles adopted in the constitution. The problem is the gap between the vision and the reality, and social pedagogy is one attempt among others to bridge the gap and to claim the rights. This is an ongoing struggle between an economic system that disrespects human dignity, on the one hand, and the project of justice, on the other. The outcome of this struggle is open, and I am anxious to see the end of this conflict. In the meantime, I see no alternative than to do our work every day. DS: What type of work? HT: Social pedagogy has specific opportunities in working in areas where social justice is denied, where there is poverty, where there is suffering. Social pedagogy sees society from the bottom up, from the problems that our society produces, and it has a specific mandate to insist in bridging the gap between the utopian vision and the reality. DS: What do you mean by utopian vision? HT: The utopian vision I am talking about is not a pie in the sky, but a utopia grounded in human rights. Moving towards this utopia involves two tasks. The first is to help people in concrete situations, to reduce poverty and suffering, and enable them to improve their lives. The second task is to get involved in the public debates and in the development of a more democratic lifeworld in the workplace, in institutions, in the family, and in the community. The first task is more pedagogical in nature, and the second is more political. Together, the two tasks help people to solve social
9 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PEDAGOGY 3(1) 12 problems, to overcome their situations and to develop better life and social conditions. Of course, these tasks should always be carried out with a clear understanding of the context in which we operate. DS: How is social pedagogy today undertaking these tasks in the European context? HT: In Europe, social pedagogy and social work programs and services are mainly funded by the state, but they are delegated to civil society organizations like faith based organization, the Red Cross, trade unions and other NGOs. These organizations have power, and they could use some of this power to advocate on behalf of the poor. In this context, social pedagogy can have a clearer voice to say what it sees. We have very high unemployment rates, we have asylum seekers dying in front of Lampedusa 9, we have many social and economic problems, and the political system is unwilling or unable to solve them. The world is burning, and the political parties are not up to the circumstances. One of the roles of social pedagogy is to say what is going on, to participate in the public debate and bring the insights from the real world to those debates. Unfortunately, social work and social pedagogy are often too quiet. I call this the poverty of the clients and the poverty of social work. As I said before, we have two main tasks: the social and pedagogical task of developing forms, methods and arrangements in community affairs, and the political task of creating public awareness and advocating systemic reforms, and the two should go together. DS: This is an interesting point, because often the need for systemic reforms and the frustrations of the day-to-day practice of social pedagogy are connected. HT: Exactly. The doctor in the emergency room sees every day the victims of street accidents, and he also sees the problems of traffic rules. On the one hand the doctor has to help the biker who was injured by a car but at the same time knows that the rules of the traffic must be changed to protect the bikers. However, he has a low status and little power to fight the car industry. There is little power, yes, but this not an excuse for not speaking up. DS: And you could take this example of the individual doctor to civil society organizations doing social pedagogy work, which also have little relative power compared to big corporations or to the state HT: In most cases the organizations have little power because the funding comes from the state, with which they have a relation of dependency and a system of rewards and punishments. For this reason the aim of social pedagogy is to nurture more autonomy, more self-determination and more organization among marginalized people. For this reason the question of participation is key in social pedagogy. Participation is a way to learn about autonomy and to develop autonomy. Participation is the antidote to the institutional approach that is premised on the colonization of children, youth and families. Participation helps to prevent colonization. Social pedagogy has developed many forms of participation based on talking to each other and working together. Instead of managing people through discipline, social pedagogy should enable people to develop collective solutions of social problems. It is about nurturing responsibility and political participation. At the same time, we need to be pragmatic and realistic in term of the possibilities and limits of our work. 9 A few weeks prior to this interview, over 350 African migrants died when their boats sank in front of the Italian island of Lampedusa.
10 13 SOCIAL PEDAGOGY AND CRITICAL THEORY DS: For instance? HT: For instance, let s consider the issue of unemployment. I am saying that we need to be pragmatic and realistic because social workers cannot produce jobs for their clients. Social work is not Lehman Brothers. It is true that we can help to create some jobs in the social economy, but those efforts cannot change the dynamics of the market. Having said that, there is no reason to despair. Change takes time and requires daily work. DS: As we approach the final part of our conversation, could you share some of the lessons you have learned through your multiple experiences? HT: Most of my main ideas on social pedagogy came from my life experiences with my family, friends and colleagues, and from my experiences with foster care and foster work helping organizations, particularly organizations dealing with drug addictions. There is too much authoritarianism in our institutions. I lived that for many years, because I was in the board of directors of a social care institution for 30 years and worked as a supervisor in social care institutions. It took me some time to learn to become less authoritarian. Also important were my experiences with students. The university tends to disrespect students. DS: How was that process of learning to become less authoritarian? HT: I learned a lot from discussing with students their projects in their practice placements. I learned from many great projects at the community level. The main learning was to respect people and their particular way of being, thinking and acting. The other learning was to fear the power of social pedagogy to colonize the other and to fear a distrust of people s capacities. Yes, probably the most important learning was to trust the capacities of the people and to believe in the possibilities of human beings. As Ernst Bloch used to say, people are in love with hope and not with failure. I am aware that it may sound cynical to talk about hope in today s world, with all the inequalities that exist, but we have no alternative but to hope. DS: To hope even in a context of despair? HT: Yes, even in a context of despair. In addition to large inequalities, today s society is characterized by higher levels of individualization and by a loss of solidarity, and sometimes social work and social pedagogy align with this world, and this is not good. At the same time, alternative forms of living are emerging, and they need new forms of support. Social pedagogy cannot stagnate. We need to develop new institutions and professional competencies to prepare social pedagogues to do their work. We need to do better work in the field, and we need to refine the theories that orient that work. We need time and opportunities to reflect and to discuss opportunities. We need to discuss standards of justice in different parts of the world. Social pedagogy alone cannot solve all the world problems, cannot address all the individual problems of people and cannot eliminate the fact of pain,
11 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PEDAGOGY 3(1) 14 but it can be there to help. The task of social pedagogy is to develop small steps to be together with people in despair and not let them be alone. It is a long process, but a necessary one. Acknowledgements Hans Thiersch and I want to thank Professor Barbara Stauber (University of Tübingen) and Professor Andreas Walther (University of Frankfurt) for helping us with the English-German interpretation during our conversation. Both Barbara and Andreas did their doctoral dissertations under the guidance of Hans Thiersch. For further readings, see Thiersch, H. & Grunwald, K. (2009). The Concept of the lifeworld orientation for social work and social care. Journal of Social Work Practice, 23(2). In German, see Otto, H.-U. & Thiersch, H. (2011, eds.). Handbuch Sozialpädagogik/Sozialarbeit. Munich: Reinhard- Verlag. *** * Daniel Schugurensky is the coordinator of the Social and Cultural Pedagogy Program at Arizona State University (ASU), where he is a professor in the School of Public Affairs and the School of Social Transformation. Before coming to ASU, he was the coordinator of the Adult Education and Community Development Program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. Among his recent publications are Volunteers for democracy: informal learning through participatory budgeting (2013), Social pedagogy: historical traditions and transnational connections (2013), Volunteer work and informal learning: a conceptual discussion (2013), and Paulo Freire (2011). Correspondence to: D. Schugurensky, Arizona State University, School of Social Transformation, P.O. Box , Tempe, AZ , USA.
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From panoramic carriages, passengers can view the most inaccessible part of the Doux gorges. Man-made structures overhang the river along the most Mediterranean section of its route: pitons and chaotic piles of rocks provide the passengers with views of an untouched and preserved landscape !
At the charming little station of Colombier le Vieux – Saint-Barthélémy le Plain, the locomotive has to be turned round on a swing bridge and placed at the front of the train. It only takes two men to carry out the operation by hand. A sight worth seeing !
Half-day excursion – duration: 1 hour and 15 minutes round trip
3 choices of departures from Tournon-Saint Jean
at 10 :15 a.m. or 3 :15 p.m. (depending on the period)

subset: commoncrawl


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How and why did Noble Fine Art begin?
My husband and I have always worked together and have been together for more years than I dare say, he prints the most beautiful photogravure's which is a photographic process for clients at exhibitions all over the world, exhibiting in Cork Street, Harrods and Florence. We were asked by one of these clients to produce a wedding invitation for them using this beautiful traditional letterpress process about 3 years ago and the rest is history, I was a full time artist until we started printing invitations, so now clients can have the best of both worlds: beautiful letterpress stationery with drawings of client's businesses, venue, church in fact anything that's special to them.
Are you married?
Yes, I met David when I was 16 years old, a holiday romance and now in our 40's are looking forward to our 25th wedding anniversary in a couple of years time. We didn't make our invitations, we had a small civil ceremony and a reception at Dryburgh Abbey in the Borders, it was a lovely day but not very traditional.
What designs are available to order?
We have a number of standard designs, most on the website and all on display in our studio, however most of our orders are from clients that want something a bit different, with a personal touch and that's what we do. All produced on lovely stocks with all the finishing touches you'd hope for. We want our clients to feel special when they come to us.
Do you have any new designs for 2011?
Yes the Royale, inspired of course by the Royal Wedding. So new its not yet on the website. Using a cotton stock it leaves the most beautiful impression on the text.
Can you do bespoke designs?
Yes as mentioned above, we work with clients all over the world, from Hollywood actors to local farmers all looking for us to create something that reflect their personalities, it's lovely – we get so much feedback as their guests receive the invitations and know exactly who sent them before they read it.
What is your favourite design and why?
The Florence Invitation, it's just so versatile. A pocket for all the useful info and the invitation, a flash of colour with the ribbon, easy to add a drawing on the pocket if required and simply very stylish.
What is your most popular design and why?
Again the Florence invite for the reasons mentioned, you can change the feel of it so easily, from Art Deco to traditional it just works. Viaggio luggage tags too, just a bit different and easily within most peoples budget.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
Everywhere, the garden, a book, TV to museums, we're artists so work and pleasure mingle it's so difficult to keep it under control sometimes as we get so excited by new ideas.
What products are available in each design?
We make all items in all ranges and you can mix and match, knowing that we will follow the theme from fonts, ribbon and colours to make sure they all look similar. We make Save the Dates, Invitations, RSVP Cards, Information Cards, Order of Service, Reading Cards, Menu's, Place Cards, Thank You's and Seating Plans. We don't just do Weddings of course, we print for Partys, Business and Funerals.
Who would be your dream client, and what sort of design would you envisage for them?
We already have them! We work with some fantastic Wedding Planners throughout the UK and some wonderful couples who clearly appreciate what we do. The ones that have no budget are really fun as we get to be so creative, we don't get too many of those.
What design would you suggest for the Royal Wedding?
Something classy and tasteful as they represent a younger generation, it's good to mix traditional with contemporary. I would have chosen an engraved invite (as they had) but perhaps a square, maybe a soft grey card with a white raised text and a sunken square border.
What would be your top tips when choosing wedding stationery?
Give yourselves plenty of time to chat to stationers: 6-12 months, so you can decide on the right design and price. Don't be afraid to tell your stationer your budget, most will be able to offer some suggestions to help save cost. Timelines are very important, your RSVP date should be 6-8 weeks before your wedding, and invitations sent to your guests 6 weeks before your RSVP date. Most stationers in busy times can take 6 weeks to produce the final design so that means stationery needs to be ordered at least 20 weeks prior to your big day.
How far in advance should save the dates and then wedding invitations be sent out?
Save the Dates can be sent out as early as 2 years in advance, especially if it's a Christmas wedding although most are 8-12 months before. Wedding invitations should go out 3 months before and earlier if you have many travelling from abroad.
Does all the stationery have to match?
Definitely not, although it's nice to follow a theme through as I touched on before.
Where are you based and where can you supply?
We're in North Yorkshire, so why not pop in for a cup of Yorkshire Tea?! We ask clients to make appointments so we don't overlap. We are preferred suppliers to a lot of venues and there is always a list of Open Days on our Blog which we attend and events, from the Designer Wedding Show in London to Wynyard Hall's Fayre. I think it's really important to see and touch stationery.
What are your prices, are you doing any special offers?
Invitations start from £3.50 each and remember all our invitations are printed Letterpress, most are in the region of £5 and we do have other clients that pay a lot more for very specific requirements. Clients marrying at the venues we work with benefit from perks such as my drawings of the venue free of charge, usually these are £75. We try and offer the most cost effective solutions at all times.
How long do you take to turn around an order?
Usually 6 weeks although we do offer an express service which is 2 weeks for those who feel it necessary.
How can I get in touch to discuss my requirements or place an order?
Call, email, Tweet or follow us on Facebook
Why do you like to work with Simply Bows and Chair Covers?
Sarah is an inspiration, and has so much energy its infectious. We have very similar values, providing a very beautiful product which has been created with care and offering a very high standard of service, we like happy customers.


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The Kitchen at The Mantle is a fully equipped commercial cooking facility that can be rented by the hour on a casual or regular basis to start or grow your food business.
The kitchen has been architecturally designed and built to also include a general dining area and private dining area. As such it can be used for pop up restaurants, tastings and classes.


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London Show: ROOL at Ten
Posted by Steve Revill Fri, 28 Oct 2016 12:56:00 GMT
ROOL is ten years old this year and we'll be celebrating at the London Show tomorrow at the Hotel St. Giles, Feltham, near Heathrow. The show will be open to the public from 11am to 5pm.
ROOL merchandise
There will be plenty of RISC OS related things to buy, with no postage to pay, including:
- Commemorative ROOL badges
- The full range of SD cards and micro SD cards for the Raspberry Pi from the tiny Pico to a newly updated NutPi
- ROM sets for the Risc PC, A7000 and A7000+ of RISC OS 5.22
- Printed copies of the Style Guide
- The three book Desktop Development Tools box set
- Emulator and Native variants of the ROOL branded USB sticks
Don't forget to bring along your developer number for discounts on the electronic download version of the DDE26 and printed matter. All items subject to availability.
Have a chat
We hope to be presenting with our usual round-up of events from around the RISC OS community over the past year, as well as a sneak peak at what's planned for the near future.
We'll be manning the stand until 5pm, so if you have any question about the ROOL project and its aims now is a great time to ask. You can also donate to the open bounties in person by cheque or cash (sorry, no card facilities) and find out about the progress of the existing ones.
See you there!


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Brainwashing at movie theaters
I went to go see the new Star Wars cartoon. While I enjoyed it I was really disturbed by the movie previews and the pre-movie "entertainment."
First they showed a movie about some black guy winning the Heisman Trophy. I was thinking "ah...lets brow beat the white sheep into feeling guilty and vote for Obama."
They had a big confederate flag and some "hate filled" people screaming at this noble black man who was so perfectly calm and understanding.
then they had some stupid movie preview for some movie where it started off with a white girl (about 13 or 14?) laying on a black boy. I don't remember much more about that movie except thinking to myself who would want to see this crap?
Then they showed an ad for Target with a black girl and white girl in a college dorm room. Both were dancing like blacks do (hip hop). It made me sick to my stomach.
The last preview they showed was for some horrible cartoon movie with talking dogs. Just more crap.
I just noticed every commercial showed a dumb white guy (if there were any white guys) and white women with blacks or others. I just had to say to myself this is typical crap and just relax and enjoy the movie you came out to see.
Just be prepared for a huge push to see more movies and tv shows about the poor negro and evil whitey leading up to the election.
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Re: Brainwashing at movie theaters
Let's look at the portrayal of white America in the popular entertainment media, for example you may remember the movie the Blues Brothers featuring Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi which employs a wide array of stereotypes to make white people look like buffoons, from the shady small time mafia-like felons of Jake and Elwood, to the angry redneck country music bar-goers and band, to the uptight Illinois Nazi party members, this movie is one swipe after another at white culture, while the black characters are portrayed as the true talent, epitomized by Cab Calloway as the musical magician who casts a spell over the audience with his performance of "Minnie the Moocher." The film was directed by John Landis (a Jew) and produced by Robert K. Weiss (also a Jew); it was released by Universal Studios, a company founded by Carl Laemmle (another Jew) which was taken over in 1964 by MCA, a company headed by Lew Wasserman (also a Jew). Are you beginning to see a pattern here? I could go on and on with other examples of popular entertainment which portrays which culture in a negative light (Bevis & Butthead, King of the Hill, several movies starring Jewish actor Adam Sandler as moronic white characters, Steve Martin's various movies; Forrest Gump; the list goes on and on, and behind all of them are an equally long list of Jewish producers, directors, screenwriters, studio managers, actors, etc, etc. I'm pretty sure that you would find these same people producing the many various films and television series that promote black culture as well. It is all a part of the protocol to actively diminish the culture and ethnic integrity of the white race by fostering a sense of low self-esteem among whites while glorifying non-white culture in the hope of encouraging miscegenation and abandonment of white solidarity.
We are continually exposed to an endless stream of messages that tell our people that to be white is to be inept, awkward, dull, unsophisticated, nerdy, impotent, and any number of other things that are perceived as being not "hip" or "cool". A good case in point would be the musical video produced by Mr. Al Yankovitch entitled "White and Nerdy" which can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Zc9NyYH-k
Nearly all of the material put out by the Jewish controlled media and entertainment industry paints the white culture in a negative light, while at the same time promotes the image of the negro as some sort of noble savage; the poor, misunderstood, mistreated, misused black man who can hardly be blamed for all of the crime and drug-use that pervades his culture, that can hardly be blamed for the annimosity he exhibits towards the white man, that can hardly be blamed for his desire to mate with the thophy white woman - we must accept and coddle him and his society at the expense of (and to the detrement of) white culture and ethnic integrity. This is the message not so subliminally being conveyed by the Jewish controlled media.
As a result of increased media glamorization of miscegenistic lifestyles, the rate of miscegenation has increased because the media has enabled what was once considered abhorrant to become acceptable, even though it is determental to cultural and ethnic integrity. The number of interracial marriages in the United States has been on the rise: from 310,000 in 1970, to 651,000 in 1980, and 1,161,000 in 1992, according to the US Census of 1993. Interracial marriages represented 0.7% of all marriages in 1970, rising to 1.3% in 1980 and 2.2% in 1992. With the introduction of the mixed-race category, the 2000 census revealed interracial marriage to be somewhat more widespread, with 2,669,558 interracial marriages recorded, or 4.9% of all marriages. (See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage) If you look at the statistics, according to recent data (2006) in the United States the number of marriages where white men are married to black women is 117,000, while the number of marriages where white women are married to black men is 286,000. In cases where white men are married to Asian women, the total was 530,000; while the number of marriages where white women are married to Asian men is 174,000. These statistics do not include the figures on White-Hispanic marriages.
If you look at statistics pertaining to birth rates, in 1995, 87% of all births in the United States resulted from relationships where both parents were white, while another 10.86% resulted from relationships where both parents were black. Only 1.66% of births were from relationships where the mother was white and the father was black, and only 0.48% of births were to parents where the father was white and the mother was black in 1995. However by 2001 the percentage of births resulting from relationships where both parents were white has decreased down to 85.79%, while the number of births resulting from relationships where the mother was white and the father was black increased from 1.66% in 1995 to 2.14% in 2001. The number of mulatto births between couples where the father was white and the mother was black also increased from 0.48% in 1995 to 0.64% in 2001. So the rate of miscegenation is showing a marked increase, along with the numbers of mixed race children, while the birth rate of all white children has decreased 1.21% between 1995 and 2001, although the birth rate of all black children has increased from 10.86% in 1995 to 11.42% in 2001. (See: http://www.greenjournal.org/cgi/content/full/106/1/81/T215 for a breakdown of the statistics).
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Re: Brainwashing at movie theaters
The world is designed to the specifications of a marketing strategy.
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Re: Brainwashing at movie theaters
by doing this though,they are only hurting themselves. Eventually everyone will catch onto what they are doing and a lot of white people will be pissed.
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Re: Brainwashing at movie theaters
That is so weird because I went to go see the new Mummy a week ago and they showed the exact same commercials! I remember wanting to post something about it on here at the time, but I forgot about it afterwards.
Especially the commercials advocating miscegenation (one of them was for Levi's jeans) made me want to vomit! I was not too long ago that you did not see this very much, but today the media is innundated with White girls fawning over black guys and White guys fawning over black girls. It is disgusting and it is sick.
But what really disgusts me is that the personalities of the races portrayed in the media are the opposite of what they are in reality (like you said, the black are presented as calm and noble and the Whites as ignorant and violent). While any sane person can see that it is the opposite in real-life, these examples in the media will make more and more White people think differently and begin to hate their race and feel guilty, despite the reality that faces them every day. But, this is exactly what the Jewish-controlled media wants, so we should not have expected anything else. I just wish there was something we could do about it.
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Re: Brainwashing at movie theaters
Once I became racially aware of what was going on in the media,I haven't been able to enjoy movies,TV,etc. very much, at all, because I see and understand the social engineering that is going on.This is good because now I'm not supporting those who are trying to destroy me and everything that I hold dear and I'm breaking away from their,( guess who) control & influence.
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Re: Brainwashing at movie theaters
Why as a White man do you pay your money to this scum when they do not respect us. American/Western entertainment in 2008= Spit in the face of White males at EVERY opportunity.
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Re: Brainwashing at movie theaters
They NEVER show that! Come on, even the trend of showing White males with Asian females, which was never all that common to begin with, has now disappeared. The trend now is to show White males ALONE, and as such clumsy, inept losers that no female would want us.
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Re: Brainwashing at movie theaters
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Re: Brainwashing at movie theaters
SHEEP MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoo.
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Jared Leto: Bicycle Boy in Soho
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Golbez [06|Mar 12:26 AM]: no because there's no way of proving the facts are true
William Peter Blatty, Author of The Exorcist, Dies at 89William Peter Blatty, the novelist and Oscar-winning screenwriter most famous for landmark horror film The Exorcist as well as the director of two films, The Ninth Configuration and The Exorcist III, has died. He was 89.Exorcist director William Friedkin announced the news on Twitter Friday morning: William Peter Blatty, dear friend and brother who created The Exorcist passed away yesterday, Friedkin wrote.Blattys 1970 novel The Exorcist remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 57 weeks, and he subsequently adapted it for the 1973 bigscreen version directed by William Friedkin. That film was not only an enormous box office success, playing in theaters for months, but was Oscar nominated for best picture (becoming the first horror film ever so nominated) and won for Blattys adapted screenplay.
The Conservatives have a slogan which I think is despicable and defeatist: "It's better to be dead than red." And the Commies and Liberals have a slogan which is even worse, it's treason, they say: "It's better to be red than dead." We say this: "You don't have to be Red and you don't have to be Dead. Not dead. Not Red. Dead Reds"
Asian American sports hero, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, has died. 27 points.
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imagine you are having a private convo with your friends and this weird retard just walks over grabs your wallet and takes ten bucks out while simultaneously putting a piece of tape on your mouth.
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pretend genius
Entire Contents Copyright ©2003, 2004, 2005 writeThis.com and author. All Rights Reserved.
don't stop
vol. iii, issue ia
June, 1 2006
Secret Messages From The Amazing Ghost Boy
amy muldoon
There are hidden messages everywhere. We see them and pass by, not taking the time to think, to decipher the codes. Even when we write, what is being said is not always in the black type, but in the pale and empty space between, written in invisible ink.
I wonder how many messages, how many words I have lost in my life, because I did not see them.
I am looking for them, now. I find them on crumpled bits of blue lined paper, in empty soda bottles, on laundry piles, scribbled in the margins of phonebooks. One message was written in invisible ink on the cap of a beer bottle, discovered hidden beneath a couch cushion. To the untrained eye, it appeared to be the cap of a beer bottle.
I know better.
I have received messages from The Amazing Ghost Boy, Super Hero Extraordinaire, Abuser of Garden Gnomes, Defender of Absurdity.
He is invisible now, appearing to me only in lightning moments, a song, a breath, a movement seen out of the corner of my eye. He passed me once in the hall, walking swiftly past, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, dark hair falling over one eye, brow furrowed, and eyes far away, as if he, too, was deep in thought.
He did not look happy.
I wonder why he did not look at me as he passed. Perhaps he is growing used to being unseen.
He became invisible without warning, on a summer evening. His new form was granted to him by a drunk man who should not have been driving. Until the drunk man chose to drive, the Amazing Ghost Boy was an ordinary extraordinary boy, in the process of becoming a young man.
Now, the young man is gone.
I didn't see, for a very long time, the messages he left behind. My eyes were disabled. I could not see around the pain. There was shattered glass in my throat. My voice was gone. My words left me. I did not like the sounds that came out of my mouth. They were ugly, wounded noises. When I wrote, I saw the sounds on paper.
The first secret messages were hidden in an ordinary black backpack. They were well disguised. For many weeks, the ordinary backpack became something called evidence. Locked away, guarded by men with guns, hidden from me.
I signed for it at the police station. I wrote these words: "Amy Muldoon, mother."
I closed my eyes when they handed it to me. I was afraid to look. I was afraid it would be wounded. I was afraid it would be damaged. I was afraid, most of all, that I might see blood. I did not think the word, because it hurt. Thinking it not thinking it.
I didn't breathe. Just felt the fabric under my fingers. Rough nylon, suede straps, cold metal fasteners and buckles. Not just a backpack. Part of him, going everywhere. Witness to marvelous misadventures. Witness to the last day. I can't open my eyes. I want this part of him. I don't want to see the story the backpack has to tell. The fluorescent lights in the police station are very loud.
I only open my eyes when my husband whispers to me. He says, "It's all right." He means the backpack. He means that he can hear my thoughts, that it is safe to look.
There is only one small rip on it, the fabric coming apart from the shoulder strap. There is a smear of white paint. Very innocent looking, white against black. The truck was white. The fence was white. I don't think about white paint anymore.
We don't speak on the way home. The sun is bright, but we don't feel the sun. I hold the backpack against my heart, like a new mother bringing her baby home for the first time. It is an odd, ugly, reflection of a day nineteen years before. But now, we are taking home an ending.
We sit on the living room floor to open it. We sit in a circle, like pilgrims who are viewing a holy relic. We want answers. We want messages. We want mysteries revealed.
Our daughter sits apart, her holy innocent face still and white. The sun makes a halo behind her, and dust dances around her stillness. She is afraid when I open the backpack. She understands that we are letting her brother loose in the room. I want to. I don't want to.
I want to leave the backpack there in the middle of the floor forever, and pretend that he has just flung it down, and gone into the other room. I have seen this sight a million times. I have complained about it. Now I want it back. Annoying boy, never putting anything away.
This is the first lesson I learn, the first of the Hidden Messages. Ordinary things are precious, and we do not see them.
My eyes are burning still, but they are open.
The fabric is torn. We can mend it, but the rip will still show. It can't be restored. All the frayed ends, that were once woven together.
These are the mysterious messages of the backpack, revealed:
A case of CDs. The names of the bands mean things. Bad Religion, Green Day, Humping Rhinos, Dead Kennedys. I whisper the words like an incantation, and another secret message is revealed. The secret message is this: you must do what makes you happy, even if it is not profitable, or smiled upon. If you need to stand on a stage and make angry noises, do so. People will admire your screams. Show your bare ass to the audience. Write angry words, and sing them.
Library books. I hold them, open them, touch my fingers to the pages where his fingers have been, waiting for messages. The Hobbit. The Godfather. Slaughterhouse 5.
In Slaughterhouse 5, people don't die, really. Time is all happening all at once. You are born you are getting married you are going to school you are dying all at the same time. Whenever there is a death in the story (and there are many) Kurt Vonnegut says: So it goes.
This is another secret message. The books say: you thought I was not listening to you, but I was. I am not as unlike you as I pretended to be. Part of you is part of me. We reflect each other, always. An occasional eclipse is nothing.
I never return the books to the library. I put them back into the backpack. They are his, they are part of a sacred time capsule.
There is a notebook, with very poor and scrawling writing decorating the blue lines. His words, his thoughts. Parts of songs that will never be written, phone numbers of friends that he will never call. This is treasure. The secret codes are wild and many. It will take me many months to understand all of them, if I ever do.
On one page, there is a to-do list. This is what it says:
1: call Casey, and see if he needs a roommate.
2: call those bastards at Seafirst Bank. give them money.
3: Pick up paycheck
4: call Mom. Ask how to make red sauce.
5: turn into Batman. Take over Gotham City and save the world.
These are the magic words. The Amazing Ghost boy is set free, he is dancing around us in the living room. He sits in his favorite chair, and smiles, pleased with us, pleased with himself. We laugh, recognizing him, and touch the dark blue ink that is him, an eternal scrawl on the page, and our laughter is howling with darkness. So it goes.
This is the secret message:
There is a young man, walking down the street on a summer night. The sun is just setting. His hands are deep in his pockets, and he is singing to himself, because he likes to sing to himself, and he is happy. People who know him laugh as they drive by, because he is handsome and funny, and they know that if they spoke to him, he would say something absurd and wonderful.
He is going home to eat manicotti, with extra red sauce on the side. When he eats, he looks at his plate with great love and admiration. Sometimes, he looks from the plate to his mother, and his expression is much the same. He understands that sometimes, food is not just food.
He will invite his friends over, because he loves his friends, and he likes to share his food that is not just food. They will eat together, and when they have finished, they will stand in the kitchen and eat what is left in the pan, and laugh, and, make plans for the night, or for the year. Sometimes, his friends flirt with his sister. He will stand where they can't see him, and make faces of great disgust and horror. When he thinks nobody is watching, he looks at his sister, and there will be a look on his face that is equally puzzled and proud, as if he doesn't understand how she became beautiful.
He and his father will trade loud insults. This is how they say, I love you, without ever saying so. They say, you silly bastard, you willy woofter, you mindless son of a bitch, you butt cheese connoisseur, you great tit.
He is going home, walking past his grandmother's house, past neighbor's houses where he has, in the past, rearranged the garden gnomes into obscene positions. He has roller skated and skateboarded down this street, he has sat on the corner, hidden beneath a cardboard box, waiting to startle a passer by. He has run down this street in a superman suit, he has performed amazing dances with garden hoses on the lawns.
His eyes are dark and happy and content, looking far away, deep in thought. He is thinking of the things he will do.
He does none of them.
Instead, he flies into the heart of the sun, through lightning brilliant white heat. He explodes through the other side, and emerges as shards of light, thrown across the darkness. He is a constellation.
When I look at the stars, I whisper his name.
He leaves behind an ordinary black backpack.
He leaves me, searching for secret messages.
amy muldoon ©2006