The 21st Century Ladz - Richard Gater

Richard Gater discusses his new book 'The 21st Century Ladz: Continuity and Changes among Marginalised Young Men from the South Wales Valleys', which draws on his qualitative study exploring changing ideas of manhood, masculinities and social class identity. 

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Transcript

ExChange Wales

Welcome to the Exchange Wales Podcast, a series that explores research and practice sharing, evidence and care experience to build better social care in Wales and beyond.

Jeremy

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Exchange Wales Podcast. My name is Jeremy Dixon and I'm your host today. I'm really pleased to be joined today by Richard Gater, Rich Gater from the Centre for Adult Social Care Research. And Richard's recently published a book called 21st Century Ladz, spelt L A D Z. And he's here today to talk about it with us.

So welcome, Rich. Thanks for joining us. 

Richard

Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. 

Jeremy

So, I really enjoyed reading your book, which I've read over the last couple of weeks, and I was just wondering for the benefits of those who haven't had a chance to look at it yet, can you just give us a quick summary of what it's about?

Richard

Yeah. In basic terms, I suppose the book looks at the group of young men, aged 13 to 21, I think it was, from a deprived, coal mining valley - ex coal mining valley in the South Wales valleys. And it essentially explores their attitudes towards, education and employment. So, you know, what do they like? School?

Do they dislike school? What part of it don't they like, what they want to do for employment, why they want to do certain forms of employment. And it also looks at their behaviours. Yeah. And then considers these behaviours in the context of gender and masculinities and the book is based on my PhD research, that involved ethnography or I suppose maybe simplify that a little bit, people watching, I call it systematic people watching, so looking at the patterns of behaviour people engage in and trying to understand why and then just talking to them I guess, in structured interviews, talking to them through specific questions, asking them why they wanted to do certain things. 

Yeah. The book kind of brings all that together, I guess. Those stories together. 

Jeremy

Yeah. Thanks. That's really clear and, one of the areas of research you're interested in is around sort of masculinities and gender. So that's something which is spoken about quite often in sociology. But I guess for people who aren't familiar with the sociology literature, they might not really know what we mean when we're talking about masculinities.

So could you just give us a bit of an explainer about what that's about? 

Richard

Yeah. Yeah, I'm a bit concerned about how simplified I make this, but I guess kind of masculinities or gender and sex get kind of used interchangeably. But when we talk about sex, we're talking about biological factors. And when we talk about gender, we're talking about differences in behaviour that are socially constructed.

So how certain ideas of manhood or masculinities are determined by aspects such as, so media, sports, family, social class, your education. Yeah. How all those factors converge to, influence how you act, how those determine how you act as a- how you think of being a man, essentially. So that's kind of, what the ideas of masculinities and genders mean.

And I guess some people listening to this might notice that we've used the term masculinity. So I think that's worth going, exploring a little bit further. Because when we're talking about how these different factors influence young men's ideas of manhood, we say that, you know, there's no one uniform idea of manhood or masculinity.

There's different versions and those are determined by those different influences that I mentioned. So yeah, that's why we talk about masculinities rather than masculinity. We would say no one exact version there's a variety of versions. And I guess those varieties, those different versions of masculinity, determined by, time and space as well. So I guess that's what my book tries to do.

It tries to look at kind of these kind of ideas of continuity and change. 

Jeremy

Yeah. No, that's really a good explanation I think. And you bring in your own biography quite a lot in the book, which makes it really interesting to read and you talk about how you've had, quite a lot of jobs, in the book you kind of talk about finding it difficult to settle at school and, having a lot of different careers. 

So maybe can you just say a little bit about that? Because I think you said that you perhaps struggled at school and then sort of went on to a whole range of jobs before, thinking about going into youth work, and then actually coming into academia. 

Richard

Yeah. So I guess the reason why, you know, take it back a bit, maybe the reason why I talk about myself a lot in it, which I found quite difficult to do, actually, and maybe we can get into that.

But the reason why I talk about myself is because, focusing on a group of marginalised young men, and, when we're talking about marginalised young men within sociological terms we're talking about, we're generally talking about, a group of young men that are often associated with a rejection of education and an attraction to manual work and I guess what some people call a negative form of masculinity or what's become termed, toxic masculinity, it’s not a term that we kind of use, but it's become more familiar in gender studies.

But it wasn't, it hasn't been up till late. But yeah, these young men are associated with that. And, you know, very much that was how my experiences of being a young man was. So, you know, I rejected education. I wanted to do manual work, because my father was a carpenter. And that's partly the reason why I rejected education, because I didn't see it as relevant to my future.

And because of my rejection of education, I went on to do those manual jobs that you mentioned, just working in factories and working in - I worked in a supermarket picking home deliveries, just a variety of different low skilled and precarious forms of employment because I didn't have those, qualifications that would allow me to go on to do better jobs, I use that term loosely.

Yeah. And that was it. So I was focusing on young men that were slightly similar to me. So it was partly important for me to talk about my history, for my biography because for integrity reasons, you know, in research terms, because who we are determines, you know, how we look at the research subject. 

So it was important for me to discuss that, and it was also important because obviously, I was looking at these young men who were similar to me, and they did engage in lots of behaviours that I did when I was younger. But the equally fascinating thing for me was they engaged in behaviours I wouldn't have dreamed of doing when I was younger.

So yeah. So it was quite beneficial in lots of ways. That kind of what we call an insider state, as I suppose.

Jeremy

And you said at the beginning of that you found it difficult to write about yourself. So why was that do you think? 

Richard

I just- it's just feels slightly egotistical, doesn’t it? Embedding yourself into the research.

And it was only because my, supervisor really encouraged me to kind of explore my history and, you know, to write about it more that, I mean, gave me confidence to do it. I said, it just feels really egotistical. But, I guess what my supervisor said that, that this kind of work, the focus on marginalised young men is normally done by academics who, you know, we've gone through a standard trajectory of education.

So they, you know, they've done their A-levels, they've gone to university, and then they've gone back to look at these marginalised young men that rejected education. So my focus is slightly unique. I'm not saying no one out there has done it. I haven't come across yet. And maybe there is someone out there. So, but it is slightly unique, sort of offers a unique focus.

So yeah, I was encouraged to do it, but there's also, there was also psychological and emotional difficulties of doing that as well. So because you've got to delve into your past and the reasons why you did things and as I said, some of the behaviours that they engaged in were quite contradictory to how I remember my past. So, you know, I had to explore, you know, what was the past that I remembered?

Was it a true reflection of my past and, and, yeah. 

Jeremy

No, I think it works in the book and it makes it, a lot easier to read than some academic books based on people's PhD thesis can be. So it's really interesting to me, I think and, you talk about, coming from the valleys and just bearing in mind that people might be listening to this from outside of Wales.

So that means something to both of us being based in a Welsh university. But can you just say a bit about what the Valleys is and the significance of that? 

Richard

Yeah. So yeah, you're right as you say, at the beginning of the book, I, you know, I document the boys and I, you know, offer the reader a glimpse into these young man, you know, so the stories are more open so the reader gets a better picture of them and I also document myself. And I just said I refer to myself as a ‘Valley Boy’ and I guess for me, the Valley boy is about growing up in an area, it’s an ex coal mining area, with those traditional ideas of manhood were the foundation for me and many people from my generation, that, you know, men should be tough.

They should be stoic, they shouldn’t express emotions. And, many people in my community, that's how we grew up. There's part in the book where I talk about the Square Boys, and they were a group of young men in my community, who exemplify those ideas, you know, they stood on the street corner. They were often going to fight.

And for people like me that didn't have avenues of education, employment, they were kind of our idols in some ways. 

Jeremy

Yeah. No, I get that. And, yeah, it's interesting to see these different types of people who exist within communities and to and to, there those different labels, but also, as you do in the book, to sort of show how some of those behaviours and groupings have changed over time.

Richard

Yeah. And that's exactly what the title of the book suggests, it’s continuity and change, so back to again, a lot of these boys, they were engaged in criminal behaviour and I, you know, I'm not proud of my behaviour. That's the word, I'm not proud of my behaviour, but I'm honest about my behaviour and these kind of behaviours that I was involved in when I was younger.

And, the young men, the ‘ladz’, as I termed them, were on first name terms with the police. But they also, as I said, engage in behaviours that I wouldn't dreamed of engaging in, and then they would have tension, made me ostracised in my community.

Jeremy 

Could you tell us about what some of those would be, for example?

Richard

Yeah, one of the key aspects of them, for want of better word, that absolutely blew my mind was the, their greeting practice so when I was younger, the greeting practice was, “Alright butt” for people who don't know that term ‘butt’ in the valleys is used as a friendly term, so “okay, butty”. So we've shortened it to butty and it'd be a nod of the head or, you know, and, and at the most it would be a shake of the hand though, but I don't really remember that much.

But these young men, they were comfortable hugging each other. So they’d come into the centre and they would, you know, hug each other. They do what we call a man hug, which is kind of shoulder and chest together, so it wasn't a complete, like, really affectionate hug, but it was still some form of intimacy there between two males.

And it wasn't something that, you know, we- I would have done in my days because it would just be seen as feminine behaviour and it wasn't deemed appropriate behaviour and yeah, I grew up with. So as I said on one end of the spectrum, these young men were engaged in crime and drug taking, and as I just said, some of the behaviours I engaged in when I was younger, but then they were equally engaged in these behaviours that were equally, as I said, it wouldn't dream of engaging in. 

Jeremy

Yeah. So I guess what you're noticing really is that the, I suppose to put it in simple terms, what it means to be a man in that area has kind of changed or evolved over time. 

And you'll notice those differences, having grown up in a kind of previous era. 

Richard

Yeah. 

Jeremy

And I wonder, well, I know the answer to this because I've read the book, but did you talk to them a bit about those sort of differences or how things have changed over time?

Richard

Yeah, absolutely. So, I asked them explicitly why they did that because it was just, blew my mind so much. I was like, because I want to confirm that actually what I was seeing is real. And I just, you know, it might be hard for the listener to understand, but, for me, it was just so different to everything that I knew as someone, as a young man growing up, I almost felt sometimes that they were actually putting it on as a show for me and that, so I had to interrogate or ask them somewhat and they just explained to me that those ideas of hugging each other had become the norm in society that it was acceptable to be able to do, for men to hug each other, and they talked about how footballers do it and different forms of music.

And, there's a part in the book where it was another fascinating part with me when I talk about how the young men, two of these young men were right on the margins. They were on first name terms with the police, but they demonstrated to me how they're - it’s difficult to explain without reading it, but how they explained to me how the old ways that I always known, that I knew what being a man like so shaking hands were no longer how they did it.

And yet they were happy to hug each other. So yeah, I guess that's where the book goes. It talks about how ideas of manhood change through time, but how some ideas that I knew were still holding true. But yeah, because of the place they live and certain prominent members. But yeah, equally like wider culture kind of changed their ideas and manhood as well.

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Jeremy

In the book, you are basing your observations in a youth centre and, you talk in the book about how initially you had this aspiration to be a youth worker partly because you worked as a park keeper and you'd enjoyed, having a relationship with some of the young men in the area. But you got into academia instead.

And, interestingly, in the book, you kind of start off as an observer in this youth club. 

Richard

Yeah. 

Jeremy

But then kind of move on to a point at which, because they're short on numbers, essentially, they ask you to kind of be a youth worker in the centre. So what were your experiences of kind of acting as a youth worker there?

And how did you find it, you know, going into youth work at that time? 

Richard

Again, I'd probably give a better example like, yeah, it was a really difficult experience for me. So there's one young man I talk about in the book, his name is Stan, and he kind of exemplifies this, kind of, this marginalised status, young man. Again, in some ways he does and in other ways he doesn't. But it's just a simplified term. And, when I moved into this role, I can't remember, I remember the term in the book, but I was an active acting youth worker. I had to, manage his behaviour as you would as a youth worker in the youth centre. And, you know, there's as I talk about, there's two young men playing pool at the time, and they're happily playing pool.

And Stan walks in on them, while they're playing pool and Stan, he's not a big lad but he’s formidable in his presence, and he's known to be a tough man among the young men. And he essentially takes the pool cue off the young man who’s playing pool, and he starts sporadically hitting pool balls around the table. You know, and he's in danger of hurting himself, in danger of hurting the youth centre.

So I have to manage Stan’s behaviour. That's why I ask him to stop misbehaving, and he swears at me. I use ‘please’, because I know he's got problems with authority. And again, he swears at me again. And I'm sat there and I talk about in the book, and I'm sat there for quite a while now, just knowing that I've got to throw Stan out of the youth centre, because the youth centre works on, kind of what we call a two strike rule. 

So you give the young person the warning, and on the second one you chuck them out. So I'd given him one morning and he still wouldn’t listen. And I knew if I potentially chucked him out, I might alienate him from the research. And I knew he was really important. And I sat there for ages thinking about, why does Stan not listen to me? I'm a Valleys Boy. I'm a working class young man, similar to him, I should share similarities to these young men. But yet, for some reason, he's not listening to me, and I'm questioning my identity. Have I lost that valley boys working class identity? Have I become this middle class academic that kind of ostracised these young men and yeah, it was really difficult and there's lots of parts around the book that I document.

And again, it goes back to the point where that was part of the difficulties when we’re talking about emotions as, again, as a man that exemplifies some of these ideas of masculinity, it was quite difficult to talk about those parts. But equally, I wanted to give the reader a real glimpse into how the difficulties of being an insider research and kind of difficulties that I faced working with these young men and really bring them right into the story of these young men in my story, I guess.

Jeremy

Yeah. No, I think you do that really well, as I was reading it, you know, I was thinking, it's really interesting to hear about your accounts as a researcher. But you also talk about the role that the youth workers have and, some discussion around the workers about how best to sort of interact with the young men.

So if you were to kind of try to summarise it, what would you say that the aims, of that youth club were, what were they kind of trying to do or what they're trying to provide? 

Richard

I guess, that youth centre, and still does in some ways, tries to provide a provision for young men. You know, they’ve grown up in an impoverished valley that hasn't got all of what these, more affluent area have and tries to offer them, you know, access to things such as, you know, of the pool table and offers, gaming and all these things that some of these young men wouldn't have and maybe some listeners won't, quite understand this, but there’s young men in that area that haven't got access to the internet because they are impoverished and the area that I did my research is one of the most impoverished in Wales. So that area, that's what that community centre tries to do but equally there's some really- there was and still is, some really good youth workers in that youth centre as well that do challenge these young man's behaviours.

And so, as I talked about in the book, again I’m gonna probably keep saying that all the way through. Sorry, but yeah, some of the young men do use homophobic language but the youth work has challenged that kind of, those kind of views as well. So. Yeah, just I guess that youth centre is just trying to offer those young men a place where they can feel comfortable and where they can engage in activities and try and enhance their life chances, I guess, without, trying not to use an academic term, but yeah, make their lives better then I suppose, create an environment that kind of challenges some of those negative behaviours but equally offers a space to grow and be. 

Jeremy

Yeah. And I guess growth and how people progress is one of the key themes in your book, isn't it? So, you're talking about people's employment prospects in a lot of the book and one of the people that you use, an academic who's written in the past is somebody called Paul Willis, and you use his work to sort of show the differences between kind of then and now, can you just say a little bit about who he is and what his work was about?

Richard

Yeah. So, well, this is kind of the foundational text, I suppose on the research topic or one of the foundational texts I suppose, on the topic that I'm looking at. So he did a study in the 1970s, looking at a group of, working class young men. And he often gets associated with this group of marginalised young men but he terms them lads with an S, which is why I use the Z to create that distinction.

But he also looks at this year old, what he calls year olds as well, that are working class young men that have got kind of aspirations, middle class aspirations as he talks about. But the prominent group is the lads in the book and they kind of, as I, you know, as I've talked about, they reject educational ads. 

They want to do manual work and that partly comes from the influence of their fathers, the community and these, you know, they inherit these ideas that this is what a real man looks like, that a real man doesn't do. what, what they term as ‘pen pushing’ so they don't do paperwork, they don't engage in paper, they go out and they work in certain masculine manual forms of work, so they don't see education as beneficial to their future, and they reject that idea of meritocracy.

So the idea if you work hard in education, then you will get a good job. They don't buy into that. Like they see it as kind of a myth. So yeah, they don't buy into that. And I guess Willis kind of says it kind of, they kind of create their own downfall in some ways.

So yeah, I guess that's kind of the idea. And I guess the idea of why I use that book then is because that's become the foundational text and it's the one that everyone goes to. So I wanted to create this kind of baseline. So if that's how everyone understands how these young group of men were, so, what did that similar group of young men look like now? Hopefully that makes sense to the listener. So yeah, that's kind of the reason why I've used that text. 

Jeremy

So when you were doing your own research, what were the differences that you saw in the lads you were observing? 

Richard

So I guess it’s three major parts of the book. The sort of, but firstly, let's go to the education part. So this group of young men would, we associate them with a, almost a total rejection of education. 

There's some nuances in different parts of research, but we would associate them with a rejection of education. But these young men, they didn't totally reject education. They adopted what I referred to as a pragmatic approach to education. So they select, what I could talk about, they selectively engage in subjects that they think are relevant to their future, whilst rejecting others.

So, a particularly good example in the book is one that talks about, RE or history, one of them too. And he says, oh, why do I need that knowledge? It's not relevant to me in everyday life. But he said, maths is relevant to me. So if I go down the shop and I give someone a 10 pound note, I need to know how much change they're going to give me.

And he said that education part is relevant to me in life, but it's also relevant to me being a plumber, whereas I don't need RE to be a plumber. So yeah, they selectively engage in education. And then so what we're seeing is the continuity and change here I guess so they partially reject education and they equally engage in it.

In terms of employment, some of the young men did have aspirations to manual work, which was the result of family influences, that are linked to masculinity. But equally, there's what I talk about as a being, a rupturing process or certain life influences have changed some of the men's attitudes to what is real forms of employment for men. 

One wants to be a paramedic, one wanted to be a cook. And, one wanted to be, working in media or something like that, it was specific influences. And I guess the last part is the masculinities aspect where, as I said, something partially engaged in these kind of negative or toxic forms of masculinity or what I would term hyper-masculinity but equally engaged in softer expression.

So they hugged each other and they talked about mental health problems, just all things that we don't associate with this group, that I didn't do and equally are not reflected in the literature on these young men. So I talk about this amalgamation or amalgamated form of masculinity with these two forms of masculinity fused together to create this amalgamation of masculinity.

Jeremy

Yeah. And I think when I was reading it, I had my social work head on to some degree. And I was thinking, well, what kind of messages would this give to people who are working in the social care sector, or how might they learn from this? And I guess there's two things that came up in my mind. 

So one of them was, about the kind of going into different forms of work. So, the social care sector often has difficulty recruiting men, doesn't it? And, some of the young men that you were speaking to were talking about, their feelings towards going into sort of care work or, or similar types of work. So what kind of issues came up there and, and how might it, inform people's recruitment practices who are working in the social care office, for example?  

Richard

What was interesting for me is the influences on these young men, you know, so they talk about family influences, they talk about, you know, these ideas of manhood but there was equally, you know, these different aspects that kind of changed their ideas of what manhood would be.

And I guess my call to arms at the end of the book, if that's the right word, is that these young men are changing. They're changing their ideas, changing their ideas of employment, education and masculinities. And they’re thinking about what we can do to foster those changes. And I guess from a recruitment angle, I guess what I'm trying to say is how can we look to foster these changes?

We need to delve into more about how these changes are coming about and look at how we can foster them because as I talk about in the book, when we look at the future of work, we see potential demise of certain forms of manual work, and we see an increase in those care jobs that you've talked about. 

And I think hopefully, that my findings show that there’s potential for these young men to go into these forms of jobs. But, yeah, we need to have some targeted intervention that kind of helps these young men and shows them that there's different options available to them. 

Jeremy

And, reading the findings of the book, it doesn't seem that all of the young men you spoke to wrote off care workers, something that wasn't something that men should do or was feminine.

So is there a way of making that kind of work appealing to people do you think? 

Richard

Yeah, a couple of, a few of the young men in parts of it are positive about care work, you know, I think they talk about, working- I showed them a picture of a nurse. That's correct. I showed them a picture of a nurse, and they they're quite positive about that film work.

Equally, again, the theme is still there throughout it, so they identified negative aspects. So one of them talks about how he doesn't want to, work with drunk people, but then they also talk about how they'd like to save people's lives, which is interesting in itself, because they’re showing those ideas of compassion that we wouldn't necessarily associate with these young men.

So, yeah, that comes through. And I guess if I return to the ideas of why they want to manual work, the young men talked about how they had partial ideas about doing manual work, and then how the school or college would just take them to these, so carpentry and show them carpentry and show them bricklaying.

So they were kind of reinforcing some of these ideas that these young men already had without trying to widen the scope. 

Jeremy

Yeah. 

Richard

So, yeah, I guess I think there's potential to like, as I said, to change these young man's ideas of manhood and their ideas of employment. But there needs to be what the rupturing process- 

I don’t want to keep using my ideas, but that, rupturing process for me is pivotal to how we do that, to them and expand these young man's ideas. So I talked about showing them different, you know, men that they could identify with, but equally do different forms of employment. So, men they could identify with somewhat, but don't do manual forms of work.

So they could, you know, so they could see themselves in that person and equally think, well, actually that person is similar to me yet he doesn't do manual work. Maybe there's an option there for me. Hopefully that makes [sense]. 

Jeremy

So, rupturing process. When you use that term, are you thinking that you try to get maybe challenged traditional ideas and find-

Richard

Yeah.  

Jeremy

And encourage people to look at new ways of looking at things? 

Richard

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So yeah that's what rupturing that process is you know, it’s how they talk about it but it is, it’s about changing what is the traditional ideas of manhood. So many of the young men talk about female influences or how the young man who wants do cooking, his nan was part of the reason why he wanted to cooking so I integrated that as part of the rupturing process that these pivotal people change their ideas of employment and what and how a traditional man in this area should look and, the jobs they should do. 

Jeremy

Another question that kind of related to social care or social work was around the way in which people talked about mental health or learning disabilities.

So a striking thing about your book was quite a high proportion of the the blokes that you talked to were saying that they felt that they had a mental health problem or a learning disability. So I was quite struck by that because I think as you observe, there seems to be an increase in the amount of people who would kind of give themselves that diagnosis.

So what did you observe there and what changes do you think are taking place there? 

Richard

Yeah, maybe I could give the listener a glimpse as well, because that was another part of this really reflective part for me. So the young men talked about mental health, and I'll get onto that now, but that was, again, one of the most striking things, because when I grew up in the same area as these young men, mental health was a dirty word. 

It wasn't something that people talked about and it wasn't something that men talked about. And I think that was a reflection of society as well. The young men didn't talk about this, men were supposed to be strong, tough. And it was those traditional ideas of masculinity, those young man did talk about mental health. They were comfortable about having mental health, concerns.

And they said it was a difficult time for me to explore those ideas because I’ve often- other listeners might be the same. I feel quite, I still feel uncomfortable talking about those things, but is a product of my upbringing rather than my, that I'm not concerned about it. Quite the opposite, in fact. So yeah, but they were very, very concerned about it and open talking about it thankfully.

But, as you said, learning disabilities, yeah. But that was another interesting thing. I suppose, they adopted- back to that pragmatism - they kind of self-diagnose, some of them did, that they had learning disabilities or they did have learning disabilities, some of them. But they adopted what I call this pragmatic approach to a learning disability. So they decided that because they had these learning disabilities that they weren't very good at certain subjects. 

So, one of them had dyslexia. And he said, well, that means that I'm not very good at reading so I won't bother reading because I'm naturally not going to be good at it, but because I've got dyslexia, I'm going to be good at art. So yeah, I don't know, there was, that was another difficult topic for me to look into because, I'm severely dyslexic myself, so I know those difficulties, but equally, because I wasn't diagnosed till I was, older in life, I think, though, that didn't affect me. I didn't adopt that pragmatic approach that they did, which, so I don't know, there's some difficulties here, I think. 

Jeremy

Yeah. So there's a couple of things that come out of that, I guess. So, in relation to maybe help seeking, I suppose, there's some positive messages in that, it sounds like the young men are more willing to talk about things like mental health issues and to seek help, potentially from, people like youth workers or social care workers or social workers. But then there's also the danger from what you're talking about, in the sense that, sometimes it can be used as a kind of almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy to sort of, steer themselves away from particular types of, employment or opportunities.

So what would the answer to that be do you think, in terms of, if you're doing youth work, are there ways to maybe get people to think, in a more rounded way or in a way that doesn't limit them, around, say, learning disabilities, for example? 

Richard

Yeah, again I talk about it in the book and I, again I got quite worried about writing the book ‘cause I wasn't sure some ideas would fit with some people.

But I talked about how we need to think about more about these young men and talk about the way that these behaviour, you know, these certain learning disabilities may, they might be benefits. And again, I use that loosely. So, what- how could we kind of channel those, some of the associated behaviours that come from these, you know, ADHD, or- and we could use them in a positive way.

Maybe that doesn't come across quite right. But, yeah, using them to kind of help these young men rather than using them in a negative fashion and as I just said, it was quite difficult for me because I didn't want to disregard the difficulties myself because I experienced them myself. But I also, as you said, it lowers their life chances and their aspirations in some way.

So you know. Yeah, again, I would like to see us kind of- there be more, trying to explore more about what the kind of benefits are, as I said, I use that loosely, whilst recognising that there's also difficulties I suppose. 

Jeremy

Yeah. Great. Well, thank you ever so much for taking the time to talk to us. Can I just ask before we finish, where could people get your book if they're interested?

Richard

So the book is, in all good bookstores, actually. But, I guess the main distributor is Emerald Publications. It's open access as well. So if you want to read it electronically, it's free. Yeah, but it's on other, publishers and websites as well. So. Yeah. 

Jeremy

Yeah. So if you want to just have a look at it and you're curious, you can download it for free and then have a look at it that way.

But if you're one of the old fashioned people like me who prefers to have a book in your hand, then you can still get it from bookshops as well. 

Richard

Yeah. 

Jeremy

Brilliant, well, thanks, Rich, for coming in. And, yeah, great to hear from you. 

Richard

Thank you. Thanks for your time. 

ExChange Wales

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Exchange Wales Podcast.

At Exchange Wales, we connect researchers, practitioners and people with lived experience to share evidence, practice and insights that shape social care. Our work spans children's and adult social care, and we're also exploring the growing role of artificial intelligence in the sector. If you'd like to learn more or get involved, please visit exchangewales.org