Search Results for: Tim elkington

Our autumn campaign has taken off with a bit of a bang. But, first, Elaine and I went across to a wonderful gathering on Thursday 12th at CDP to discuss next stages with fund-raising for the proposed Amulet memorial to Tessa Tennant in the City of London.

And the following day, Friday 13th, we went across to the Kochs (the good ones, not the bad ones), just the other side of Barnes Pond, to hear Mike Koch talk about his new book on his life as a wildlife vet in Africa. Called: Through My Eyes. Self-published and he’s hard to find on the internet, but a glorious, landmark publication.

At the weekend, while we were walking across Barnes Common, we watched as the wind stirred the ribbons on the plane tree that has been re-purposed as a memorial to Iris Goldsmith. Normally such memorials make me uneasy, including the vast mountains of plastic-wrapped flowers outside Kensington Palace when Princess Diana died, but in this case the effect is wonderful. A wind-powered tribute. Rather as if people are talking all around, with the ribbons picking up the zephyrs.

Then across to Copenhagen on Monday to speak at Dansk Industry (Confederation of Danish Industry)’s annual business summit, this time on the theme of the Green Transition. The event was attended by the country’s new Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, who I found impressive; the Crown Princes and Princesses of Denmark and Sweden; and some 1,300 CEOs and business leaders. Was told by several people that my speeches here in February helped put wind in the country’s sails.

The scale of what Denmark now aims to do collectively is breath-taking. To reduce carbon emissions by 70% below 1990 levels by 2030. Various speakers admitted they didn’t yet know how to achieve this, but the level of ambition is admirable and encouraging.

In my speech, I linked one of Denmark’s favourite sons, Hans Christian Andersen, to my evolving theme of Black Swans, Ugly Ducklings and Green Swans. As a test-run for the book, due to launch in January 2020, it seemed to go very well.

Then, on Wednesday 18th, after I flew in from Copenhagen, Louise (Kjellerup Roper) and I went across to the Royal Society to listen to Bill McDonough at an event hosted by Tim Smit and the Eden Project. Glorious meeting of the tribes, though at times uncomfortably warm.

And ringing around my head all week have been the words on the yellow banner wrapped around the September 18th edition of The Financial Times, shown below. I first caught sight of it as I walked into the Copenhagen airport lounge – and my immediate reaction was that it was one of those milestone moments when you actually see the world starting to tilt and pivot.

Our father Tim died yesterday morning, aged 98. He was surrounded by loved ones, including our mother, Pat (see below).

I, sadly, was in Copenhagen, doing three speeches in one day. For decades I have travelled with the sense that one or both of my parents would die while I was travelling.

Here is a picture of the ensign flying at half-mast at the Capel-le-Ferne Battle of Britain memorial site over a replica of Geoffrey Page’s Hurricane.

More on this before too long, but a big tree has fallen in our forest. [And the BBC Radio 4 item picking up on this quote is some 13 minutes into this link.]

Here is one of the bigger stories from his extraordinary life.

And here is the love of his life:

ADDENDUM

Since this post, obituaries have appeared in many places, including The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Daily Express. I was happy that the Express used this quote from me:

Speaking from Denmark his son John last night told the Daily Express: “My father grew up in a different world. An only child, sent away to school when he was six, he jumped at joining the RAF shortly before the war. He would later stress that, while he was one of The Few, they in turn were supported by The Many. The ground crew, radar plotters, the merchantmen and tanker crews running the gauntlet of the U-boat wolf-packs. And, critically, the ordinary Britons who endured the Blitz.

“In recent years, he was an extraordinary ambassador for his generation – indeed there has been an amazing outpouring of gratitude over the internet since his death was announced and the RAF ensign went to half-mast at the Battle of Britain memorial.”

Flew in from London today to Köln for the 8th International Conference on Sustainability & Responsibility, themed around ‘Responsible Leadership in Times of Transformation’.

My session yesterday involved a debate on our recall of the Triple Bottom Line, with challenges from René Schmidpeter of the Cologne Business School. Very energetic audience participation.

A high point of the event was when UN Global Compact co-founder Georg Kell told me from the stage that I had been a great inspiration to him, though he told me later in the day that when I first challenged him early on his role as head of the Compact he was tempted to think of me as an “arrogant bastard”.

The Lifetime Achievement Ward went to Professor Robert Eccles of Harvard and now the Saïd Business School. Also a member of the Volans Advisory Board, as it happens.

In the evening, it was profoundly moving to hear from the city’s mayor, Henriette Reker. The subject of an assassination attempt in October 2015, she has been a brave champion of refugee rights.

Reminded me of talking to a Syrian refugee at the Paretz event, who had come to Berlin three years ago – and found the transition immensely tough. Mayor Reker is a symbol of the best of humankind when faced with the twin challenges of forced migration and acculturation.

She was followed by an extraordinary dance troupe, apparently one of 30 in the city, which spend much of the year practising for the annual carnival. Amazing energy and gymnastics. Uplifting, in every sense.

For most people, a “ticker” has to do with clocks, hearts or bombs. But for anyone familiar with stock market capitalism, the term suggests the unique code assigned to each security traded on a given stock market — for example, AAPL for Apple Inc., BAC for Bank of America, F for the Ford Motor Company.

My modest proposal is for a secondary ticker to be applied by governments and stock exchanges to all companies vulnerable to risks associated with so-called “wicked” problems. And the obvious ticker symbol, whether on the Wall Street, London or Shanghai stock exchanges, would be WCKD.

For more, see GreenBiz, here.

Rough-and-ready scoops of the BBC Breakfast Programme’s coverage this morning of the portrait being done of several of the precariously few surviving pilots from the Battle Britain.

Artist is Jeremy Houghton – and the main pilot featured in the 3.52 minute sequence is my father Tim Elkington. Part of a sequence that are being worked together, but I think this captures the man today wonderfully well.

As Tim says in the interview, this should be less about the pilots and more about the RAF. And, as it happens, I’m part-way through The Birth of the RAF, 1918 by Richard Overy, with Patrick Bishop’s Air Force Blue: The RAF in World War Two – Spearhead of Victory in my to-read stack.