Imagination, creativity and the importance of transport planes

Some years ago I used to fly an old DC3 Dakota transport plane. It was pre-World War Two and whilst the skin had been repaired, there was still some damage to bits of the airframe. Keeping oil pressure up in the starboard engine was always a problem and the large tyres, although always good for rough airstrips, tended to give bouncy landings. But then it would be tea-time and I had to go in. All the flights were solo and nearly all commercial and, I remember, involved long sections flying over the sea or jungle with my fingers crossed. But then, in Sir Francis Chichester’s book the Lonely Sea and the Sky I read his description of ‘aiming off’ to locate Pacific islands – and it worked! Every time! In late summer there were apples on the tree and the DC3 went away for maintenance. In the long holidays I was free to cross miles of gorse heathland and explore the woods. I followed the Roman Road and smelled the charcoal burners and talked (in my head) to The Amazons. The fallen tree bridging the river was the same one as I saw in the foothills of Our Everest Adventure by Sir John Hunt. But then the apples dropped and it was back to polar flying. Don’t all children do this? I was clearly very, very fortunate to have been so unrestricted and allowed to be a small boy playing what I now see as very gendered play. I wonder what it is actually like for the comparable generation nowadays? Even in 1937 Kurt Hahn described one of the Seven Sins of the modern age as the Decline in Memory and Imagination. It seems to me that the two greatest influences upon my imagination were stories and opportunities to wander. Freedom if you like

Dialogue, critique and creativity: some questions for the profession

Imagine the scene. You are sitting by a slipway on a sunny summers afternoon where a centre is running canoe rafting sessions for primary aged school children. There are three groups with three instructors and you can’t help eavesdropping. By the end of the afternoon three comments are stuck in your head. Instructor A: ‘That’s good, I have never thought of doing that before.’ Instructor B: ‘I know that’s really heavy. So let’s take a rest for a minute.’ Instructor C: (to the group) ‘Andy doesn’t have ideas, does he.’ Helper: ‘Oh, he’s a bit ‘special’. Is he?’ (laughs from group). Small splinters of dialogue. How we speak is important and each exchange illustrates one facet of why. Such exchanges are crucial to helping our clients develop through what we do

Effective dialogue in outdoor work: ‘Let the mountains speak for themselves’ – so the saying goes

There is that special ‘something’ that happens when people and mountains meet. It is that ‘something’ that separates our work from being interactions between people alone and it is that which we value. However the work we do isn’t always carried on in silence and the saying itself confirms speaking and listening as being important in some way. How we speak and talk to colleagues and clients is obviously crucial, whether it’s formal instruction in safety procedures, the open discussion in decision-making or just the bonhomie of the other campfire. (Jones’ saying was a cry of exasperation at too much talking, it has to be said.) There are many models that have been derived to help our understanding of interactions. We might be consciously competent (Noel Burch 1979), democratic (Tannenbaum and Schmidt, 1958; Gastil, 1994), in an adult ego-state (Berne, 1964) and in a coaching mode (Hersey & Blanchard, 1972). These certainly have a place in supporting our observation and explanation of behaviour, but they are none the less hypothetical models that are ascribed to observations. There is also a tendency to take these models, or worse still one model, as orthodoxy and lever our interpretations of events to fix the models and not the other way round, not only giving spurious interpretations but also as was never intended by their authors. The strength of feeling of their disciples does rather support this view, whilst the models were not themselves based on reliable data but were sometimes derived from interpretations of small numbers of people who were in some cases in psychotherapeutic settings

A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for: an overview of outdoor studies at St Martin's College

Sea-going vessels come in all shapes and sizes with different hulls and rigging. Different people view them through different eyes. The vessel that is Outdoor Studies at St Martinʼs College is one of those well-loved craft of indeterminate class that has been so constantly trimmed and re-fitted, it isnʼt the vessel it was. However it handles well in most conditions and the crews pass through happily enough. The keel was laid over thirty years ago by Colin Mortlock, and was designed for small crews and high performance, an Advanced Certificate in Adventure Education. She sailed far and wide and the crews weathered well, sailing demanding courses under a strong navigator. The strengths of this approach were soon recognised and offers came to add a new dimension to Initial Teacher Training at Charlotte Mason College, developing in student teachers those characteristics that constitute a well-rounded crewmember

The use of digitally altered photographs to assess stakeholder woodland cover preferences in internationally important cultural landscapes; a case study in the English Lake District National Park.

This project explores the effectiveness of digitally manipulated photographs for evaluating peoples' preferences towards woodland cover in an internationally important cultural landscape. A photograph of a well known English Lake District view was digitally altered to produce six images with greater or lesser amounts of woodland cover. Using an online survey, respondents were asked to identify which image represented current levels and which their preferred levels of cover. The responses were then related to the personal data of the respondents. 506 usable responses indicated a strong preference for increased woodland cover. Accurate identification of the location and cover levels was related to proximity of domicile, age and frequency of visit. The nearer respondents lived to the Lake District the greater the preference for increased cover. Employment, domicile, age, gender, settlement type and voluntary organisation data were recorded. Women were less extreme in their preferences than men and farmers tended towards open field perceptions and preferences. Photomanipulation is shown to be an effective tool for assessing preferences for degree of woodland cover and could be well applied to more representative data gathering than online survey

BHPR research: qualitative1. Complex reasoning determines patients' perception of outcome following foot surgery in rheumatoid arhtritis

Background: Foot surgery is common in patients with RA but research into surgical outcomes is limited and conceptually flawed as current outcome measures lack face validity: to date no one has asked patients what is important to them. This study aimed to determine which factors are important to patients when evaluating the success of foot surgery in RA Methods: Semi structured interviews of RA patients who had undergone foot surgery were conducted and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis of interviews was conducted to explore issues that were important to patients. Results: 11 RA patients (9 ♂, mean age 59, dis dur = 22yrs, mean of 3 yrs post op) with mixed experiences of foot surgery were interviewed. Patients interpreted outcome in respect to a multitude of factors, frequently positive change in one aspect contrasted with negative opinions about another. Overall, four major themes emerged. Function: Functional ability & participation in valued activities were very important to patients. Walking ability was a key concern but patients interpreted levels of activity in light of other aspects of their disease, reflecting on change in functional ability more than overall level. Positive feelings of improved mobility were often moderated by negative self perception ("I mean, I still walk like a waddling duck”). Appearance: Appearance was important to almost all patients but perhaps the most complex theme of all. Physical appearance, foot shape, and footwear were closely interlinked, yet patients saw these as distinct separate concepts. Patients need to legitimize these feelings was clear and they frequently entered into a defensive repertoire ("it's not cosmetic surgery; it's something that's more important than that, you know?”). Clinician opinion: Surgeons' post operative evaluation of the procedure was very influential. The impact of this appraisal continued to affect patients' lasting impression irrespective of how the outcome compared to their initial goals ("when he'd done it ... he said that hasn't worked as good as he'd wanted to ... but the pain has gone”). Pain: Whilst pain was important to almost all patients, it appeared to be less important than the other themes. Pain was predominately raised when it influenced other themes, such as function; many still felt the need to legitimize their foot pain in order for health professionals to take it seriously ("in the end I went to my GP because it had happened a few times and I went to an orthopaedic surgeon who was quite dismissive of it, it was like what are you complaining about”). Conclusions: Patients interpret the outcome of foot surgery using a multitude of interrelated factors, particularly functional ability, appearance and surgeons' appraisal of the procedure. While pain was often noted, this appeared less important than other factors in the overall outcome of the surgery. Future research into foot surgery should incorporate the complexity of how patients determine their outcome Disclosure statement: All authors have declared no conflicts of interes

The Picos de Europa mountains, north-west Spain, an inspiration to non-specialist students to study living cultural landscapes

Poster presentation at the IALE World Congress in 2007

Test-retest reliability of automated whole body and compartmental muscle volume measurements on a wide bore 3T MR system

To measure the test-retest reproducibility of an automated system for quantifying whole body and compartmental muscle volumes using wide bore 3 T MRI