RESOURCES: Classic text revisited... Knuckle Sandwich David Robinsand Philip Cohen, 1978

The authors, while distancing themselves from the youth work tag, engaged with young people to set up and run a project that primarily organised discos (requested by young people). However, the strength of this book remains in the vivid and lively descriptions of people and slices of life in and around the youth project. Fighting, love, relationships, police violence and racism are dealt with through quotes from young people and commentaries of events, blended with theory and analysis, that put programmes such as EastEnders and many youth work texts in the shade.

Despite the title and the many pages given over to violence, this book is more than that. While the modern reader would have to replace "disenchanted" youth with disaffected or disengaged, this book still has much to say to youth workers. Having said that, read as a youth work text, it has major inadequacies. Part three, which is more rhetorical in flavour, is more than a bit naive, but its enthusiasm for social and political education may well inspire those involved in youth forums and citizenship education. The authors reflect a commitment to harnessing young people's energy to a social and political flagpole, which is unfortunately much rarer now.

I would encourage workers to seek out books such as Knuckle Sandwich. It is still able to provide an excitement, insight and dynamism, which was much more common then, that young people still deserve to get from youth workers.