The death of Neave Brown, the architect of such good public housing, reminds me that I have occasionally meant to write something about my late lamented godfather, William Barnes, who was Director of Housing for Camden when construction began on the Alexandra Road estate.   I thought I remembered going to lunch with him in the summer of 1972 and him showing me the Alexandra Road estate with the utmost pride, but the dates don’t work.   I had also understood that he ended up being rather unpopular with the Council (too patrician, too high minded), but the attached blog suggests this was not so and that he resigned because the policies of the incoming Thatcher government made his work impossible.   See  https://redbrickblog.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/when-housing-policy-was-truly-ambitious-in-memory-of-william-barnes/.    He was also responsible for establishing the London Business School.