When I was ten, my father became the Minister of Oxford Place Methodist Church in central Leeds.

The Church was located right next to the City Hall in the Headrow and had a seating capacity of around 2,000.  Because of the itinerant nature of my father’s work, I was sent away to boarding school in Bath.  During the holidays, I would accompany him in the evening to the church where there would be a line of what in those days were called “down and outs” – people on hard times, sleeping rough or suffering from various addictions.  After the interview, he would generally provide them with a chit so that they could go to the nearby Anglican Church and sleep in its warm crypt.  The next day, the chit would return to my Dad, who would pay the Anglican Church for the service provided.  Being exposed to this in my very early teens led me to believe that “it doesn’t have to be like this” and that there is something that could and should be done about it. This experience has underwritten much of whatever I have done over the years [1].

In this section, you will find some reflections on how this played out over the years, starting with how I came to study agriculture and leave for Africa.

What happened on that first journey to Africa can be found in the “slow thinker” section.

[1] In the Spring of 2025, I was interviewed at length by the Green Pledge project, an initiative of Gloucestershire Archives and from this emerged this podcast – which may help to explain why and how I ended up working with such inspiring people in different parts of the world.