Meet Geoff Payne, octogenarian glider pilot extraordinaire and an urban planner who has mapped out cities all over the world, including secret escape networks in Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad.
12.00 noon UK Time
Goldster Book Club
As a glider pilot and instructor, Geoff has found himself having to land in precarious places, interrupting Champagne lunch parties one flight and quietly grazing sheep in a remote field the next. As an urban planner, Geoff remains in high demand from institutions such as the World Bank grappling with challenges of designing decent housing and social environment from Ethiopia to Cambodia and beyond. To celebrate his ninth decade, Geoff has written Somewhere to Live about the universal dream we all have to live somewhere safe which we can afford and where we can raise our children and see them grow up and raise our grandchildren, too. How much it costs; how much it reflects unfairness in our society; how safe is the neighbourhood, how good are the schools are questions that rarely leave our headlines. And this is share experience all over the world. With his inside eye, Geoff has seen how a small elite excludes the vast majority from being able to meet their basic housing needs. That, in turn, leads to migration problems of people seeking a better life. But is he right? And how come his glider landed in so many strange places? Come fly with Geoff Payne talking to Humphrey on this funny, captivating and important Goldster Inside story at 12.00 Thursday February 10th 2022.