I have always considered a cafe to be a haven in any city. There is something otherworldly about escaping the hustle and bustle of busy streets and losing oneself with a coffee, a slice of cake, and a good book. From the comfort of a calm and warm interior, the view beyond the window assumes a different perspective.

Rascals Cafe in The Fair City of Perth offers both a safe haven and a rather unique way of engaging with the outside world – and not just for its customers. The brainchild of Dodie Piddock, this particular coffee shop offers a familial approach to the care and understanding of individuals who have found themselves in trouble with the law, have spent time in prison, or those with neurodivergent issues that make it hard for them to engage with mainstream society and end up in a downward spiral of diminishing self-esteem. In fact, Rascals Cafe epitomizes the concept of the cafe as a haven – even their advertising slogan reads, ‘Life happens, coffee helps.’

As I walked to the front door on a damp morning, window graphics showing two black, silhouette dogs’ heads – one on each of the main windows – noted the that the establishment was canine-friendly. Stepping inside, the interior – with its natural wood floor, wooden tables and chairs and green-painted dado woodwork – was clearly created by someone synergized with the natural world. On the walls hung animal portraits, including a Highland cow, more dogs, and two giraffes. Piddock met me with a warm, welcoming smile while the aroma of coffee hung in the air.

When researching places and events established by individuals who demonstrably choose to help others, I am struck by how often it is something in that person’s own past that has led them down this path. Piddock is no exception. She began by explaining that it was late in life when she was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Before the diagnosis she had found difficulty fitting in with mainstream society’s expectations which, in turn, had created a sense of loneliness and isolation. The youngest of four daughters, she recalled how her hard-working mother spent any available time undertaking charitable work – for which she was awarded an MBE and the Queen’s Silver Jubilee medal for her efforts as the West Midland County Borough organizer of the Women’s Rural Voluntary Service (WRVS). At seventeen years of age, Piddock trained as a horse-riding teacher with her first paid job in Vienna.

Looking back, she considers her younger self to have been apolitical and naïve, but during her time in Austria she met many individuals with disparate political views. Laughing, she recounts, “A lot changed inside me then and I returned to the U.K. as a twenty-three-year-old, disillusioned, political activist.”

She joined Greenpeace, followed Captain Paul Watson when he started Sea Shepherd and his anti-whaling, activism campaign and later, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation. Choosing to educate others about animal welfare and effective husbandry, she taught small animal care to young farmers at an agricultural college in Hereford. To this day, Piddock remains an ardent, animal activist and it underpins the strictly vegan approach to everything on the menu in Rascals Cafe.

Twenty years ago, Piddock moved to Edinburgh as a young mum with two children. There she worked as a personal assistant to a tetraplegic, hedge fund manager, her empathetic approach partly borne from watching her Dutch mother become disabled in later life. That was followed by a spell with Brag Enterprises – a social enterprise charity founded in Fife to help relieve poverty in areas affected by the collapse of mining and other heavy industries. From there, she moved to Apex Scotland – a charity working alongside the criminal justice system and aimed at helping those in trouble with the law or in danger of becoming so. For two years she worked with four senior schools in Dundee, all of which were experiencing high student exclusion rates for behavioral problems. Piddock notes that the old adage applies; it is more often a case of individuals with problems rather than problem individuals. Some of those excluded were children with neurodivergent issues.

Seeing opportunities where others see intractable difficulties, she notes, “Neurodivergent children have brains, they just use them differently. We need to rethink how we give them opportunities rather than cast them aside. The charity sector should not exist. It only does so because of the failure of the public and private sectors.”

In 2019, Piddock established Starting Step as a company with charitable status. The idea was to create a restaurant and training center adjacent to Perth Prison.

With a firm belief that it is both morally reprehensible and unsustainable to exploit animals to feed the world’s growing population, the center was intended to provide inmates with a better understanding of horticultural practices and promote a more sustainable way of feeding people. It would also offer them job opportunities and support both during and after completion of their sentences. Sadly, Covid struck at the wrong moment and the project was shelved.

Undaunted, Piddock and her partner Ron Tasker set up Rascals Cafe in 2022. Tasker has over fifty years’ experience in the hospitality industry and together they believe there are great opportunities for employment within this sector, especially given the growing demand for vegan products. Piddock explains that the current system for assisting offenders and those with neurodivergent issues isn’t suitable for purpose, “Most funding for assisting these individuals comes with a timescale attached. Each person is different, and it is impossible to ascertain for how long they may need support. To give them an opportunity with a fixed end date creates pressure and doesn’t help anyone. When time and money runs out, they are simply abandoned…”

For that reason, Rascals Cafe acts more like a family support group, helping individuals to turn their lives around or to find ways of coping with their difficulties. Students (Piddock dislikes terms such as ‘clients’ or ‘service users’) work on a rolling rotation of three on duty at any one time, fulfilling a variety of roles within the cafe, safe in the knowledge that this is an open-ended opportunity for training and support. The cafe is already proving popular with locals and visitors alike, partly because of the products provided and the holistic approach to food production, but also on account of the way it helps people in need.

While Rascals Cafe is the product of a lifetime of connected events underpinned by a strong core belief that everyone should be given the best possible chance in life, Piddock says that it is nonetheless just the beginning, “The Starting Step charity is now ready to develop the training kitchen garden. It is a known fact that horticulture brings a multitude of benefits including better physical and mental health and the ability to work with a diverse group of people of all ages, including inter-generational work. Horticulture brings joy to people by growing plants, boosts wellbeing, and supports the environment, economy, and food security. This is badly needed to help close the green skills gap.”

With the U.K. horticulture industry generating £5billion annually and providing employment for over 674,200 people, the dream would be to establish a dedicated horticulture college, founded on the principles of reducing human impact on animals, developing more sustainable food sources that are environmentally beneficial, and providing training and job opportunities for individuals struggling to find their place in society.

Piddock was very close to her late father and remembers once asking him, “What is the point of the human race?” His reply was simple but profound, “I don’t know collectively of any point; however, I know that an individual has the power to make the world a better place from having been in it.”

Story by Tom Langlands
www.rascalscafe.com
www.tomlanglandsphotography.com