Journal

Across this evening from Somerset House, with Elaine and in intense rain, to Hyde Park and the Serpentine Gallery. The invitation was to see the Serpentine’s ‘Back To Earth‘ exhibition, then to speak at Berenberg Bank’s first major event for clients for their wealth management services. Confess I liked the theme of the exhibition – ‘how can art respond to the climate emergency?’ – better than the execution.

Next, we progressed from the northern gallery to the southern, marvelling at a green woodpecker’s back luminous in the setting sun as it swooped up into one of a ride of great trees. Then, as we drank English champagne and moved into the Black Chapel, the rain returned with serious intent. In the darkness inside the chapel, cross-cut by spotlights playing on the panel, composed of Richard Brass of Berenberg, Baroness Bryony Worthington and Gabrielle Walker of Valence Solutions.

Richard did a wonderfully moving kick-off, referencing the Queen’s death earlier in the day, and then the panel proper began Andy all accounts, went very well. As the rain sluiced down outside, and also streamed through the Pantheon-like hole in the roof of the Black chapel, cross-cut by the arc lights, all sorts of interesting people – and of all ages – came up to talk. A day I think we will all remember for a very long time.

Either I’d do a book on it, or a few paras – so let’s try the second option. Left on Monday for São Paulo via British Airways to keynote the Sebrae Endear Summit. Sebrae supports micro and small-scale enterprises across the country – and sustainability is becoming a central theme for them, alongside ESG.

Greeted by people like their CEO Carlos Mellos and Bruno Quick, their technical director, but spent most time with Débora Targino Teixeira, Sebrae’s institutional and international affairs coordinator. Great fun – and made the whole process much easier.

Once again, blown away by the affection and support for what we do – and the images shown above are only a sample of the scores of selfies and group shots people insisted we take.

On the flights, I finished Venomous Lumpsucker, by Ned Beauman, very-close-to-the-bone funny, and also began to read Bella Lack’s immensely engaging – and energising – book Children of the Anthropocene and, belatedly, Isabella Tree’s glorious Wilding.

The elephant in the airport poster provided an appropriate end note.

Ever since my Bryanston School days, I have loved hill forts like Hambledon and Hod Hill, where we would often repair back in the day, typically with a flagon or two of local cider. All of which built on a love of castles honed in places like Cyprus in the 1950s.

Happily, Dorset and its environs are rather well populated with hill forts – and today we (Julia Hailes, her husband Jamie Macdonald, Elaine and I) swarmed up one I had never swarmed up before, Eggardon Hill. A favourite of Julia’s. For a slightly more detailed account of the history, here’s Wikipedia‘s minimally more detailed version.

Just back from a wonderful few days with Julia Hailes and her husband Jamie Macdonald at Hooke Farm, after our time with Bryanston School (30 June entry) and Kingcombe National Nature Reserve (1 July entry).

It’s never easy to capture adventures in wonderlands, but here are some images spotlighting some elements of what happened when we stepped away from Bryanston, in a Tesla X, and through the looking glass that is the front gate of Hooke Farm. For more on what goes on there, I suggest visiting Julia’s website and blog.

Although I have long been a believer in serendipity, it rarely acts as full force as it did today. On the second day of the Bryanston Green Conference, Elaine and I were allowed to duck out and were lucky enough to be gifted a car for the day by Julia (Hailes) and her husband Jamie (Macdonald).

So we drove across to Kingcombe, in nearby Toller Porcorum, “the farm that time forgot.” This is an extraordinary conservation reserve I have known about as long ago as 1986, when I was still a director of the Earthlife Foundation, alongside the original (in every sense) co-founders, Nigel Tuersley and Phil Agland – which, incidentally, is where and when I first met Julia.

Elaine and I were simply expecting to wander around a bit, but were somewhat disappointed to find a private event flagged as we arrived. The site would close shortly. But we parked anyway, went in – and discovered we could have a coffee (and cheese-and-chive scone) before the large group of people attending the event arrived back from their circumnavigation of the reserve.

As we sat and talked, Brian Bleese, the CEO of the Dorset Wildlife Trust, came up to chat. Since neither of us had a clue who the other was, this was total serendipity. then, as we did so, I mentioned the Earthlife connection, where the foundation had toyed with bidding for the farm when it came onto the market back in the 1980s. Brian, pretty much in passing, noted that one of the people there for the impending event was Peter Scupholme, who I had worked with at BP back in the 1990s.

As one connection followed another, Brian invited us to stay for the lunch and event, designed to celebrate the site’s designation as a National Nature Reserve. We did, took a walk around the site, along the River Hooke, caught up with Peter, met a series of people who had run or guided the Dorset Wildlife Trust over time (including DWT Trustees Jim White (see his account of the Kingcombe story here), Tony Bates, Professor Mark Kibblewhite and Jo Davies, who now chairs the Trust), and signed up as members (we are already members of the London Wildlife Trust).