Journal

Gaia, Elaine and I went across to see the new Temperate House, which is wonderfully done, though plants need to grow on a bit. Then across to the Palm House and Lily House, before lunch by the lake. A joy.

Blown away on Monday by the first episode of The Innocents, the new Netflix series co-written by our daughter Hania and Simon Duric. Launched today. We attended the premiere at the Mayfair Curzon. Here’s a piece by Hania from the Sunday Times Magazine last week – and here’s a review from the New York Times. Go, June and Harry! And brilliantly well done to the entire team!

Last night marked the formal end to our first decade at Volans, the actual milestone having been 1 April, and the end of a face-to-face Board meeting involving the likes of Paul Bunje (former Chief Scientist at the XPRIZE Foundation and now co-founder of Conservation X Labs), Kavita Prakash-Mani (Global Markets Lead at WWF International), Sam Lakha and Geoff Lye.

One sad note was Louise Kjellerup Roper’s absence in Copenhagen, following the sudden death of her mother.

In the evening, I also mentioned the deaths of Richard Northcote, whose friend and former CEO Patrick Thomas spoke last night, and Tessa Tennant – with Tom Burke and Mark Campanale in the room, both of whom I had last seen at the lifetime achievement celebration event for Tessa a week or so before she died.

Also heard from long-standing friend Steve Warshal of death of another key figure from the environmental movement, though since it’s not yet mentioned on his Wikipedia site or anywhere else, I’ll not mention him by name here.

Despite the intimations of mortality, over 100 of us celebrated the first 10 years of Volans at the Wellcome Collection.

The ‘cabaret’, performed from a red-carpeted staircase, featured Geoff, Clover Hogan (whose camera took the image above), former Covestro CEO Patrick Thomas, Kavita and Paul. Went on twice as long as I had planned, and any fault was mine as the compère, but you could have heard a pin drop throughout the session.

Interesting to see several people in the above image holding copies of our new OPEN brochure, which we have been working on in recent weeks – featuring our emerging thinking around the “locked-in syndrome” our species is now suffering from. And with one of the four keys spotlighted for unlocking mindsets being the need to shift the focus from cleaning ‘fish’ (e.g. corporations) to ‘oceans’ (e.g. markets).

And below is the image I conjured at the beginning of my introduction to the evening, the photograph originating from the first visit I made with Yinka (Awoyinka) to see the Wellcome Collection Reading Room, where we held the event.

I love the upside down Antony Gormley figure, coupled with the signage, ‘Somewhere in Between’. Between worlds, between geological epochs, between our first ten years and whatever comes next. But our Board meeting over the past couple of days suggests that there could be some great things ahead …

Sideswiped by Louise (Kjellerup Roper) having to head off to Copenhagen to look after her dying mother, and then deal with the aftermath, I found myself having to pick up the threads with the Board meeting and 10th anniversary event.

That said, and though everyone else was responsible for the outcomes, both the Board meeting at the Bedford Hotel and the party at the Wellcome Collection Reading Room were, well, runaway successes.

Particularly wonderful to see two of our Board members who had flown in from the US, Paul Bunje of the XPRIZE Foundation and Conservation X Labs from the West Coast (LA), and Kavita Prakash-Mani, Global Markets Lead for WWF International from the East Coast (NYC).

More details in my 25 July entry.

There are few colleagues I have felt as close an affection for as Richard Northcote, who I first came across at ICI Polyurethanes in the 1990s, then worked with at Bayer MaterialScience and then at Covestro, where he was latterly Chief Sustainability Officer.

Flew to Glasgow yesterday with his former Covestro colleagues Rachel Owen and Patrick Thomas, for his funeral. his was held at the Holmsford Bridge Crematorium, Dreghorn, Irvine, and was one of the most glorious funerals I have taken part in.

Profoundly impressed by his family, his wife Meabh, his sons Alex and Callum, and his daughters Catriona and Roisin.

Aiming to fly back to Heathrow in the evening, Rachel, Patrick and I had to leave the reception early, only to have the flight cancelled out from under us – after a fire alert at the Heathrow control tower.

Queued for hours, but managed to get beds in a nearby hotel – and then caught an early flight back to London City.

Magic moment was standing on the beach, overlooking Arran, watching two seals swimming leisurely by. The grief is less pacific, coming in waves.