Elaine and Hania went this week to Olafur Eliasson’s In Real Life exhibition at the Tate Modern. One highlight is the 39-metre long fog exhibit, Din blinde passager (Your blind passenger) where you can see about 1.5 metres ahead. The fog is made from non-toxic polls, a sweetener often used in food production. One question Eliasson asks is: Can artistic endeavour help mitigate the impact global warming? We must hope so.
The manuscript of my new book, Green Swans, went off to the publishers a few days after we held the Green Swan Day event at the Barnes Wetland Centre. Can’t exactly say I have been walking on air since, but it has certainly been a considerable relief – and the publishers seem delighted. Now for several months of editing and getting the book designed and set.
One book I quote from in Green Swans is James Lovelock’s latest, Novacene. Read it before attending Jim’s 100th birthday party in The Orangery at Blenheim Palace, on Friday, July 26. It really is stunning – and highly engaging. I found myself laughing out loud at least once.
As we all trooped out in bright sunshine for a massive group photograph on the steps of the Palace, I found myself walking alongside someone I knew I recognised, but couldn’t quite place. Stewart Brand. One of my long-standing heroes, ever since I bought and read all the Whole Earth Catalogs – throughout their life cycle. He was there with his wife, Ryan Phelan, and he told me as we walked into the firing line that he and I had been seated next to each other at lunch. Joy – and what a wonderful conversation!
Have since been communicating with Ryan about her work at Revive & Restore. I am particularly interested in their work on ocean genomics (where I was struck by the Big Ideas proposed for the use of applied biotechnology) and on saving the horseshoe crab.
Then a trip across to Hill House, Little Rissington, to see my ailing mother and her carers, my siblings. She is still there, in part, but it is like talking to a still occasionally lively and funny person through a small letterbox. God only knows what is going to happen when the Baby Boomers hit the same sort of age. I heard from a friend this week that his sister-in-law had opted to have her life ended – and I suspect assisted dying is going to become a rapid growth industry before too long.
After Hill House, I drive back to London for the rest of the weekend, before heading off by train on the Monday to Exeter University for the 3-day (29-31 July) event on ‘The Future of Systems Thinking‘, where I met all sorts of extraordinary people – and caught up with old friends, like Tim Smit and Professor Tim O’Riordan. Fascinating interview of Jim Lovelock by GSI’s Tim Lenton.
Other events in July included a 2-3 day trip to Germany with the team for a deep immersion exercise with Covestro (July 15-16), a speech at the Royal College of Art on the 18th (see image below), a birthday party for Cathy Runciman of Atlas of the Future (20th), a speech for the Academy of Sustainable Innovation at Imperial College (see image below), and visits to Somerset House from people like Rebecca Mills (who I first encountered in the early days of The B Team, see image below), Anna Swaithes (Head of Responsible Business, Government Inclusive Economy Unit) and Ben Yeoh of RBC.
But in the midst of all this came the unimaginable news that Ben Goldsmith’s eldest daughter, Iris, had been killed in a all-terrain vehicle accident. Every time we have walked across Barnes Common since there has been a reminder (as if a reminder were needed) in the form of the impromptu shrine around one of my favourite plane trees (see below, though it has evolved since). I sent Ben a note immediately I heard. His heartbroken reply still rattles around my brain. Truly, there are no words for such times.
Here are a few of the things that happened in the last 5-6 weeks, as I rocketed towards and beyond my 70th birthday.
We hosted a meeting of Covestro people at Somerset House on 22 May; I attended the first meeting of a new Environmental Committee for the Royal Household at Buckingham Palace on 31 May; flew to Munich and Dresden for a session with the board of Melitta; took part in the latest meeting of the WWF Council of Ambassadors on 5 June; flew to Barcelona with Elaine on 6 June to speak at an Atlas of the Future conference, where one of the things I did was chair a session with two young activists each from Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future; took part in the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership’s 30th anniversary event at Buckingham Palace on 13 June; took the Eurostar to Paris to speak at a Conference Board convening of Chief Economists; then took the ICE train to Brussels to speak at an Amfori event, where I was delighted to speak alongside Nadya Zhexembayeva; then I summed up a UN Global Compact conference at Aviva Investors’ HQ on 24 June, the day after my birthday, covered elsewhere; then I spoke at a Lloyds Banking Group board session at Brocket Hall on 27-28 June; then I sent off the new Green Swans book to the publishers on 1 July; we did our first Imaginarium event for The Body Shop International on 3-4 July; I spoke at the Climate Innovation Forum on 3 July, where I handed over to Anna Taylor, school climate activist – and then had the worst migraine in 30 years, trying to talk to Nik Gowing and largely failing; and then on 6 June a birthday lunch for the girls at Spring.
And here are a few images from those events and trips:
June has disappeared in a blur of activity: finishing the book, organising my 70th birthday celebration and travelling – to places as various as Brussels, Paris and Brocket Hall. But the highlight, beyond question, was Green Swan Day on 23 June.
Over time, it had morphed and mutated, ultimately becoming an event linked to the Green Swan theme of the book, hence Green Swan Day. Carlo and Conor of Twist Creative a great help in getting the visuals together.
On the day, we had around 110 people on 10 tables at the WWT Barnes Wetland Centre, chosen because it symbolises regeneration and because of the links with Sir Peter Scott, whose statue stands outside, surrounded by swans.
Gaia had done some extraordinary flower arrangements, with swan’s nests – complete with wooden eggs – for each table.
All around, the Atlas of the Future film crew interviewed some 15 participants for the short Green Swan documentary we are planning to release later in the year, to trail the book. Stonkingly hot, particularly in The Observatory, where Nyetimber (a rare upside of climate change) was served during the reception.
We were over capacity, a heady mix of family, friends and colleagues, literally from around the world. Over lunch in the Water’s Edge room, we had four speeches at different points in the proceedings: my intro, then Andrew Kerr (Chairman of the Sustainable Eel Group), Tanya Steele (CEO, WWF UK) and Sir Tim Smit (Founder, The Eden Project). Fabulous speeches, though Tim’s was for the ages.
After the event wound down, around 17.00, a line of sherpas wound home, including Tim, with boxes of flowers, wines, cards and gifts – despite the ‘no gifts’ policy. The stand-out gift was the Egg, created specially by ceramicist Judith Davies, who Hania knew – a stunning gift from her, Gaia and Elaine.
We drove across yesterday from Lower Slaughter, via Hill House, to Frampton on Severn. In the evening, we drove along the peninsula defined by the river to what turned out to be an old Roman fording site, at the end of a long tell-tale straight road. We were headed to The Old Passage Inn, which was delightful, but first took a walk along the river bank.
Today, we headed across to WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre, where I was due to give a talk as part of a ‘Let’s Write A Different Story’; session organised by WWF (sic). I was invited as a WWF-UK Ambassador, speaking alongside Maria Dyson (Legacy Support Manager at WWF-UK), Emma Keller (WWF-UK’s Head of Food Commodities) and Lauren Wiseman (Environmental Manager, WWF UK).
Only face I really knew in the audience was Andrew Kerr, Chairman of the Sustainable Eel Group, who I had invited along because he lives nearby. The session went very well indeed, with our various presentations linking together very nicely – and the Q&A period could have gone on a lot longer.
As we walked around the wetlands later , we got lots of nice comments from WWF-UK supporters who had taken part. Then back to London, via a ferocious jam around a pile-up on the M4. A reminder, if any were needed, of just how lucky that I need to drive so little.
A wonderfully relaxing few days staying with some of our longest-standing friends, Jane and Glyn Davenport, in Lower Slaughter. Either side of my father Tim’s memorial service. Trout in the stream outside their front door. Lambs gambolling wildly in the fields nearby. An island of calm in a world in turmoil.
One of Tim’s grandchildren, Rory Chambers, is a photographer – and here are some of the images he took during the event:
I learned many things from my father, Tim. But the last lesson was not to have a funeral – but instead to let the dust settle and then have a wonderful memorial service. In his case, it was a service conducted by The Venerable Ray Pentland CB, Honorary Chaplain to the Battle of Britain Fighter Association. He did the service with a twinkle in his eye and some delightful situational humour. Perfect. Tim would have loved it.
Representing HRH The Prince of Wales and the Chief of Air Staff was Air Vice Marshal Simon Ellard, Air Officer Commanding No 38 Group. The honour guard bore the Standard of No 1 Squadron, with which Tim was serving when he was shot down in August 1940.
And representing his later time in Russia were nine nonogeneraian Russian veterans of the ‘Great Patriotic War’, a time when the Soviet Union was our ally – and Tim went around to Murmansk, both as a CAM shipfighter pilot and to teach the Russians to fly Hurricanes. And fly with them. The photo on the Order of Service dates back to that time.
Despite ongoing tensions with Vladimir Putin, these extraordinary people were spontaneously applauded into the church, which was dressed with glorious floral arrays by our daughter Gaia.
Rather than have one eulogy, we offered a 5-part tribute, with me kicking off, then Gray, then Tessa (who accompanied Tim on so many of his diplomatic adventures over the years, notably the trip to Russia with Princess Anne), then Lydia Elkington (Gray’s daughter) and finally Gil Chambers (Tessa’s oldest son), reading one of Caroline’s poems, this one about Tim’s wife of 70-plus years, Pat.
This was followed by an appreciation of Tim and his generation of Battle of Britain pilots by Dilip Sarkar, who has published extensively on the period, by Churchill’s account our finest hour.
Our daughter Hania later added a further brilliant facet to our collective portrayal during the reception in the garden of Cottor’s Barn, next door to Hill House, where the Chambers have periodically roosted for many years. She told one of the defining stories of Tim’s life as a father, grandfather and then, with Hania and Jake’s son Gene, great-grandfather. He taught many of us to drive, in the old Landrover up on Little Rissington airfield – and he taught us to shoot, shotguns, air rifles, bows and arrows. When it came to teaching Gaia to shoot a rifle, he chose to do so in his huge greenhouse out behind the barn.
Gaia: “What if I miss?” Tim: “Don’t!“
The music included Elegy on the RAF March, two hymns (Morning has Brokenand Lord of all Hopefulness), a wonderful a cappella rendering, with trumpet interlude, by Gaia’s husband Paul Eros of When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano(Tim loved vocal groups like The Ink Spots and The Mills Brothers), The Last Postand Reveille played by the Royal Air Force Trumpeter, and then – playing us out of the church – Vera Lynn singing Wish Me Luck. That one really brought tears to my eyes.
But the unquestioned highlight of the Salute was the flypast by a Hurricane Mk 1, R4118 UP-W, flown by Stu Goldspink. This is the only Hurricane from the Battle of Britain that is still airborne today. He flew it across from Duxford, Cambridgeshire. Our huge thanks go to James Brown and David ‘Rats’ Ratcliffe for making that possible. The aircraft left with a final waggle of its wings as it headed back east, the Merlin engine fading into the distance as we headed into the church.
A worthy, moving and yet playful celebration of the most important man in my life – and, I suspect, in those of a fair few others.
[With huge thanks to cousin Toby Adamson, Pat’s nephew, for many of the photographs used here, and to Hill House neighbour Nick Cole, Church Warden at St Peter’s Church, for so deftly smoothing our way.]
