Colin WardColin Ward, who died in February aged 85, published the first article I ever wrote – a criticism of detention centres – in his monthly journal Anarchy. He had been a part of an influential anarchist group that started in 1947, and edited its first weekly, Freedom, and then Anarchy, until that closed in 1970.

The late 1960s were heady years for the libertarian left. A new generation of radicals had gone through a rapid education that skipped both orthodox Marxism and traditional anarchism, plunging straight into the dialectics of liberation, Fanonism, International Situationism and more. Under this influence a group of us – in criminology, of all places – had begun to question the assumptions and boundaries of our academic discipline. Some of us looked for links to the anarchist tradition and, briefly, flirted with the late 19th-century idea of the criminal as crypto-revolutionary hero.

What attracted us to anarchism? There were three obvious affinities: first, the distrust of all authority,; second, the undermining of professional power (Illich-style de-schooling, anti-psychiatry); finally, most obviously, the critique of the state, especially its power to criminalise and punish.

These standard anarchist concerns always informed Colin’s agenda, whatever unlikely directions he took. He had little time for “apocalyptic” or “insurrectionary” anarchism. His approach was pragmatic, gradualist, even reformist: small victories on limited terrains. His anarchism was not a glorification of chaos and disorder but an encouragement of a special form of order: non-repressive, non-hierarchical, allowing for individuality and creativity – “encouragement” because these social spaces don’t have to be built from scratch. “Like a seed beneath the snow” – buried under the weight of capitalism, nationalism, religious differences – the principles of anarchy are already there: in tenants’ organisations, squats, self-help groups, claimants’ unions, communes, allotment gardens, free schools and adventure playgrounds. Colin was not a totaliser – no blueprints, utopias or grand theory. He would, however, even when discussing the most pragmatic project, always invoke classic anarchist thought. In Anarchism in Action (1973), one on his 27 books, you will find Kropotkin, Proudhon, Godwin and Bakunin wandering around the allotments and adventure playgrounds.

He first worked as an architect and then from 1971 as Education Officer for the Town and County Planning Association. Along with education, the subjects that interested him most were architecture, housing and town planning. His best known book The Child in the City (1978) is an elegy to the lost childhood joys of playing in and exploring the city streets. Sometime in 1973 he organised a lecture for the Architectural Association by the American architect Oscar Newman on his recently published book Defensible Spaces: Crime Prevention Through Urban Design. “Defensible Space” was space for maximum surveillance: people – strangers – can be noted, observed and reported on. Residents in low-income public housing projects do not have such spaces; this makes them vulnerable to crime, victimisation and insecurity. The problem is even worse in high-rise or tower-block estates.

There were three groups at Newman’s lecture: architects, criminal justice professionals and a motley gang of new deviancy theorists. Colin was in the chair. Newman lectured for half an hour then got a slide and video show ready. He had explained how many high-rise buildings had already been demolished. His first example was the infamous Pruitt-Igoe project in St Louis, demolished by the Federal authorities in March 1972. As the images of the first of the 33 blown-up towers appeared on the screen, the building literally crumbling into itself, our entire group stood up laughing and cheering. With the poetic licence of memory, I can hear voices of “right on”, even “power to the people”. Newman looked bewildered; he’d clearly not seen this sort of reaction before.

I have an enduring memory of Colin, hardly able to suppress his own smile, leaning across the table earnestly trying to explain things to the lecturer. The obverse of the anarchist as cloak-and-dagger bomb thrower, Colin will be long remembered for his humour, hopefulness and patience.