Notice at the stair foot
Lending to neighbours: credit unions and Romania's mutual aid houses
Credit unions in Scotland and mutual aid houses in Romania lend their members’ pooled savings at rates capped by law or set by the members themselves. Outside them, Romanian borrowers meet fast credit lines such as Avinto, where a limit that refills after every repayment looks like money in the bank and is nothing of the kind.
Floor by floor
Community enterprise
7 pieces, 2010–2026
Public services and policy
4 pieces, 2012–2020
Culture and books
2 pieces, 2011–2017
The worn steps
The pieces most readers start from.
- True story of man behind The CorriesCulture and books,
- Shops axed...so we're locals' lifelineCommunity enterprise,
- The Code of Social Enterprise in ScotlandCommunity enterprise,
- The case for cuts: why the austerity argument held onPublic services and policy,
- Community food enterprisesCommunity enterprise,
About Closemouth
Closemouth is about the businesses that people in Scotland run for the good of the place they live in. That covers the village shop taken on by its customers after the owner retired, the café that trains young people behind its counter, the co-operative whose customers are also its owners, and the trust that holds a building or a patch of land for a whole town. Each piece explains how one of these works, what keeps it going and where it tends to struggle, as matters stood on the date printed at its head.
Community enterprise has the practical pieces: community shops, food projects, the voluntary code that set out what a social enterprise is, raising capital through community shares and bonds, and lending among neighbours. Public services and policy follows the decisions made in councils and parliaments that shape this work, from funding for free advice services to the long argument over austerity. Culture and books is the shortest shelf, with a portrait of one half of The Corries and a review of a book on poverty by an author who grew up in it.
The earliest piece is from 2010, and the archive lists every one of them by date.