Safe Jobs in an AI and Robotics World

This is way too late for me, but a recent conversation got me thinking about safe jobs in an AI world ... I'm talking short to medium term here!

Not safe forever. I’m not sure anything gets that badge anymore. But jobs that AI and robotics will struggle to take over easily.

Like I said, this is far too late for me. I’ve already made my questionable career choices. But it might be a useful little list for my grandson one day, assuming he doesn’t end up doing something wildly impressive that I don’t understand.

But some jobs are harder to replace than others. The safest ones seem to be the ones that need human judgement, awkward hand skills, trust, empathy, or the ability to walk into a messy real-world situation and figure it out.

In a world where you can now buy chips from a vending machine, is any job truly safe? 

Electrician

This feels like a strong one. Every building is different, every fault has its own little personality, and the work often happens in tight, awkward spaces where a neat little robot arm would probably give up and ask for a career change.

AI can help with diagnosis, planning, and testing, but someone still needs to turn up, understand the problem, and do the job safely.

Plumber

Leaks rarely happen in convenient places. Pipes are hidden, floors are awkward, old houses have their own ideas, and customers tend to be quite keen on not having water coming through the ceiling.

That mix of physical skill, problem solving, and mild panic feels hard to automate.

Carpenter or joiner

Machines can cut, measure, and repeat. They are brilliant at that. But working with real wood, real houses, and real wonky walls still needs a human touch.

Good joinery is part skill, part patience, and part knowing how to make something look right when the building itself is slightly arguing with you.

Care worker or nurse

AI can help with admin, monitoring, and records. It can support care, but it can’t properly be care.

People need reassurance, kindness, judgement, and another person who can read the room. You can’t automate a steady voice at the right moment.

Emergency services

Police officers, firefighters, and paramedics deal with unpredictable situations where decisions matter quickly.

Technology will help them. It already does. But real emergencies are messy, emotional, physical, and full of human judgement.

Electric vehicle technician

This one feels like a good modern trade. Cars are becoming computers on wheels, but they are still physical things that break, wear out, and need skilled people to fix them.

Someone who understands electrical systems, diagnostics, software, and hands-on repair should have plenty to do.

Robotics engineer

If the robots are coming, someone has to build them, repair them, improve them, and stop them doing daft things.

This is probably one of the clearer “work with the change rather than against it” options.

AI trainer

AI does not magically know everything. It needs training, checking, correcting, testing, and improving.

The people who understand how these systems behave, where they fail, and how to make them more useful should be in a strong position.

Builder, roofer, plasterer, or other skilled trades

Construction sites are not clean little factory floors. They are full of weather, noise, dust, awkward access, missing materials, late changes, and people asking whether it can be done by Friday.

Robots will help with parts of construction, but replacing a skilled tradesperson on a real site feels like a much harder job.

Teacher

AI can explain things. It can mark work. It can create lesson plans. But teaching is not only the transfer of information.

Good teachers spot when a child is struggling, manage behaviour, build confidence, and know when to push and when to pause. That is deeply human work.

Creative work with real taste

I say this as someone who works in marketing and copy. Basic content is already under pressure. Generic words are cheap now, and they are getting cheaper.

But original thinking, taste, humour, timing, instinct, and knowing what will land with real people still matter. The safer creative work will be the work that feels harder to copy.

So what makes a job safer?

The safest jobs are not really AI-proof. That sounds too neat. They are jobs that are harder to automate because they involve real people, real places, real human judgement, and real consequences.

If a job happens entirely on a screen, follows a repeatable process, and does not need much human trust, it is probably more exposed.

If a job needs skilled hands, emotional intelligence, responsibility, or the ability to adapt when things go wrong, it stands a better chance.

So if I was starting again, I don’t think I’d chase what looks easy. I’d chase what is hard to copy.

Letting Them In (Mild Horror)

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I thought I was just tired.

That was the strange thing about it. I didn’t feel dangerously exhausted. I wasn’t falling asleep at my desk or drifting off in meetings. I just felt slightly out of step with myself, like my brain was lagging behind everything else by a fraction of a second.

We’d just come back from holiday and the shift back into normal life had completely wrecked my sleep pattern. One week I was wandering around Spain in the sunshine with no alarms and nowhere urgent to be, then suddenly it was back to work, deadlines, emails, and lying awake at three in the morning staring at the ceiling for no obvious reason.

The night before had felt fairly normal. Not great sleep, but enough to get through the next day. At least that’s what I thought until I checked my sleep app the following morning.

SLEEP: 2hrs:11mins

Deep: 33%

Light: 24%

REM: 8%

Awake: 35%

I remember staring at the screen for a while because the numbers didn’t even seem possible. I’d spent longer than that lying in bed. Somehow my brain had barely switched off at all, although I thought I was asleep. Initially confused, I then blamed my sleep app for just being wrong, but ... I was very tired.

The effects of my tiredness started showing almost immediately at work. Nothing dramatic, just little mistakes that kept irritating me because they weren’t the sort of mistakes I usually make. Typos in emails. Wrong filenames. At one point I wrote down a project delivery date that had already passed. Tiny things, but enough to notice. Enough that I started feeling uneasy about how disconnected my thoughts felt.

Physically, I felt OK, but couldn’t stop the urge to yawn all the time and my eyes were feeling gritty in that way they do late at night.

Around eleven that morning I went and got a couple of minutes of fresh air, then to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea.

Our large workplace kitchen sits off a long corridor to the office, and the lights outside are motion activated. They always take a second or two too long to register you and burst into life, so when you open the kitchen door the corridor sits in this awkward half-darkness for a moment.

I pushed the door open and something black and low to the ground moved quickly past my feet.

This wasn't a case that I thought I saw something, I mean I physically reacted to it. I bent my legs instinctively to avoid it bumping into me. The reaction was immediate, completely automatic, like somebody avoiding a dog running across their path.

Then the corridor lights flicked on, I looked around, but nothing was there.

No shadow disappearing around the corner. No bag on the floor. No movement at all. Just an empty corridor and the gentle hum of fluorescent lighting.

I stood there for a few seconds, the door had shut behind me and the tea was still sloshing around in my mug, trying to process what had just happened. The unsettling part wasn’t what I’d seen. It was how convincingly real it had felt. My body had reacted before my brain had time to question it.

I shook it off as a trick of the light, got back to my desk and carried on with my day, although I kept replaying the moment in my head. Every now and then I’d catch myself glancing down corridors slightly too quickly, or looking twice into empty rooms without really meaning to, but probably subconsciously looking for something.

That evening as my wife and I settled in to watch some TV, I picked up my phone and started reading about sleep deprivation.

That was probably a mistake.

Once you start reading deeply enough into severe sleep loss, you realise how fragile the brain actually is. People who miss enough REM sleep begin experiencing something called REM intrusion, where fragments of dreaming begin bleeding into waking consciousness. Hallucinations, movement in peripheral vision, shadow figures, distorted faces. The brain, desperate to complete the dreaming cycle it’s been denied, starts forcing parts of it into reality.

At least that’s the official explanation.

The thing that bothered me was how similar all the accounts sounded.

People described the same shapes. The same movement. The same feeling that whatever they’d seen wasn’t random. Some of them even described the exact same instinctive reaction I’d had, where their body responded before their conscious mind did. I found a couple of online forums, and Reddit provided some fascinating discussions around sleep, hallucinations, and narcolepsy.

Much of my research made me a little uneasy, not fearful, mainly because what I felt seemed strangely familiar.

That night I barely slept at all. Partly because my sleep pattern was already ruined, but mostly because every time I started drifting off I kept thinking about that thing in the corridor. My rational brain knew there had been nothing there, but another part of me seemed less convinced.

At around half past two in the morning I got up to get a glass of water. As I walked back upstairs I glanced absent-mindedly into the spare bedroom and saw someone standing beside the window.

I stopped instantly. There were only two of us in the house, and that wasn't my wife standing there.

The figure didn’t move. It was tall, unnaturally still, one arm hanging slightly lower than the other. For a moment I genuinely believed somebody had broken into the house.

Then I switched the landing light on and the room was empty. I went around the house and checked all the doors and windows, but I didn’t sleep properly after that.

The next few days became increasingly difficult to explain away. I started noticing movement where there shouldn’t be movement. A dark figure at the far end of a supermarket aisle that disappeared when I reached it. Someone sitting motionless in a parked car outside work who vanished the second time I looked. Once, while driving home late in the evening, I became convinced somebody was sitting silently in the back seat behind me.

That one frightened me enough that I had to pull over, get out of the car, and check the back seat and boot.

The strange thing is that these 'visions' never move once you properly focus on them. You only ever catch the movement beforehand, that brief glimpse of approach at the edge of your vision. Once you actually look at them directly, they’re completely still.

Watching. Waiting.

By then I was sleeping with the television on because silence had started making me uncomfortable. Every creak of the house sounded deliberate. Every dark reflection in the windows made me pause slightly longer than it should have.

Everywhere else I was becoming more wary of opening doors and walking into rooms, mildly worried about what I might see.

The exhaustion was building. The less sleep I got, the more often I saw them. Then seeing them made sleeping even harder. It became a loop that fed itself night after night.

I tried all the sensible explanations first.

Stress. Fatigue. Anxiety. Too much caffeine. Too much alcohol. Eating late at night. Poor sleep hygiene.

I went to the doctor. I cut down caffeine and alcohol completely, and I stopped eating after 8pm. I tried meditation apps, sleeping tablets, breathing exercises, all the normal advice people give you when your brain starts betraying you a little ... but none of it helped.

Three nights ago I woke at around four in the morning and saw one standing beside the bed, not near it, beside it.

Tall. Thin. Completely motionless. Its face looked almost human in the same way mannequins look almost human. Close enough at first glance, but wrong in tiny ways once you looked properly. The eyes were too still. The expression slightly delayed, like it was copying what a human face should look like rather than understanding it naturally.

I couldn’t move at first. Not because I was particularly scared, but because some buried instinct was telling me not to fully acknowledge what I was looking at.

The thing leaned closer until its face was inches from mine, and then it whispered something.

Not words exactly. More like a thought pressed directly into my head.

You’re letting us in. You’re letting us in. You’re letting us in. It kept repeating.

I don’t remember falling asleep afterward, but I woke properly just after sunrise with the bedroom empty and my heart hammering hard enough to hurt.

I called in sick to work that morning. I was too exhausted and my mental state just wasn't in the right place.

I was sat on the sofa all morning, casually aware that life was happening around me, but also deeply aware that something just wasn't right. These events just didn't feel like hallucinations, they felt very real. I continued my research, trying to understand what was happening. My thoughts wouldn’t settle. Even sitting still, I felt wired and exhausted at the same time.

Around lunchtime my wife casually asked why I’d been standing in the garden during the night.

I shot her a puzzled look and told her I hadn’t.

She looked immediately uncomfortable, like she regretted mentioning it at all, then quietly said she’d seen me through the bedroom window sometime around three in the morning.

Apparently I’d been standing completely still at the bottom of the garden facing the house. I was just staring up at the bedroom window.

Last night I finally understood what they are.

People think sleep deprivation causes hallucinations because the brain is failing. I don’t think that’s true anymore.

I think exhaustion weakens something. Some barrier between us and whatever these things are. That’s why they stay hidden in microsleeps and fragments of REM sleep, appearing only in glimpses and peripheral movement at first. They need you exhausted before you can properly perceive them.

And once you do, they start getting closer, much closer.

They don’t kill people. At least not physically. What they want is quieter than that. They replace you slowly, and carefully.

By the time it happens properly, nobody notices at first. You still remember names, routines, conversations. The thing now wearing you uses your memories like instructions from a manual.

Only the people closest to you sense something wrong. A slight delay before you smile. An odd flatness behind your eyes. Moments where you become strangely still and distant without realising it.

Tonight I’m trying not to sleep. But every time I blink I catch movement near the bedroom door. Something standing there patiently in the dark.

Waiting.

And deep down, somewhere beneath the exhaustion, I think I already know the worst part.

I don’t think they’ve been trying to get into the house.

I think they’ve been trying to get into me.

Biscuit Moon (Kids)

Once the rain had stopped, little drops of water still clung to the windows outside Freddie’s bedroom.

“Freddie!” Mum called from downstairs. “Are you ready yet? Nana and Grandy will be here soon!”

“I can’t find it!” Freddie shouted back.

“Can’t find what?” asked his mum, but Freddie didn’t respond. His head was tucked under the bed.

After looking under his bed for the third time, Freddie looked in one of his many toy boxes, then under his chair. But his bright red racing car was nowhere to be seen, and this wasn’t just any car. This was his favourite one.

There was a knock on the door.

"Freddie" his dad called, "Nana and Grandy are here."

Freddie sighed. A moment later he heard Grandy’s cheerful voice.

“Where’s our little man?” he shouted upstairs.

Freddie slowly walked downstairs. “What’s wrong?” Nana asked gently.

“I can’t find my car,” Freddie mumbled. “I wanted to show you it.”

“The bright red one?” said Grandy.

Freddie nodded sadly.

“Well,” Nana smiled, “the rain’s stopped now, and it’s turned into a lovely bright day.”

“And,” she added cheerfully, “I happen to know the park has some excellent puddles today.”

That made Freddie smile a little.

So off they went.

The park smelled fresh after the rain. Tiny puddles glittered along the winding paths, and the wet grass sparkled in the sunshine.

Whilst Nana and Grandy walked side by side, Freddie raced ahead in his little green wellies. He held his hands out like he was holding a steering wheel, and as he raced along, he made a quiet “brum, brum, brum” noise.

SPLASH.

He jumped in a little puddle.

SPLASH.

He jumped in an even bigger one that sent water flying everywhere.

Nana laughed. “I think that puddle nearly got Grandy!”

“Nearly?” said Grandy. “I think it soaked my socks!”

Freddie giggled and ran off again.

They watched ducks swimming across the pond. They counted dogs. They spotted a squirrel playing in some nearby trees.

By the time Freddie finally sat beside Nana and Grandy on a wooden bench, his cheeks were warm and pink from all the running.

As Freddie sat between them, Grandy gave Nana a knowing smile.

“What?” Freddie asked.

Grandy looked down at Freddie as Nana put an arm around her little grandson.

“Shall we tell Freddie about the Biscuit Moon?” he said quietly.

Nana’s eyes widened slightly.

“Oh…” she said quietly. “Yes. I think he’s old enough now.”

Freddie sat up straight and looked at them both.

“The Biscuit Moon?” he asked.

Nana reached into her bag, pulled out a small packet of biscuits, and handed them around. “Oh yes,” she smiled. “The Biscuit Moon.”

“Before you eat one,” Grandy whispered, “you have to snap it in half.”

“All at the same time,” Nana added. “Quite right, Nana,” Grandy replied. “I almost forgot that.”

Freddie held his biscuit carefully in both hands and watched Nana and Grandy raise theirs.

“One, two, three,” Nana said.

On three, they all broke their biscuits into two pieces.

“Good,” Nana smiled as she took a bite from hers.

“But what is the Biscuit Moon?” Freddie asked as he took a bite from one of his halves.

Grandy looked up at the pale daytime moon hanging above the clouds.

“Well,” he said quietly, “most people think the moon only comes out at night to shine.”

“But really,” Nana added, “the Biscuit Moon listens.”

Freddie looked up at the sky. “Listens to what?” he asked.

“Just listens,” Nana replied. “But it always seems to leave a little bit of happiness behind.”

“Nobody really knows how it works,” Grandy smiled. “It just does.”. “Not huge things,” continued Grandy. “Just little bits of happiness.”

“Like what?” Freddie asked.

Nana thought for a moment.

“Feeling better after being poorly,” she said, “or finding an extra sweet in your pocket when you think you’ve finished them.”

“Seeing someone you really hoped to see,” added Grandy.

“Or spotting a rainbow when you least expect it,” continued Nana. “Just something special and magical.”

Freddie looked down at the last half of the biscuit still in his hands.

“The Biscuit Moon seems to like shared biscuits best,” Nana explained softly.

So the three of them sat together on the park bench and finished eating their biscuits while the breeze rustled the trees around them.

And high above them, faint and pale in the bright afternoon sky, the moon quietly listened.

Freddie smiled to himself. It was probably just one of those funny little stories grandparents liked to tell.

Still, as he walked home between Nana and Grandy, holding both their hands, he secretly hoped the Biscuit Moon might really be listening after all.

The next morning, Freddie woke early.

The sunlight shone a beam of light across his room and over his blanket.

He rubbed his eyes, yawned, and was about to drop off to sleep again, when he spotted something, and then suddenly froze.

There, sitting neatly beside his pillow, was his bright red racing car.

Freddie grabbed it quickly. “The car!” he shouted, racing downstairs.

Mum looked up from the kitchen.

“You found it then?” she smiled.

“Did you put it there?” Freddie asked.

Mum shook her head.

“No, Freddie. But I’m pleased you found it again.”

Freddie looked down at his favourite toy.

Then he remembered the park. The biscuits. The story. The pale moon in the daytime sky.

A tiny smile spread across his face.

Very quietly, so only he could hear, Freddie whispered:

“Thank you, Grandy and Nana. And thank you, Biscuit Moon.”

I Thought Facts Would Matter More

I noticed something during my brief spell as a paper candidate for the Liberal Democrats recently, and that is that people don't just hold opinions anymore ... they hold beliefs. Deep ones.

And once those beliefs settle in, facts barely seem to matter, in fact I don't think they do matter.

During the May 2026 local elections I spoke to several people who wanted to vote for Reform UK because they wanted someone who would “stop the boats”. The strange part was that even when you pointed out that local councillors have absolutely no control over immigration policy or border enforcement, it often made no difference at all.

The belief had already locked into place and cannot (always) be rocked.

I saw the same thing online. A Facebook friend confidently posted that “there’s only one party not funded in any way by Israel, and that’s the Greens.”

The problem is that this is simply untrue.

As I pointed out, under UK law, political parties cannot accept funding from foreign governments or foreign states anyway. It’s illegal under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

When I asked for evidence that the Liberal Democrats were receiving money from the State of Israel, there was a change of goalposts, this time they pointed out that response was that the party has a “Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel” group ... which it does ... it also has "Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine" group too..

Both of which, as I explained in my exchange with them, are internal associated groups made up of members and supporters with particular views on the Middle East. Neither means the party is secretly funded by a foreign government.

But again, the facts didn’t really matter.

That’s the bit I struggle with.  If I’m wrong about something, and somebody proves it properly, I’ll usually back down. I’ll probably try to save face first because I’m human ... but eventually facts win.

For some people though, belief seems to become reality. Even when reality itself disagrees.

And I still can’t quite get my head around that.

Attention Tax

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about interruptions at work; not just obvious interruptions like phone calls, Teams messages, or someone asking “got a minute?” (although they can be a pain too), but the hidden cost that comes after the interruption.

I think most workplaces still treat interruptions as a simple time problem, where if somebody interrupts you for 10 minutes, then supposedly you've lost 10 minutes of work.

But that isn’t really how it works is it. Well not for me anyway!

You'll notice it especially if you’re doing deeper work ... writing, planning, problem solving, analysing data, designing something, trying to properly think something through ... the interruption itself is only part of the damage.

There’s also the refocus time afterwards.

You have to mentally reload the task back into your brain. Remember where you were. Rebuild the momentum. Re-enter the thought process you were already halfway through before somebody derailed it.

Sometimes a 2 minute interruption can cost 20 minutes of useful thinking.

I’ve started thinking of this as an “Attention Tax”.

Every interruption taxes your concentration a little bit. One interruption is manageable. Ten in a day starts fragmenting your thinking completely.

And I think this is partly why some days feel mentally exhausting even if you’ve technically “done loads”, you haven’t spent the day doing productive work, you’ve spent the day rebuilding momentum over and over again.

Modern workplaces almost seem designed around interruption now.

Side note: I remember when I started by career in British Telecom in 1987, been told that when it was still the civil service, managers had flags attached to their intrays, and if a red flag was showing, you couldn't talk to them ... I sometimes wish I had that here. 

Emails. Teams notifications. Meetings. “Quick questions”. Artificial urgency. Constant deadline pressure.

We also seem to reward responsiveness, it's deemed to be a good things if you accept the interruption and rude if you don't, but I’m not convinced we reward depth anymore.

I touched on some of this already in my post about why I hate deadlines, but I think there’s probably a bigger idea buried in all this somewhere.

This is definitely a seed post for now. I think there’s more to explore here.

Best Way To Get AI to Sound Like A Human

OK, I've been working with AI for quite a while now, and honestly I love it for writing content.

But one thing still stands out ... what's the best way to get AI to sound like a human instead of a polished marketing robot?

This is the current base prompt I use. It works reasonably well across most AI tools.

I will keep adding to it and updating it because AI writing styles keep evolving. What sounds human today probably becomes tomorrow's obvious AI pattern.

I've tested variations of this across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot, and while none of them become perfectly human, this sort of structure definitely helps calm down a lot of the obvious AI writing habits.

"Write like an experienced human writer, not a marketing template or assistant.

Vary sentence length and structure naturally. Mix short, medium, and longer sentences. Let the rhythm feel uneven in a human way.

Use plain English, active voice, and concrete wording. Prefer everyday phrases over jargon, buzzwords, or corporate language.

Humans like contractions (hasn't, wouldn't, and couldn't etc), so add a good mix of these types of word were appropriate, as they make communication sound more natural and fluid.

Avoid clichés, filler, forced transitions, and predictable paragraph patterns. Do not make every paragraph the same length or end with a neat concluding sentence.

Use contractions naturally. Address the reader directly where appropriate.

Keep a calm, confident tone. Avoid sounding overexcited, overhelpful, or overly polished.

Cut unnecessary words. Rewrite awkward phrasing instead of adding explanation around it.

Use specific observations, grounded examples, and occasional conversational phrasing where it improves flow.

Avoid repetitive grammar patterns, repeated connector words, and overly balanced sentence construction.

Do not use em dashes.

Prioritise clarity, rhythm, and readability over sounding impressive.

Ordinals when written as numerals should always have a suffix: '-st' ('first', '21st') '-nd' ('second', '32nd') '-rd' ('third', '103rd') etc

If a sentence sounds robotic when read aloud, rewrite it."

The interesting thing is that no single prompt can fully force AI to sound human. You still need task-specific modifiers underneath it.

Things like:

"Write academically"
"Write casually"
"Write for UK tradespeople"
"Write for beer enthusiasts"
"Write for busy business owners"
"Write for someone aged 18"
"Write like a newspaper column"
etc.

Carters of Knottingley Brewery

There’s something strange about finding history on your own doorstep. I've lived in and around Knottingley for a very long time, I've spent years drinking beer, and more recently started writing about it, yet I had no idea that Knottingley once had its own proper brewery. Not a small operation either, but a serious one with tied houses, its own identity, and a long run in the town.

Once I found it, I couldn’t unsee it. And once I started reading more, the thought crept in… what if it came back? Not as a museum piece or a nostalgia exercise, but as a living Yorkshire beer again. This isn’t a business plan, it’s more of a running note, somewhere to collect the story and see where it leads.

The early days

Carters begins around the turn of the 1800s, built on a partnership that brought together three very different people and strengths.

• Mark Carter came with brewing knowledge from an established family
• Edward Gaggs brought money and local influence through his work in limestone and shipping
• Robert Seaton added financial weight through banking. 

It’s a strong mix when you look back at it now, and it explains how quickly things moved.

At first, brewing took place in older buildings near the town, but that changed within a few years. By 1807, land at Mill Close had been bought, and by 1808 to 1809 a purpose-built brewery stood at Hill Top alongside Lime Grove (opposite where Morrisons is today). That quick and dramatic shift says a lot. This was never a side project; it was set up to be a proper, long-term operation.

Building a proper brewery

Through the early 1800s, the brewery established itself as a known local producer. By 1822 it appears in trade directories as “common brewers” at Mill Close, which gives a sense of its standing at the time. The site itself had real advantages, with deep bore water drawn from limestone, likely early use of steam power, and strong links to local transport and industry. It grew alongside the town rather than sitting outside it.

The Carter family years

The Carter name stayed central as ownership passed through generations. In 1836, Mark Carter stepped back and John Carter took control, and then in 1873 George William Carter succeeded him. By this stage the brewery had moved beyond being just a local concern; it had scale, structure, and a recognisable identity, it wasn't starting to become known as a never capable brewer of decent ales.

One detail from this period stands out more than most. In 1877, the brewery registered a trademark featuring a Talbot dog taken from the Carter coat of arms. It’s a small piece of history on the surface, but it carries real weight. If the name ever returned, that symbol would be the natural bridge between past and present.

Expansion and peak

In 1892, the business became a public company, with Carters’ Knottingley Brewery Company Ltd formed to acquire the brewery, Lime Grove, and 66 tied houses for £170,000 (approx £28m in todays money, that's not much less than the £33m it cost Tilbury Brands to buy BrewDog in March 2026). That figure alone tells you the scale of the operation at the time, and it marks the point where the brewery was fully established as a regional player.

At its peak, Carters was producing somewhere around 6,500 to 7,000 barrels a year (about 2m pints to you and me) and controlling close to 68 licensed houses. That puts it firmly in the category of a serious Yorkshire brewery rather than a small local outfit.

Trouble and takeover

The early 1930s brought problems. Internal struggles, legal disputes, and pressure on the business began to take their toll, and by 1935 the end came quickly. The brewery was taken over by Bentleys, and brewing in Knottingley stopped that same year.

The name didn’t disappear overnight, but the brewing itself did, and that was the turning point. What followed was less about beer and more about ownership on paper.

The slow disappearance

After the takeover, the brewery became part of a much larger chain. It moved through Bentleys, then into Whitbread, then Interbrew, and eventually into AB InBev. That corporate path explains why the local identity faded, as the brand was absorbed into something much bigger.

By 1965, the Hill Top site was sold off, and not long after it was demolished and replaced with housing. At that point, the physical brewery disappeared completely, leaving only records and fragments of the story behind.

Where that leaves it now

So what’s left today is not a building or a working brewery, but something just as interesting. There’s a clear founding story, named people, production figures, tied houses, and even a registered trademark with a strong visual identity. That’s more than most modern breweries ever start with, and it gives the whole idea a different weight.

The idea that won’t go away

This is the part I keep coming back to. There’s a difference between inventing a brand and picking up a dropped one. Carters isn’t made up; it existed, it brewed, and it mattered locally. Bringing it back would not be about pretending nothing changed, but about continuing the story in a way that feels honest.

If it ever did return, it would need to stay grounded. Yorkshire first, a clear link back to Knottingley, a modern take on the Talbot symbol, and no overblown claims about heritage. Just a straight line from then to now, with a long pause in the middle.

Where this goes next

For now, this stays as a working note. A place to collect dates, names, ideas, and the odd bit of inspiration as it comes along. It might grow into something more practical over time, or it might simply remain a record of a brewery that used to exist and still probably should.

Either way, it’s not going anywhere now I’ve found it.

 

 

 

A Move to Spain

My wife and I never really talked about moving abroad. It never crossed our minds.

Life was here in the UK. Family was here. And now there’s a grandson in the mix too. That should have been enough to keep us rooted... but something suddenly changed.

I guess recent family events have a way of doing that. They changed the way we thought about life. Both my wife and I suddenly realised that life is for living. It has to be fun and enjoyable, and maybe a move abroad could do that for us.

We could stay in Yorkshire, or in the UK at least, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the reality is our family is already dotted all over the UK. It’s not like we’re all on the same street.

My wife watches a lot of A Place in the Sun, and the life you can have out there, especially in early retirement, looks pretty idyllic.

And if any of our kids turned around tomorrow and said they were off to live abroad, we wouldn’t hesitate to back them.

It was while we were holidaying in Salou, Spain, at the Costa Durada Hotel, in September 2025 that we both suddenly twigged that Spain could actually be our place in the sun. A new home, maybe.

It ticked a lot of boxes for us. A good and cheaper holiday base for the kids and grandchildren, PortAventura World right next door, only around a two-hour flight from the UK, and roughly 7 to 9 hours of sunshine a day for much of the year. In summer, it regularly hits 10 to 12 hours a day. Great.

Within a couple of days, we had drawn up a draft five-year plan. That plan is below, but I've also added for download in my Google Drive.

We went to A Place in the Sun Live in Manchester earlier in 2026. It was good. Useful. Also a bit of a blur. Too many talks, too many options, too many people telling you slightly different things.

We came away with more questions than answers, but probably a little more eager to look into it properly.

The A Place in the Sun guides have been a massive help too. They don’t make the move look effortless, which I actually like. They make it clear that Spain is still possible after Brexit, but there is paperwork, planning, tax, healthcare, visas, and a fair bit of patience involved.

That feels more useful than pretending it is all sun loungers and cheap wine.

Spain stayed on our radar. It’s familiar, it’s proven, and there’s a big expat community, which makes the whole thing feel less like jumping off a cliff.

But at the same time, neither my wife nor I want to just recreate the UK in warmer weather. We want a mix. A bit of familiarity, yes, but also the language, the culture, and the everyday differences. We would like to become more integrated into Spanish life.

The loose idea is simple. Rent first. See how it actually feels when it’s not a holiday. No pressure, no big commitments straight away.

I personally think I’d get bored just sat in a Spanish home watching the sun rise and set every day, so maybe we need something that keeps us busy and generates a small income.

Something flexible. Copywriting makes sense for us. It fits around life rather than the other way round, and we’ve done it before as a small business.

We’re not rushing into this. Five years feels about right for us. Long enough to do it properly, not just react to a feeling. Long enough to get plans, figures, and ideas properly into motion.

What follows is the plan as it stands. It will change over time as we get things sorted.

I have also started putting together a simple downloadable five-year moving plan checklist for anyone else thinking along similar lines. It doesn’t replace proper visa, tax, legal, or property advice, but it gives you a year-by-year framework to scribble on, tick off, and adapt.

Download the generic five-year Spain moving plan checklist

The Shape of the Move

This isn’t planned to be a clean break. Certainly not from the beginning.

We want it to feel like we’re easing ourselves into it.

We’ll rent in Spain first. A couple of months to start with, maybe longer if it feels right. Just to see what everyday life looks like when the novelty wears off a bit.

Back here, the house stays. At least for now.

While we were at A Place in the Sun Live in 2026, we spoke to a wealth manager who pointed out that a house in the UK can still drain cash. Yes, it’s an asset, but we would have to pay someone to manage it for us. We would also have repairs and maintenance to pay for, even though virtually everything is brand new, including the roof, doors, windows, bathroom, and kitchen.

He recommended selling and using the cash to live off.

I must admit, the most appealing part for me is keeping it. But the thought of strangers living in it and not keeping it as I would like does bother me.

All that said and done, right now, we are still thinking about renting it out. Keep it as an asset. Keep a bit of security behind us. If it works, great, it helps fund things in Spain. If it doesn’t, we’ve still got options for returning.

Our Perfect Property

• At least two bedrooms and two bathrooms (need a bath)
• Good garden space (bonus)
• Terrace and/or solarium
• Pool (either private or shared not too bothered)
• Parking 
• Size - above average. Something over 85 square metres
• Aircon and heating, a heat pump would be perfect.

Our Perfect Location

• Somewhere thats busy but not too busy
• No more than 20 minutes drive from the coast
• We would like a small ex-pat community, but we also want that traditional Spanish community
• Need easy access to an airport

The Plan as it Stands

These are my working notes.

2026 - Property and Budget Groundwork

Mortgage paid off in August ... finally. That still feels good to say.

Where might we move to?

We had looked at Salou a couple of times now. We are actually out here now at the H10 Salou Princess, which is why I decided to write this. We like the area, and there is PortAventura World on the doorstep, airport is handly, lots to see and do, which is useful for when family come to stay. But it is perhaps a little too busy, and if we are being honest, as it's very popular, the prices of property do reflect that.

As of May 2026, minimum of 70sq.m, 2 bed, air con, balcony, parking and the use of a pool, you're looking between £145k - 210k.

In the Province of Murcia the prices tend to be between £85k - £470k, yeah a wider range of prices, but lots available in what appears to be more affordable (granted, we need to see what these properties are like!), so ours next trip will be further south, to take a look at the area around Murcia (between Cartagena and Águilas).

From here, it’s about building a proper buffer. Moving costs add up quickly when you start looking at them properly. Deposits, removals, visas, legal costs, translations, insurance, and a bit of breathing space on top.

We did find out that transporting the dog to Spain could cost us £3,000 alone (apparently she'll neeed her own pallet in the hold).

Passports valid for 10 years checked and OK.

We’ll start clearing out the obvious clutter. Nothing dramatic. Just stop holding onto things we don’t need.

I also want a rough handle on finances. Pensions, savings, and how they behave if we’re living somewhere else. Not deep detail yet, just enough to avoid getting caught out.

And we’ll keep an eye on local rental values. If the house is going to work for us as a rental, it needs to stack up financially.

We also need a proper Spain living budget. Not holiday spending. Normal life spending. Food, utilities, healthcare, travel, insurance, dog costs, car costs, eating out, and the boring things that keep life ticking over.

2027 - Health, Legal, and Reality Checks

This is where it starts to feel a bit more serious.

Healthcare is a big one. We need to understand how it works in Spain, what we need in place, and what it actually costs. Private health insurance will need proper research, especially by age, cover level, exclusions, and any waiting periods.

We also need to understand how healthcare changes at State Pension age, including whether an S1 form applies to us later. That one feels important.

Same with tax. I’d rather ask HMRC early than guess and regret it later. We also need proper advice on Spanish tax residency, especially if we keep the UK house and rent it out.

One thing we are already learning is that becoming tax resident isn't always as simple as spending 183 days in Spain. Where your income comes from, where your assets are, and even where your spouse lives can all play a part. Definitely one for proper advice rather than guesswork.

Visa rules will probably change between now and then, so this is more about staying up to date than locking anything in. The non-lucrative visa looks like one possible route, but the digital nomad visa may also be worth looking at if we keep some kind of remote copywriting income going.

We need to check what each visa allows, what it rules out, what income we need to prove, and whether any work has to come from outside Spain.

We also need to understand Spanish wealth tax and inheritance tax. From what we have seen already, these can vary by region, so where we live may matter more than we first thought.

That feels like proper advice territory, not “read a few blogs and hope for the best” territory.

We’ll also start learning Spanish. Slowly. Probably badly at first. But it’s part of it.

And we’ll spend time in Spain outside of peak season. Not the shiny version. The normal version.

2028 - Line up the Move

This is when it starts to feel closer.

We’ll begin speaking to estate agents in Spain and properly looking at rental options.

At the same time, we’ll get a feel for the cost of moving everything over. Or whether it’s even worth it.

We also need to check the driving licence rules, including whether our UK licences need exchanging and what happens if we become Spanish residents.

We’ll need to make sure money moves easily between the UK and Spain. Income, pensions, rental payments, and any savings. It all needs to work without becoming a monthly headache.

We also need to look into Spanish banking, currency transfer fees, and whether our UK banking apps, pensions, and mobile numbers will still work smoothly once we are spending longer periods abroad.

If we end up buying later, we need to understand NIE numbers, Spanish bank accounts, notaries, lawyers, property taxes, and all the official steps that come with buying or registering properly.

We also need to get important documents organised. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, and anything else likely to be needed for visa or residency applications. Some may need translating and apostilling (legally authenticating an official document so that it is recognised as valid in Spain).

We also need to understand Spanish urbanisations if we look at resort-style areas or managed communities. Community fees, rules, shared maintenance, pools, gardens, and any restrictions around rentals could all make a big difference.

This is also when we need to look properly at removals. Since Brexit, taking belongings into Spain is not as simple as just hiring a van and driving over. We’ll need proper quotes, customs advice, inventories, insurance, and a decision on what is worth taking.

And then there is dog transport. The £3,000 figure sounds high, so we need to compare options. Specialist pet transport may be worth it, but we should also understand what can be done ourselves, what paperwork is needed, and what Hela would cope with best.

And this is where the proper clear-out happens.

Hela needs sorting too. Vaccinations, paperwork, travel requirements. All of it.

2029 - Decision Year

This is the one that probably matters most.

We’ll spend a full month in Spain. Not as visitors, just living. Shopping, cooking, getting bored, dealing with normal life.

That should tell us what we need to know.

We’ll also decide what happens with the house. Rent it, or sell it. Right now it’s roughly £175k value and about £1,000 a month rental, but that’s just a guide and needs checking closer to the time.

If we keep it, we’ll need proper numbers. Letting agent fees, maintenance, insurance, tax, empty periods, and the emotional side of someone else living in our home.

Visa applications start here. Residency. Bank accounts. Documents. Translations. Apostilles. All the paperwork that turns an idea into something real.

This is also where we need to get organised with wills and estate planning. UK assets, Spanish assets, inheritance rules, and what happens if one of us dies first. Not cheerful, but necessary.

2030 - Move Year

If it still feels right... we go.

Move into a rental, or something more permanent if it lines up.

Sort the UK house properly so it’s not something we’re worrying about from a distance.

Then comes the official stuff. TIE, padrón, healthcare registration, local paperwork, banking, insurance, and whatever else we have missed along the way.

One thing the guides repeatedly stress is not leaving the paperwork until later. Registration, residency documents, and local administration seem to start almost as soon as you arrive.

And then just settle.

Find a vet for Hela. Register with a doctor. Work out where we actually like going for a coffee. Find the local shops. Meet people. Keep learning Spanish. Start building something that feels normal.

Where My (Our) Head’s At

It still feels a bit strange writing this down. Some days it feels exciting. Other days it feels like a lot. Sometimes it feels like too much.

The thought of leaving family, the kids, and a grandson is difficult. But like I said earlier, we wouldn’t stop any of our family moving away. They are already in different corners of the UK as it is, and we know they wouldn’t stop us.

But we keep coming back to the same thought. We’ve spent years doing what we should do. Working, paying the mortgage, building something stable, bringing up a family, and doing the right stuff.

And all that has been right.

But this feels like something we want to do.

This isn’t locked in. It’s not a perfect plan, and it doesn’t need to be. I’ll keep adding to this as we go, changing bits when reality gets in the way, or when something better comes along.

At the very least, we’ll still have a decluttered home, some brilliant memories, more trips to Spain under our belts, and hopefully a bit more Spanish than we have now.

How’s it Going?

Progress is slow. Very slow.

It’s currently May 2026, and here we are again in Salou. Possibly our last visit here for now, just to see if we generally like the area and to take a look in estate agents’ windows.

Property here is a little more expernsive that other areas we have looks at, we have decided that our next trip is likely to be down in Murcia (between Cartagena and Águilas). 

Still don’t know the ruddy language.

But we do like the area, so it is still on our shortlist.

Next, we’ll probably look at southern Spain, most likely around the Murcia region.

We also have a cruise lined up for November 2026, which takes in Vigo on Spain’s northwest coast, so our next proper Spanish move trip may have to wait until 2027.