Some events just completely defy any concept of generation gap.

In some of our early TEDxBrighton meetings, we bounced around ideas for exhibitions and displays that would bridge the generation gap, particularly around crafts or skills that have passed uninterrupted from generation to generation – or which have skipped a generation, passing from grandparent to grandchild without passing the generation in between. (Knitting seems to be a good example of that.)

On Saturday, I dragged my manflu-ridden self out of bed (and by bed, I mean a camp bed in my study, as the manflu-ridden are not allowed within potential infection distance of their baby daughter…) and headed into Brighton for the Mini Maker Faire, to help support the Hacks/Hackers Brighton pop-up newsroom.

It was with no little surprise that I found many of the ideas we’d talked about in living, vibrant reality around the Brighton Dome. People of multiple generations knitting. Children happily soldering alongside the middle-aged. People, in fact, of all generations happily enjoying the act – and the products – of creation.

A knitter at work at the Brighton Mini Maker Faire

Far too often, the phrase “family event” means “something for the kids, but with some token stuff for adults”. That’s true of “family” TV and movies, with a few exceptions. Yet, this was a truly family affair, with the youngest – there were babies there – to the oldest, happily mingling in this buzzing din of creation, music and conversation.

Children putting a Dalek in its place

Here’s a little taste of what it felt like: