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Fireworks In Köln

Across the street from our hotel in Köln

Fire-wielding acrobats

Fireworks 1

Fireworks 2

Mask inside hotel, where we had our meeting with Eric Bischof and Burcu Unal

Across to Köln with Louse (Kjellerup Roper) and Richard (Roberts) for a stunning handover ceremony  between former Covestro CEO Patrick Thomas and incoming CEO Markus Steilemann.

Stonkingly hot evening in converted warehouse, but wonderful fireworks – and a great session the following morning with Eric Bischof and Burcu Unal of Covestro. I first met Burcu in Shanghai a few weeks ago, with the late lamented Richard Northcote.

Tessa Tennant, RIP

Tessa’s event – and her world

Steve Waygood kicks off the evening

As we come out into the evening

Tranquility: a heron on Barnes Pond as we walked home

Much saddened to hear yesterday from Tom Burke of the death of Tessa Tennant on Saturday. We really did all squeak it in under the wire with the celebration of her lifetime achievement award on 28 June, courtesy of Aviva.

More details on the evening can be found here.

The videos are great – and I get to say a couple of things in the middle one, ‘Highlights from the Video Corner’.

In one way or another, all of us were saying the same thing. We loved Tessa, we deeply wish she had been with us longer, but we feel deeply privileged to have known her – in my case since the days when the Green Alliance was still in Chandos Place.

Also served on her advisory board back in the day at the Merlin Ecology Fund and NPI.

Very keen to help with the world’s first sculpture symbolising the transformative power of green finance.

Recalling The Triple Bottom Line

GreenBiz just published my latest blog as part of The Elkington Report, this time reviewing the worldwide reactions to the Harvard Business Review post I did – proposing a product recall for the Triple Bottom Line.

DeepMind

The view from the lunch table

Across to Google’s DeepMind’s 6 Pancras Square HQ for lunch today, with Jerry Connor, husband of a long-ago colleague at SustainAbility, Shelly Fennell. Research for the new book.

Had our lunch in full sun, overlooking King’s Cross. Brilliantly interesting discussions, at least as far as I was concerned, though I suspect that a version of sunstroke contributed to my 5-day migraine a few days later.

Ambulance was called, but had failed to arrive six hours later. So I decided I would prefer to stay in my own bed than in Kingston Hospital, which tried so many ways last time to kill me.

Halloumi: The Smell Of Summer

A favourite sight, smell and taste of summer – probably dating back to a childhood in Cyprus

An Educational Week

Some of the PRME participants, a photo I took while they were lining up for a real photographer

A portrait of Steve Jobs I spotted at St Clement Danes School, Chorleywood

Sian Tillott, who did the Jobs portrait

A week of shuttling between speaking gigs. Did a keynote at the UN Principles for Management Education (PRME) ‘Leave No One Behind‘ conference at Queen Mary University of London.

Then spoke at a UN Global Compact event at Aviva’s Garage on 28 June. And then took the train out to Chorleywood on 29 June to speak to the sixth form at St Clement Danes School. A lively discussion – and a reminder of part of my childhood, where we spent a couple of years in Chorleywood.

Mill Cottage: Returning To My Source

Aerial clues in my quest to find the hamlet where I worked out the answer to Shakespeare’s question about being or not being: Google Earth image of Padworth Mill and environs

Looking upstream from the footbridge

Ditto downstream, with some sort of overspill

Upstream again

Water across the sluice, or flume

Inside the Mill: the old machinery, revamped

Looking down into the mill race, towards the mill stream and Mill Cottage

Today was my 69th birthday, so we had decided to head back, after decades of meaning to do so, to the gravel bed where I was spawned. In retrospect, the environment had a huge impact on me, including informing the visual identity for the first iteration of this website (scroll down the link to see the explanation by Rupert Bassett and Lynne Elvins), early in the century.

Original design by Rupert for my CounterCurrent logotype

Every time I have written my place of birth on a passport or other document, it has always been Padworth – yet I had very little sense of the space, or so I thought, having left when I was around two years old, so probably in 1950 or 1951.

Two of the stories I had heard from my mother, Pat, were about kingfishers and blue underpants.

In the first, I would apparently sit enthralled when watching a family of kingfishers sitting on a branch overlooking the mill stream, at the back of Mill Cottage.

In the second, Pat looked out a window while shaking a duster, to see that I had overturned my pram, aged around eight months, and, wearing blue bottoms over my nappy, was heading into the reeds and, beyond, the water.

When, this morning, we found our way down Mill Lane, the unmade road to Padworth Mill, having previously and erroneously headed down Padworth Lane, it was unclear which of the three buildings in the tight-knit cluster, or hamlet perhaps, was the long-remembered Cottage.

When we first arrived at the security gates by the Mill, we had rung the ‘bell’, which rang and rang. Then a gruff male voice answered, saying that there was nothing to be done. Maybe a remote security guard?

Next a young woman, Tara, popped out of the Mill itself, accompanied by a Dalmation, one of a pair. Perhaps initially taking us for prospecting burglars, she was cautious, saying she didn’t know which of the buildings would have been the Cottage. Still, she suggested that we go around the corner to look at Mill House.

We made our way round to Mill House, shown in the photos above, which triggered a wave of memories in terms of the sounds and smells, the dragonflies and damselflies, and emergent vegetation in the mill leat, in front of the building.

Indeed, something seemed to break loose in my brain. It seems that I have conflated two memories over the years.

The first was of a small stream up behind the farm where we lived in the mid-1950s outside Limavady, in Northern Ireland. In memory, this had become something of a mini-Amazon, though I knew it can’t have been. Now, today, we had found my mini-Amazon, with the River Kennet flowing alongside the mill leat, the sluice and the mill stream. and the sound of water all around.

I remembered, too, the story of my father, Tim, shooting a pike with a bow and (presumably tethered) arrow from a bedroom window in the Cottage, which made me think that Mill House probably wasn’t the site of that ambush. The river was too far away, the leat too shallow.

My instinctive reaction, throughout, was that the other building, now called Island House, must have been Mill Cottage. (Something Tim has since confirmed.) Then, in Googling around after we got back, I came across this ‘Paradise Lost‘ story, featuring TV presenter Melinda Messenger of Channel 5.

Another story Pat told me today, in passing, was that one of our nannies at Mill cottage had formerly worked for Valerie Hobson, the actress who married John Profumo and ended up embroiled in the Christine Keeler affair. It’s amazing, if you squint, how tangled the web of history can become.

After I had swarmed across the footbridge that spans the foaming sluice, allowing you to look down on the electricity generating machinery and salmon race, we went back to the Mill. Tara reappeared with a slip of paper from an 82-year-old local mill historian, Tom Hine. I emailed Tom when we got back to London – and promptly got this reply:

Hello John, my goodness  you’ve left it a long time since re-visiting after all these years!  It’s a bit of a rough ride down to the mill, eh?  Yes, I am a Berks Mill Historian – more than 150 mill sites in the county.  Is there anything that you specifically want to know?  The site pre dates ‘1066 & all that’.  There was a corn mill recorded there in Saxon times.  Many flour millers followed over the centuries.  It is good that Wayne and wife are giving it a breath of new life after many years of decay.  Kind Regards…………Tom Hine.

As I wrote down Tom’s name, and Tara explained what was still in the Mill, I asked whether we could possibly take a look? She and her husband welcomed us in – and it was really quite extraordinary. Wayne has boxed in much of the original workings with double glazing, so the mill race flows right through their home. See the picture, with attendant Dalmation. A truly spectacular bit of restoration under way.

After a bit more conversation, we took to the road, with the kindly Google Maps woman telling us where to go. The route was wonderful, through places like Pangbourne, Goring and Nettlebed.

At times our guide, speaking from my iPhone propped in a tray in  the Volvo, seemed to be taking us the scenic route – but we arrived in Henley bang on time for a wonderful lunch with my brother’s former wife, Christina. (He was also born in Mill Cottage.) Christina has achieved wonders with her new home, over which clouds of kites wheeled and dove.

Afterwards, we all took a walk through town, alongside George Harrison’s Friar Park estate, which is just around the corner, and then down the hill into Henley proper. I loved George back in the day – and was horrified that his family life was so rudely disrupted when someone swarmed over the fence with murderous intent.

Oddly, when we got home both my long-time friend and colleague Geoff Lye and our daughter Hania had sent links to the Late Last Show’s Carpool Karaoke film in which (Sir) Paul McCartney returns to his own birthplace in Liverpool. Delightful – and a very similar spirit to our jaunt today, though sadly I didn’t get to play a concert in a pub.

Next time? Meanwhile, I can at at least listen again to Paul singing Birthday at the Grammys 2014 Tribute to The Beatles …

Elaine’s photograph of Christina and I admiring the gates of Friar Park, George Harrison’s estate

Trees surrounding George Harrison’s estate, Friar Park

Friar Park gates

Delightfully tumbledown beehive outside the fire station

Holy jumping hollyhocks

Ammunition box in an antiques shop – the bed on which I was born was propped up with them, I’m told

The Thames

Typical wall of brick and flint

Old handle awaiting refurbishment at Christina’s new home

Ditto a leprechaun, wearing a long-sleeved version of my shirt, though in his case I’m told he’s awaiting collection by the original owners of the house

NOTES

Gray and Juan, his youngest son, dropped in on Padworth Mill some six years ago. Here are a couple of his photos from then, the wooden bridge confirming the identification of Island House with the erstwhile Mill Cottage.

Juan with Mercedes – and no security gate at the Mill

Island House bridge in distance

While we were with Christina in Henley, she mentioned that the Elkington had lived in Henley soon after Padworth. Gray sent me a list of his guesstimates of places and timings:

Screenshot of Gray’s tabulation

Gray in Henley, 1951

Pat with Gray (left) and I (right), 1951

I Feature In Nori Podcast

I was thrilled to have an on-air conversation with Christophe Jospe, Paul Gambill and Ross Kenyon of Nori, the world’s only carbon dioxide removal marketplace, on 6 June – and they have now released this podcast. Enjoyed listening to it.

Are We Deranged – Or Just Delusional?

Shanghai flooded (source: Climate Central, via GreenBiz)

My GreenBiz blog on my Shanghai trip last week appeared today, here.

June In Bloomsbury

Volans team at work: click to see larger

A panorama shot with my iPhone, showing, from left to right, Louise, Jacqueline, Richard, Clover, Rich and Yinka. Around the time we did our latest Breakthrough Salon, this time on cities.