One of the secrets to MIKE PAILTHORPE’s survival and success in music, education and - at one time, publishing – is simple: ‘Just talk to people.’

Mike grew up in Hounslow, and at school, started punk band The Milk (our first podcast track) which went on to play numerous Rock Against Racism gigs, with the encouragement of established bands Misty in Roots and The Ruts.

Mike then, ‘Retired from punk’ to study English at Queen Mary College London, and from there found himself in Worthing, on the South Coast of England. With what seems like typical serendipity, he walked into a factory and got a very boring job, before being called by a book distributor to deliver books… and start a journey of fearlessly talking with people!

While in the book trade, Mike was also playing music, built his own recording studio, and then began work at the famous Jacob’s Farm residential studio.

The late 90s saw a tempting to offer to set up a Music Technology course from scratch, which after modest beginnings now has “over four million quid’s-worth of equipment” and runs degree-level courses.

Mike’s family are all music makers, “A result of a home more full of musical instruments than toys,” and he has never stopped playing and exploring music. In the podcast we hear the Gospel choir, SPRING INTO SOUL that he helps run, along with a song by VICKY RAYNER AND THE REST, with Mike as bass player.

Creageivity 28 is an inspiring and uplifting listen, with a guest who seems to have a special ability (which at one point he likens to Forrest Gump) to be in the right place at the right time.

Music, all courtesy Mike Pailthorpe:

Wake Me Up by The Milk

I Open My Mouth by Spring Into Soul

Protect You by Vicky Rayner and The Rest

If you feel you're too old to be creative, or too creative to be old, then Creageivity is the podcast for you!

GABY WEINER has held various professorial and honorary research positions in universities in the UK and Sweden. Publications include Just a Bunch of Girls (1985); Feminisms in Education (1994); Closing the Gender Gap; Kids in Cyberspace, Reconstructing and Deconstructing Lives; Tales of Loving and Leaving (2016); Harriet Martineau and the Birth of the Disciplines; and Reintroducing Harriet Martineau: Pioneering Sociologist and Activist. In recent years she has also been an active contributor to the Lewes Holocaust Memorial Day Group and Martineau Society.

In this episode of Creageivity, Gaby talks particularly about her own family history, brought to life in Tales of Loving and Leaving, centred on the amazing stories of her father’s experiences across Europe, and her Grandmother’s murder in the Treblinka death camp. Harriet Martineau is something of a specialist subject for Gaby, and she makes a great case for why this almost-forgotten beacon of feminism, journalism and activism is overdue recognition.

Intro and outro music is a recording of Putta Nera by Giorgio Mainero (1585-1582) played by Gaby and the University of the Third Age recorder group.

If you feel you're too old to be creative, or too creative to be old, then Creageivity is the podcast for you!

Ashton Applewhite is the author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism and a co-founder of the Old School Hub. She has written for Harper’s, the Guardian, and the New York Times; speaks widely at venues that have included the United Nations and the TED mainstage; and is at the forefront of the emerging movement to raise awareness of ageism and make age a criterion for diversity. In 2022 the United Nations named Ashton one of the Healthy Aging 50: fifty leaders transforming the world to be a better place to grow older.

In a wide-ranging and lively discussion Ashton challenges preconceptions and makes points that everyone of any age should consider - and it's fun too!

Music with thanks to Pixabay: 'Playing the Old Guitar' by NOVIFI

If you feel you're too old to be creative, or too creative to be old, then Creageivity is the podcast for you!