Drawing a Line | Mike Linnell | 20 Years of Harm Reduction
James Kay
Mike on James
James (called Les in the days I knew him) Kay was responsible for putting an Ad in the creative and media section of the Guardian, that led to me being employed by Lifeline in the old North West Regional Training Unit (NWRDTU, we liked long acronyms in those days). James left Lifeline and set up Healthwise (he's now the Chairman).
I remember interviewing Mike for his job at Lifeline. We had gone
through all the usual interview stuff and at the end I asked Mike how
he would "characterise his approach to art". Looking long and hard at
me he eventually said "... well ... I'm a sort of angry, young abstract
expressionist". Then he grinned and I realised that he was taking the
piss. This was more than a little risky in a job interview with someone
he had never met before - even if I had just asked a pompous and silly
question.
Later Mike came up with the idea of a comic - 'Smack in the Eye'. I didn't like it at all and at first argued against it but Mike pushed hard and we took it too our management committee. During the heated debate that followed an Assistant Chief Probation Officer made a critical intervention. He described the comic as "outrageous" and told the management committee that he had already written to all the probation offices in Greater Manchester instructing them to have nothing to do with "this scurrilous publication". Mike's response was to ask the committee if he could modify the front cover to include the new tag line "Banned by Greater Manchester Probation Service". This, he was sure would make it much more attractive to the target group of drug injectors.
I can't remember whether or not we did include that tag line but
it was a turning point in the debate and in my understanding of Mike's
work. Of course material that would make drug injectors laugh out
loud would probably offend lots of others. But they weren't the target
audience. We had to be prepared to tough out the flak if we wanted to
do this type of work. In all the time that I have known him Mike has
continued to make some people laugh out loud and others wince. And in
the resulting debates, a lot has been learned that was important. Long
may he continue.