Professor Simon Clarke: A Personal and Professional Tribute

I first met Simon just after the opening of the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies at the University of the West of England in 1999. When, a few years later, I came to work at the Centre as a psychotherapist-researcher, Simon became a good working colleague. At the time, along with several other colleagues, he was engaged on a major piece of social research on identities in the UK funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. Through listening to Simon, I got my first understanding of free association narrative methodology which he was, with characteristic gusto, pursuing through the white working class housing estates of Plymouth and Bristol. There were some hilarious stories and it became clear that Simon seemed to have the knack of getting people to talk and then be very surprised about the intensity of what happened.

Some interesting things occurred during this research that have stayed with me. One was that the two meetings given to each respondent were often taken as an opportunity akin to brief therapy. Although this wasn’t the purpose of the data, I was able to use my skills in time-limited work to point out the progression of themes between meetings one and two. It made some sense as well of how much people gave of themselves, Simon having no small part in inspiring that. He had an ease with what we call in the research

world ‘snowballing’ – or, more prosaically, finding out where the party is! The data was richer for it. Then, in the last days of Gordon Brown’s Labour government, the cabinet office called in for the results, hoping to help Brown deliver a speech about a united Britain. Research findings so far: ‘no sign of it here, gov!’. The research eerily presaged what we are in now: Britain had already disappeared in people’s minds. They lived locally, by street, by city. Racism was on the rise, countered by personal contact, fuelled by the gutter press. Poverty and the white working classes were talking. Brexit is where i