Journal

Today, my father – Tim Elkington – went up to Derby with my sister Tessa for a dinner hosted by Rolls-Royce as part of the rededication of a Battle of Britain stained glass window (above, from www.the-few.org.uk).

The window was first dedicated in 1949, the year I was born, in the presence of BoB veteran Douglas Bader.

Whisked northwards, and back, in a gleaming Mercedes, Tim was asked to speak at the dinner. Here is what he said:

I’m here today to join with you in remembering those who fought in the Battle of Britain, and your contribution to its outcome.

But more especially, I’ve come to say thank you, Rolls-Royce.

I thank you, first, for the ‘R Type’ engine which powered the Schneider Trophy aircraft and Campbell’s Bluebird, which kick started my career in the Royal Air Force.

And I’m grateful, too, for the hundreds of hours I have flown behind Kestrel, Merlin, Griffon and Derwent engines – in Europe, Russia, on Atlantic Convoys, in India and the Pacific – without a failure.

You have never let me down.

A tribute surely to good design – and the work of your hands?

Thank you.

Slightly ironic that the smoking chimneys shown as background in the Rolls-Royce window symbolise both the effort that went into making the machines that helped win the war, and the damage done to human health and the wider environment by industrial activity – something my own life has been dedicated to flagging and putting to rights.

Another intense week, taking in Zurich, St Gallen and Brussels. A great call with Covestro from Terminal 5 on my way out on Monday. Enjoyed speaking and engaging the students at the oikos International FutureLab 2015 event in St Gallen, travelling there from Zurich on a train with Alex Barkawi and Peter Zollinger, both long-standing colleagues and friends.

Wonderful dinner with Alex and Peter at the Zum Goldenen Schäfli, with sloping floor, ceiling and soup (a fact echoed in the design of their website).

Then took the train back to Zurich and a flight to Brussels, to speak at a dinner heralding the first baseEUcities conference, organised by Daniella Abreu, formerly of Skanska.Was due to speak after the second course, but Jeremy Rifkin spoke for over 45 minutes between the first course and the second, engagingly – but taxing the patience of some audience members.

After that, I felt I shouldn’t speak at any length. Instead, taking the microphone, I asked those taking part in the dinner (perhaps 50-60 people) whether there were any comments on what Jeremy (who had by that time headed off to bed) had said?

The first comment came from Jørgen Randers, who I noted had been giving me life counselling before the dinner started. So, I said, this provided a welcome opportunity to take him by surprise. Jørgen welcomed the opportunity, but expressed extreme irritation with the Rifkin approach, even if various of us could see considerable areas of overlap.

Part of the problem for Jørgen seemed to be Jeremy’s constant name-dropping: he had just come back having worked with the Russian Prime Minister that morning, for example; he had been responsible for turning Angela Merkel on to the third industrial revolution; he is advising the Chinese government and they are spending tens of billions as result; and so on.

It’s also interesting that Jeremy seems to find it difficult to genuinely engage an audience in conversation, preferring his (admittedly impressive) extended solos. A zero marginal cost version of Eddie van Halen?

I then asked whether there were any other views, and Frank Schwalba-Hoth put his hand up. (I hadn’t seen him for many years, but had given him a warm hug when we met before the dinner began.) He now tore into Jørgen, who luckily enjoys cut-and-thrust, saying that Rifkin was an “eagle,” while his critics were “rabbits, sheep, worms.”

Aha, said someone, so what is John? “A nightingale,” Frank flashed back. So now we know.

The conference the next day had its flaws, but the speakers (including a Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, Jeremy, Jørgen, Grame Maxton of the Club of Rome, and various business people) was an interesting opportunity to listen at close quarters to some great people. I summed up the day at the end of the event, which meant that I had to listen intently throughout.

Sitting still all day, and then heading home in a very cramped (and delayed) Eurostar (our train had to make its way around another that had stalled somewhere on this side of the Channel), then followed by a very noisy and late Piccadilly Line tube home, all helped ensure that that I developed a violent attack of leg cramp in the night, waking up howling.

Totally unlike any nightjar I have ever heard, but jarring in the night, certainly.

Then, on Friday, we had a brainstorm for the Friends Life Stewardship Committee of Reference, in the Aviva building at 1 Poultry. All a bit of a rush, as it happened. because the previous day I had looked at my diary on my BlackBerry, while on the Eurostar in France, and it had given a start time for today’s event of 11.00. But it was actually 10.00, something I realised only when I was 20 minutes late starting off.

Still, the Tube worked very well, and I was just 15-20 minutes late for what was slated to be a 4-hour meeting. And a very productive meeting it was, too, under Julie McDowell’s chairmanship.

Then back to the office, where Sam and Richard took one look at me and sent me home.

 

Daylight Saving Time ensures a leisurely start top the day. Took a delightful Sunday stroll around the Leg O’Mutton Reservoir between the Thames and Lonsdale Road, with the fall colours beginning to take root. One of my favourite places – and little known, it would seem. Makes me think of Walden Pond, in its tucked away way.

Quite a week, all told. It started with my chairing a kick-off plenary session for the Critical Mass event at the Royal Institution. In the wonderful Faraday Theatre.

My panellists on the theme of ‘Achieving Critical Mass’ were Antony Bugg-Levine (CEO, Nonprofit Finance Fund), who kindly informed the audience that I was “a legend,” Marcelino Castrillo (MD of business banking at RBS), Diana Verde Nieto (CEO of PositiveLuxury.com, where I am on the advisory board), Rodney Irwin (responsible for WBCSD’s sustainability reporting program) and Jan Owen (CEO, Foundation for Young Australians). Great audience interaction.

Then back to office to prepare for upcoming speeches, followed by a Guardian event featuring Bill Bryson at the Emmanuel Centre in the evening.

Next day, off  by train to Ely and then, with Mark Barthel, across to a huge mushroom farm that supplies Tesco. We were there for an advisory board meeting, but it was a great opportunity to peer back through the supply chain. Very professional and welcoming operation.

Lise Kingo’s last meeting, now that she has taken over the UN Global Compact. And great to see her old company, Novo Nordisk, a long-time Triple Bottom Line pioneer, taking the No. 1 slot in a ranking of 100 CEOs, with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos tumbling down the rankings.

Then picked up by car and driven to Stansted for flight to Rome. Driven by Martin Ott of Green Air Cars (“a premium car service that doesn’t cost the Earth”) – and for the duration of the trip we talked about everything from climate change and his use of hybrids and, potentially, Teslas, through to 20th century aviation, including the first (piston-powered) Comets, Mosquitos and (his favourite) Hurricanes.

Then a much delayed RyanAir flight to Rome, arriving well after midnight, after which I headed across to the hotel – waking early for a breakfast meeting with Michael Meehan, who now heads the Global Reporting Initiative. Next, across to Enel’s HQ for the Future of Sustainability Reporting event, kicked off by Enel CEO Francesco Starace, who was very impressive indeed. Will be mentioned in my next round of blogs.

Did a lively  panel session moderated by Nelmara Arbex, including speakers such as professor Enrico Giovannini of the University of Rome and Greenpeace Italy executive director Giuseppe Onufrio. Intrigued by Amy Zalman’s keynote: she is CEO and president of the World Future Society, based in Washington, D.C. Happily, it looks as if she will be through London in a few weeks.

Then a dangerously fast car (not my choice) out to the airport and back to London, for an early start on Thursday morning, when I did a panel session for the Social Stock Exchange in the Dutch Hall in the City. Lovely building and great conference venue. Panel moderated by Dorothy Maxwell and included people like Nick Robins (who I worked with some 20 years ago, currently with UNEP), Daniela Saltzman of the Generation Foundation, Tomás Carruthers (CEO, Social Stock Exchange) and Iain Richards (head of responsible investment, Columbia Threadneedle Investments).

Thence to Paddington for the train to Bristol, European Green City of the Year, 2015, where I was chairing two panel sessions at their business summit. My panel featured Craig Sams (co-founder of firms like Whole Earth Foods and Green & Black’s, and now involved in a locally based biochar firm, Carbon Gold), Nina Skorupska (CEO of the Renewable Energy Association) and Frits Verheij (DNV’s director of Smart Green Cities).

We ran the session twice, then attended a session featuring Sir Randolph Fiennes (highly polished, but it’s a wonder he’s still alive). Called on by Jon Dee to do a filmed TV panel discussion for Sky News in Australia, then a feedback session on the day’s sessions, where I was on stage with Bristol Mayor George Ferguson.

He repeated the thought that had struck me in an earlier discussion session after the première of Danny Boyle’s new Steve Jobs film last Sunday – that just as Jobs encouraged the world to ‘Think Different,’ we should encourage the world to ‘Think Bristol.’ I can see why it appeared!

Next a dinner ahead of the following day’s City Leadership Summit, featuring a wonderful talk from Tim Smit of The Eden Project. He spotted me working ahead of that, partly because the noise in the bar was so intense, and noted that I was one of the hardest-working people he knew.

A case of the pot and kettle, I think.

Then on Friday morning, I followed George Ferguson onto the stage to do a keynote based on the theme of a GreenBiz blog I did a while back, encouraging CEOs and Mayors to work together to address climate change.

The fourth speech in the series was by Lord Rees, the Royal Astronomer. First time I had a chance to talk to him properly. He gave me a personalised copy of his book Our Final Century, inserting by hand the question-mark after the title that he says his UK publishers chose to omit.

And then, finally, onto the train back to Paddington, enjoying the sight of the Uffington Horse along the way. Worked on a background note for Covestro ahead of a call with them on Monday. A sense of wonder as Sam and I talked at a Paddington café, with a wayward pigeon tearing at left-over food, that I had made it through the week.

It’s odd what you can learn about your parents later in life. Talking to my mother, Pat, this morning, I discovered a new wrinkle in a story about my father, Tim, which I thought I knew quite well. It started, at least for me, when I was called in by the headmistress at prep school to be told that Tim had been involved a severe car crash.

It was the early 1960s and he had been driving at 100 mph, as was his wont, somewhere in  the West Country. In his Rover 3-litre, he managed to avoid a lorry that lumbered out in front of him, no doubt misjudging the speed of the oncoming car. Not everyone drives like ex-Battle of Britain pilots.

But then Tim over-steered and his rear end caught an oncoming white van, which was full of china. The noise can be imagined. He was thrown clear of the car (no seat belts in those days) and it surged ahead into a different country, smashing through a field gate and releasing a number of horses along the highway.

Taken to hospital, he apparently drove the nursing staff mad – they said he had been climbing the walls. One of the medical staff asked Pat if Tim’s skull was normally shaped that way and, somewhat later, after he had been discharged, it turned out that he had a 9-inch crack in his skull. So back to hospital.

I got to all that this morning when I asked Pat when this hyperactive man of ours had started to take afternoon rests, something I like to do at the weekend. Apparently it was after that crash. He had been prescribed rest – and found he rather liked it.

What I hadn’t know was that at the time of the crash he had a loaded Browning automatic, which he had worn constantly for self defence when we were in Cyprus in the late 1950s, stashed away in the car’s glove department. Pat told me that it was illegal, Tim  retorted that he had a licence.

Then Pat added another piece of in formation I hadn’t heard. When Tim was in Russia during the WWII, teaching the Russians to fly Hurricanes, he was known as ‘Krupps,’ because he always wore his own gun, that he had bought for the purpose.

One lives, sometimes, and learns, sometimes.