The New Year starts with a new role, as Adult Care Convenor for Derbyshire UNISON. For good measure I also take on the social media role and get the interactions up from four a day to several thousand a month.
The quiet start to the year does give me a chance to enjoy the Derbyshire countryside in winter. Mostly it is wet and overcast, but some days are clear and cold.
Greenpeace though has plans for me and I'm down in London at the weekend taking acting lessons ready for the first action of the year, appropriately named Mulled Wine. I have to get into character as the city wide boy who has just made a pile out and doesn't care about the planet.
February
Bright and early on the first morning of the month Mulled Wine takes place. We arrive outside Shell's HQ, behind the London Eye, wiht our burning sign and act out our roles of rich psychopaths celebrating making a packet out of burning the planet. On the third take I get a shower of (alcohol free) champagne. It all goes well and the pictures are soon out on the wires. The Daily Mail uses one in a straight article about Shell that doesn't mention Greenpeace.
I'm cleaned up and debriefed in time to get to Westminster Magistrates Court where my friend Jeff is up before the beak along with Greta Thunberg. Phil of the Arctic is there too. I couldn't stay for the verdict, but they all get off in one of the first tests of the new Tory anti-protest legislation.
March
We've been campaigning against the insurance industry in Manchester for a while, and this year Extinction Rebellion came on board and we organised a big demo against four international companies who are insuring fossil fuel projects.
Fresh from my performance at Shell I am enlisted as the corporate stuffed suit with a conscience who has some doubts about where the money is going. The weather is mostly kind to us and XR can certainly put on a good show. It was great political theatre.
Greenpeace also made use of me in March. They assembled a mock graveyard outside parliament to highlight the people who die each year due to fuel poverty. As usual with Greenpeace operations it was meticulously planned, and starts very early in the morning. However, they failed to account for a hire van breaking down. I was only there to carry the props, but we ended up having to improvise rather more than was planned.
We still managed to get the display in place before the parliamentarians dropped by. I ended up photo bombing Natalie Bennett. I meet the one and only Steve Howe, and he photobombs GB News who are filming something completely different.
The downside of the police not being bothered by us is that we have to clear everything away ourselves. However, we are a dedicated team and manage to squeeze two vans loads of tat into one to get it all back to the warehouse.
April
In April 2024 it is ten years since the Barton Moss anti-fracking campaign came to an end. It was a minor episode in the campaign that drove the frackers out of the UK. The campaign began in West Sussex and ended in Lancashire, but we did our bit. The cmpaigners who won at Preston New Road did their first actions at Barton Moss, and the councillors who voted against fracking did so after seeing us on TV. Greater Manchester mayor first learnt about shale gas from us, and he then went on to a make Manchester a green city.
With IGas gone the Moss has been returned to the birds, so a few of the veterans go for a nature walk around it. Obsever Ethical Award Winner Anne Power is able to join us, which was great, but where did the last ten years go?
Greenpeace has an away day for their activists in April, as we've haven't really had a big get together since COVID. It was a fairly laid back affair. We were up in the Lake District near Grassmere in wonderful countryside. I climb Loughrigg fell and went for an early morning swim in the tarn.
My fire lighting skills are called into action and I light the fire we sit round in the evening. There's a worry we might have locked ourselves out of the Youth Hostel, but if that had happened we probably had the skills to get back in again.
Mozza talked about his time in Reclaim the Streets, and I chip in with my stories from that time. It's great, but in the feedback when we're leaving someone says they enjoyed 'hearing stories from the elders'. I guess I am one of them now.
May
It's back to campaigning against insurance companies with XR in May. The industry is having its big gathering in Manchester again, and this time we put on a proper show.
There is a packed program of events running all day. We get the delegates as they go into GMex, and a number come out again later to watch us. I'm back in character as the nice stuffed suit again, but we're all somewhat overpowered by the Red Rebels.
I'm also on press liaison duties, so I run around doing interviews once I've stopped performing. The insurance industry press appears to have noticed us and we get some decent coverage.
June
June ended up being a busy month. First, UNISON sent me to Brighton for their annual conference. The event showcased the best and worst of UNISON. We're a passionate, diverse group of people dedicated to campaigning for workers rights, but we spending a lot of time arguing about points of order.
There's some serious business to attend to though, as there's a motion to affiliate with the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign. This is a solid left-wing group backed by John McDonnell and some big trade unions, but the tankies mobilise in force against the motion. I take my place in the line ready to speak, but the vote is called before I do. We win, and it isn't even close really.
I also got to walk in the Downs and visit Eastbourne Greenpeace, and on the way back home I passed through London at the same time as the March for Nature. It was very spectacular, and completely ignored by the press. It was a lot of fun, but not as much fun as where I went the week after: the Glastonbury Festival.
Greenpeace again had me as a team leader, and I have a great bunch of people working for me. There was no major band I was hoping to see, but that was fine. Instead, I discovered new bands. Lambrini Girls were the find of the festival. Idles were excellent and Skindred were something. I also discovered Coldplay aren't boring live.
Best of all I was stewarding on the Greenpeace field when we had a celebrity guest. It turned out to be Simon Pegg and I literally lost the power of speech. All I could manage was a Vulcan speech sign, which he returned. I'm not worthy! We also had Jane Goodall drop by the stage, but she's never been into space.
July
And then there was a General Election and we finally got rid of the Tories. Although probably the biggest victory for the environment in the UK this year, I didn't really have anything to do with it, the Labour Party having banned me as a dangerous radical. I enjoy the night though and stay up for to see Rees-Mogg lose his seat.
The rest of the month is mostly spent on holiday, including the Leicester Astrophysics class of 1988 who rented a tipi and a yurt in Lincolnshire for a weekend of drinking, talking bollocks and culture.
Then, at the end of the month, there are some horrific murders in the town of Southport where I grew up, followed by a riot.
August
And then just like that the Far Right was back.
August was an unusual month. The Far Right revival seemingly came out of nowhere, although actually it came out of social media, especially Twitter/X.
In response, the anti-fascists took to the streets. They were an interesting bunch. The usual suspects of Stand Up To Racism and the various Manchester green groups were there, as were lots of perfectly ordinary people. What was missing was pretty much every political party except the Greens. I was able to attend officially as UNISON, and some other unions were there too, but almost no other organised groups. Even UNISON wasn't all there, as when I tried to organise a rally in Buxton pressure was applied from above and it was cancelled.
We outnumbered the fascists on every occasion and only at the first protest in Manchester were the Far Right present in enough numbers to give them confidence to have a go at us. Greater Manchester Police were onto it before anyone did me any harm, but several hours after we'd left drunken fascists trashed a supermarket in Piccadilly Gardens. In some ways I was lucky. Colleagues went to a counter demonstration in Rotherham and encountered hate like they'd never seen before.
Thanks to Stand Up To Racism organising the counter-protests, and the courts throwing the book at the rioters, it all died down. However, the at which the Far Right organised via social media, the failure of most parts of civil society to take a stand, and the complete lack of a subsequent debate about how so many people with no history of Far Right involvement had been weaponised by the tabloid media suggests serious problems for the future.
September
Greenpeace had another job for me this month. The campaign against single use plastic has been going on for a while, and I'd done some covert research last year by planting bugging devices in recycling bins which became a serious piece of research.
The worst problem are in the Global South, where many products are produced in disposable sachets that clog up water sources and eventually oceans. The global corporation Unilever produces more than anybody else, and also plans to lead the industry delegation at the negotiations for a Global Plastic Treaty later in the year. They also produce Dove, a product with a very well-crafted public image.
They were therefore the obvious target for Greenpeace UK's biggest action of the year. In the early hours of the morning I was at the wheel of an (electric) van that was part of an eight-vehicle convoy that hit their offices before dawn. In a well drilled manoeuvre, lock-on barrels were deployed at each of the buildings dozen or so entrances, whilst two ladder teams - one led by me - helped the climbers onto a ledge form where they could deploy their 30kg banner.
It all went like clockwork, which meant I was back in Islington for an organic vegan breakfast. The lock-on teams meanwhile endured twelve hours outside in the cold, and then 24 hours in police custody. I did my best to support them by ferrying them supplies in Greenpeace's other electric vehicles, but it wasn't an even division of labour. It was an effective action though, and Unilever were very keen to negotiate with Greenpeace afterwards.
October
Meanwhile I continued with the day job. Derbyshire County Council, which only a couple of years ago was boasting about how low its council tax was, had got itself into a bit of financial difficulty. They drafted in an ex-Brigadier for advice and responded with a swath of cuts. Having virtually wiped out its own Sure Start Centres it moved on to Adult Care, with plans to close or sell day centres and care homes.
Finally, I get to use my campaigning experience at work. We organised public meetings, sat down with the management, met with MPs, put out press releases and I showed the branch how to use social media. With the decision to be made in November we had a final push in October with a series of rallies across the county. People turned up and we attracted press attention. Soon we would find out if it had worked.
November
So, on 6 November the cabinet papers were printed. And we'd won. Sort of. The council had completely redrafted its plans for older persons care and three day centres and three care homes that had been at risk were saved. It had been a lot of hard work, and two members of our organising committee had lost their own jobs in the process, but we'd won something, which Derbyshire UNISON hadn't done for a while. It turns out I do have some transferable skills after all.
The same day I am elected Branch Secretary of Derbyshire UNISON.
We organised a demostration at County Hall for the actual decision, and I get my mug on TV again.
December
And so the year drew to a close. The UK was hit by storms Bert and Daragh, but I managed to make my way to London for a UNISON Social Work seminar regardless.
There was one last gig for Greenpeace, and it was at a gig. Jacob Collier allowed Greenpeace to ship him to Svalbard to play his piano, and in return we could have stalls at his concerts. People signed postcards to stop Deep Sea Mining, then I saw him play. Not really my taste.
The next day was The Greater Manchester Green Summit. I've been to all of them and it was great to see Andy Burnham's vision progressing.
So, that was 2024. A year of extreme weather and extreme politics. We didn't get a Global Plastics Treaty, but there wasn't a deal to allow mining the ocean floor either. We lost the Tories but gained Trump.
The big news is a jury acquits the protesters who toppled Edward Coulston's statue into Bristol harbour.
The right-wing snowflakes were up in arms about it, but more sensible heads spoke up for the right of juries to let off whoever they wanted. As someone who had been found Not Guilty by a jury I felt obliged to speak up, and The Guardian printed my words.
Greenpeace, meanwhile, have us getting up very early to put up posters of their CEO Ken Murphy, as part of the campaign to stop them buying soya animal feed grown on what used to be the Amazon rainforest.
Protest of all types looks to be going to be a lot harder in future. I go to a 'kill the bill' demo and the GMP PLOs make a point of telling me they know who I am. At least I know who to go to in the event of an identity crisis.
Greenpeace, meanwhile, has us out and about in the rain making some nature art behind the Whitworth Art Gallery. I think we did all right.
I also get to take part in what a world record attempt. The aim was to have the most people ever bivvying out, which is camping without a tent. I wander off in the dark and make a shelter from the wind on the edge of Kinder Scout. It's clear night and the temperature drops below zero. Fortunately I get my fire ging before I freeze. The stars are amazing, but I sleep like a log and wake up staring at blue skies. It was a good night. A record of sorts was set, but Guinness isn't happy with the paperwork so it isn't an 'official' record.
The big news in February though was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This would be the focus of some actions over the rest of the year, see me doing some work with refugees and transform my Twitter feed into a military sitrep.
March
A project for Greenpeace Unearthed has me running round the moors chasing fires. It's not a bad way to spend my time, although it does lead to one incident of being surrounded by gamekeepers who aren't too happy about it. It's an important story as our peat moorlands are a huge carbon sink, far bigger than our forests, and they are being destroyed so rich people can shoot fat birds. In the end Greenpeace gets the info for their story from satellite photos.
I also go to a youth strike in Manchester, but it's a bit of a sad affair as the previous organisers have all gone off to university and not been replaced.
We also continue our campaign against Tesco, this time in the daylight.
April
I get to go to a party at a brewery. Cloudwater Brewery in Manchester have produced a beer to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass called Right To Roam, so they invite me along to give a little talk and give me free beer. I invite some of the Greenpeace group along and we have a good time.
There are more celebrations in Hayfield so I go along. In a tent I find the Labour Party, the Ramblers Association and the National Trust, in other words all the groups who opposed the mass trespass in 1932. There is at least the Morning Star, representing the more radical flank of the left who actually organised the event.
Patagonia ask me to lead their walk on the actual anniversary. They shut up their shop and bring a coach load of people out to hear me talk about the events of 1932. We walk the National Trust 'Mass Trespass Route' in excellent weather, collecting extra people as we go. It was a good day out and I hope my grandfather, an inveterate trespasser, would have been proud.
May
Greenpeace had been tracking Russian oil tankers since the war in Ukraine began and in May one was spotted heading towards England and Greenpeace had a reception committee waiting.
Two days later I was camped out in a layby near Grays wharf on the Thames in Essex waiting for a lorry carrying the Russian fuel to leave the terminal. I ended up being tasked to follow a Tesco tanker, and so I started an embarrassingly low speed pursuit across eastern England which eventually took me to Stalham on the edge of the Norfolk Broads. I get the photos and Tesco, who banned Russian Vodka, are caught bang to rights. The action was a huge success, reinforced six months later when the people who blocked the ship are acquitted, and no more Russian fossil fuels enter the the country, legally at least.
In May it was The Big Plastic Count. This is a bit of a hit, both on the streets and in the media, and helped keep pressure on companies to reduce the amount of pointless plastic they produce, trying to balance out the pressure Big Oil is putting on them to use more.
June
Something new in June was electric rallycross. World Rallycross had became the first FIA world series to go electric in 2021, and the rival American series Nitro Rallycross followed suit this year. They also came to Lydden Hill in Kent so we could see them first hand.
Once you got used to them sounding like Scalextric cars it was great motorsport. With 1000bhp on tap it they certainly shifted. The series uses identical cars that aren't based on road going vehicles, so the event was also notable for no car company or fossil fuel sponsorship at all. Rallycross is one of the friendliest sports around and so we were able to chat to the drivers about the cars. They loved them. Swede Robin Larsson won.
A quick change of clothes and I was off to work at the Glastonbury Festival for Greenpeace. I had a great team and it was a lot of fun, if rather hot. My duties included being a roadie for Easy Life and Self Esteem, and guarding the DJ booth for Mel C. I also had to test the drop slide and stir the shit - literally. Best of all though was hanging around in the Greenpeace crew area, which had its own bar, and fire pit, with people I'd not seen since before Covid.
Then there was the music: Seize the Day, Suzanne Vega, Kate Rusby, Jarvis Cocker, Skunk Anansie, Robert Plant, Gong, Steve Hillage, the Arcadia rave field, Greenpeace's own Rave Tree (running until 5AM and 20 metres from my tent) and the amazing Paul McCartney playing one of the best sets I've ever seen.
July
Unfortunately, after two years of dodging the virus, Covid finally got me at Glasto. Fortunately, thanks to three doses of Pfizer, I don't even get a single day off work. After a week I feel better and venture out to watch a game of T20 cricket. Phil Salt of Lancashire stumped Michael Pepper of Essex, and then in the next innings Pepper returns the favour by catching Salt.
Meanwhile, climate change gave us a summer like no other. Even in Glossop the Mercury hit 37 degrees, hotter than when I was on my honeymoon in Barbados or the work trip to Majorca all those years ago (it was a tough job, but somebody had to do it). Mountain rescue had to retrieve a guy who had a heart attack going for a walk and one of my elderly clients died in his home. It was a couple of days like I'd never experienced before, but will no doubt experience again.
It had cooled down a little by the time my boys and I went for our annual camping expedition to Eryri National Park. We climb the Glydders. Glydder Fawr is now two metres taller than last time I went up it, making it a 1000 metre peak at last.
August
The UK government started approving new North Sea oil and gas fields. Protests stopped the Cambo field last year, but there were more, including the Jackdaw gas field. The government approved the field, but Greenpeace put in a legal challenge.
I decided to do my bit it and organised a little protest in Manchester as part of a national day of action. Three members of the Greater Manchester Police service turned up to watch us, but all went well. Stephen Pennels gets the prize for best dressed activist.
The heatwave is drying up our reservoirs and so Greenpeace send a CBeebies presenter up to be filmed walking around the Woodhead reservoir. I advised on where to park and where to go, but I also think the Derwent makes a better place to show what a climate crisis looks like, so I pop out and film myself.
September
In September the Queen dies, having clung onto life long enough to sack Boris Johnson, which must have given her some pleasure. Her funeral gives us two weeks respite before Liz Truss's mini budget blows up the economy.
I remember the one time I met the Queen, which was a Greenpeace protest outside Canada House in 1998. A giant banner saying God Save Canada's Rainforest had been hung from Nelson's Column, and my job was to remove the crowd barriers to allow some fake Mounties through.
Back in 2022 we go to the Wilmslow Car Free Street Festival. The good citizens of the down give their chauffeurs the day off and leave the Rollers in the garage and have a party in the high street. It's not exactly Reclaim the Streets, but its fun.
Our new Prime Minister lifts the moratorium on fracking and so campaigning against shale gas starts again. I get interviewed on Radio Manchester about why this would not a good idea. This was one radio interview I did not need to prepare for.
Also this month I start doing some overtime helping Derbyshire County Council check on the welfare of the Ukrainian refugees people in the county are hosting. They're an interesting bunch of people, both the hosts and the guests.
October
It's Andy Burnham's fifth Green Summit and I go along. Compared to the first two there is a lot to celebrate now. Manchester is now on its way to getting a publicly owned, all-electric bus fleet, whilst Liverpool and Manchester are teaming up make the Northwest a renewable energy centre with a hydrogen plant and tidal barrage. Considering how little actual power Burnham has it's a great achievement. I also get a free lunch, free beer and the invaluable chance to talk to business leaders and local NGOs. The main thing the former want is a government policy. Almost any policy.
The opposite of a green economy, Liz Truss's ecocidal government, came to a sudden end only a week later, felled by a Labour motion on fracking. When the dust settles we realise that not only have we finally won a campaign that looked pretty hopeless nine years ago, but we took out a Tory Prime Minister in the process. That's a good result by any measure.
Also this month I meet Warm Homes Whitfield for the first time, a group of people who've come together to campaign for renewable energy and home insulation as they can't afford to heat their houses.
The Manchester Greenpeace Secret Squirrels help with the publicity.
Rather remarkably, the premier is in Glossop, hosted by Warm Homes Whitfield. I'm master of ceremonies and once I've collected Heather from the station and sorted out the audio-visuals, I host a debate about what it means for the people of Whitfield and what the government needs to do. There are some moving words and a few tears. Our MP doesn't turn up, which isn't a huge surprise, but it's a good start for a new group.
We then show the film in Manchester, and this time our invited guest turns up. Afzal Khan, MP for Manchester Gorton is complementary about our film and says he wants to show it in parliament, which is a result.
December
And so our campaigning year somes to an end. Manchester Greenpeace's final act is to take Sami, it's climate change fighting polar bear, for a pub crawl around the Christmas markets. She ends up in Night and Day bar listening to a set by the rapper Devlin. The bar has some legal issues, so it's great to be able to support it. Sami has a good time too.
So that was 2022. A war, a heatwave and some progress but not as much as we need. Roll on 2023.
2021 began with us all in lockdown, which put a bit of a limit on how much campaigning we could do. Still, it meant I could enjoy the snow that we had.
Down in London though a certain Mr Daniel Hooper and co. are deep underground at Victoria station, trying to stop the HS2 high speed railway line. Dan, when he was under the alias Swampy, 'stole' my socks in 1997 after I apparently lost a drinking game, so I wasn't going to let him have all the media attention.
I sent The Guardian an email saying that they could be getting to the tunnels-starting-to-fall-apart stage, and The Guardian rang straight back as apparently they were at the tunnels-starting-to fall-apart stage.
In the end everyone is safe, although HS2 wasn't looking so good, and I got my fifteen seconds of fame.
Lockdown made campaigning difficult still, but the Manchester Greenpeace Group still managed a celebration of walking and cycling. We didn't manage to get out together, but we cycled on our own and I spiced the pictures and videos together to make a short film. Bea had the best job, of pedalling round the Manchester CYCLOPS, a new style of junction where the traffic lights synch to the cyclists.
March
In March the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission failed to take any action on catastrophic overfishing, more proof that are oceans are not safe from industrial fishing. We took minister Zac Goldsmith to task online over this.
Meanwhile lockdown gave me plenty of time to explore my local corner of the Peak District National Park, in particular the bits in between the bits I usually walk around. I found a few new waterfalls, and some quite places I will try to visit more often.
April
And finally we are allowed out again to play. Sort of. Ocean floor mining is a new threat to our oceans, not that they needed another one, and on that Greenpeace intends to campaign on.
We weren't allowed to meet the general public yet, but we did make a nice banner and got to hang it off various places around Manchester.
Steve Speed took some decent photos, and one ended up in the Morning Star.
May
The lingering pandemic may have still prevented us meeting real people, but we were still able to carry 'secret squirrel' missions in the dead of night.
Deforestation is the major driver of climate change after buring fossil fuels, and most of that is animal agriculture. We don't import much meat raised on former rainforest into the UK, but we import a lot of animal feed grown in Brazil, and the main company doing this is Tesco.
In order to let people know about this the Manchester Greenpeace 'secret squirrels' carried out a number of dawn raids on Tesco stores, leaving chalked messages outside.
The Greenpeace group also decides to go wild camping this month. Unfortunately, we pick the wettest day of the year so far and nearly drown just getting to the site. However, I set up the tarp and light the fire and we all have a good time, even the dog.
June
We're still targeting Tesco, and Greenpeace pay a proper photographer to come out with us. We take the poor chap for a rather long walk around Manchester and Salford, but we get some really good pictures back.
Also, in June a little reunion was arranged for the anti-fracking tribe. Old friendships were remade, much was drunk, and we remember those we stood with who are no longer with us. In the UK, at least, shale gas will now stay in the ground.
July
And it's Tesco again, but this time in the daylight. The aim is to deliver a letter to every store in the country, and to be photographed outside. Seeing as there are over 100 branches in Manchester alone, that's a challenge. The shop managers though, when we meet them, are mostly supportive of the campaign, which shows how difficult it is to pick heroes and villains in this game.
August
Tesco campaigning continued. However, as it was summer, I thought I did deserve a sort of a holiday, so Number two son and I went off for a few nights camping in Cambridgeshire, and I now have a new favourite camp site.
Fen End Farm near Cottenham is an off-grid, organic orchard where you can pitch your tent amongst the trees and be alone with the stars. It has composting toilets, home-made apple juice and firsts rate facilities and is run by friendly people. I brought my own tent, but their yurts and tipis looked very tempting for next time.
September
Normality returns by degrees, and we get to go to a festival. Wigan Diggers is always fun, and this year our stall celebrated 50 years of Greenpeace.
This year was especially exciting for our Sami as she got to meet two of her heroes; Jeremy Corbyn and Maxine Peake. Jezza got to blow out the candles on our small, but perfectly formed, vegan birthday cake.
Elsewhere, celebrations of Greenpeace's half century were relatively restrained. This was not really a time for resting on laurels. There were some interesting online events though, and I got to 'meet' some of the significant people in the history of the organisation, including Susi Newborn, one of the founders of Greenpeace UK.
The Greenpeace group were also out and about in Chorlton, getting ready for the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Greenpeace UK was making a tapestry with contributions from groups around the country, and we set some small people the job of making our offering. Using the theme "No Planet Bee" they made little hexagrams of what they would like the future to look like.
October
The Tory Party was in Manchester and so there was a demonstration. It was a decent turnout, probably the biggest post-Covid gathering outside of a Black Lives Matter demo.
We formed a climate block at the back of the main event, and as a result were the last to arrive at the Castlefield Bowl.
As far as the press were concerned, we needn't really have bothered, but it was great to be back out with real people again.
Also in October, Greenpeace sent us a cardboard cut-out of Tesco CEO Ken Murphy. It was actually a rather flattering one, as he he's a lot trimmer in our version than real life. Anyway, we took our cardboard Ken on tour round some of the branches in central Manchester.
Tesco are apparently feeling the pressure, but they weren't throwing in the towel. This looks like a being a campaign that's going to be a long haul.
November
So, after six years of waiting it's finally COP26, the most important international conference on climate change since Paris in 2015.
There were various lead up events, including a big Youth Strike, which I was at, and an early morning 'secret squirrel' mission to display messages from people on the front line of the climate crisis on a disused building before the big march in Manchester.
As for the march itself, it was a bit stressful, but it got there in the morning. I was one of the compares on the stage, and Covid meant a quarter of our invited speakers failed to turn up, one sending her apology by text whilst I was opening the rally. In the end though it was a success. Our speakers were almost all women and people-of-colour and mostly trade union or refugee activists.
The march over, I went up to Glasgow myself. In Paris six years ago there was a state of emergency due to terrorist attacks, this time it was Covid. This meant wrist bands and queuing to get into venues. This made it all rather less spontaneous and anarchic, but it was a still a chance to meet activists from around the world. The theme of the week was climate justice and in particular Loss and Damage, which, thanks to the demonstrations at the weekend, was discussed at COP for the first time.
This is a little video I put together afterwards.
Also in November, the Glossop Guild invited me back to do an evening lecture on the history of Greenpeace. It's an easy audience and it goes down well.
December
And with that I was done with activism for the year.
It was difficult to point to any major successes for the green movement during 2021. COP certainly wasn't one.
However, come the end of the year things were looking better. The number one film on Netflix as the year ended was Don't Look Up. A film with a strong message about climate change denial, it was actually pretty good. More importantly it started a conversation about the climate crisis amongst people who don't usually talk to crusty eco-warriors.
Another year on planet Earth, and it really does appear that the lunatics are now running the asylum. Greenpeace's big campaign this year was trying to create the world's largest ocean sanctuary in the Weddell Sea. The grand plan is for a third of the world's oceans to eventually be protected, starting in the Antarctic. This will help the fight against Climate Change, but equally importantly it may help species survive Climate Change. Given what's going on in the world that might be very necesary. Greenpeace sent us some paper penguin masks, which Paul in Ashton assembled for us. Their first action was a photo shoot. We decided to use Castlefields, and so we assemble in the Science Museum cafe. Steve did a fantastic job on the photography and Nuria lent some genuine modelling skills to proceedings.
The combination of rain and industrial architecture gave the pictures an authentic 'Manchester' vibe. The photo above ended up getting used a lot by Greenpeace in their own publicity, which was great. Greenpeace certainly came up trumps on the design, but unfortunately they didn't make them waterproof. RIP four penguin masks. Also in January the Manchester Metropolitan University Geography and Environment Society showed the Bruce Parry film Tawai. We took the penguins there too. For my money there was too much musing that 'we are all to blame' and not enough blaming of corporations for my money, but it was still a good film.
Finally we were out and about as once again London managed to breach it's air pollution limit for the year whilst it was still January. The metrics in Manchester are slightly different, but the problem is still the same, as are the main culprits: diesel cars and vans. Greenpeace Actions Team people had been around putting up coughing people on billboards during the week, but the torrential Manchester rain washed them all away. As a result it was up to Steve and I to go and put some back up again for the photos. February
Being an old fashioned sort I count February as the start of spring, so every year the family goes to see the snowdrops at Hopton Hall, near Matlock. February, when the first flowers appear, was always the start of spring in pagan time, and why not? It was cold, but there was no snow yet. However somewhere where there was snow, and where it was even colder, was Antarctica, where the Arctic Sunrise was exploring the Weddell Sea. Greenpeace sent Bond villain Javier Bardem down in a minisub to explore, making him one of only a handful of people to see the unique underwater eco-system. I'm not jealous. Honest. It's a long way from Manchester to the Antarctic, but it turns out there is a connection. I got in touch with Dr Max Jones of Manchester Univeristy and he told me about Manchester's role in the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. It was such a good story I decided to book him for a talk. March
Our own snow arrived in March, and almost put paid to any serious organising for the month. However we did eventually manage a meeting, in our new venue of the Lass O'Gowrie pub on Charles Street. We were back to saving the Antarctic again, and this time the target was Antarctic krill, which is increasingly appearing on the shelves of our health food shops as Omega III supplements. Greenpeace's first target was Holland and Barrett, but they threw in the towel after only four days. By the time Manchester got involved we were onto target number two: Boots. A team of secret squirrels visited four branches of Boots in Manchester city centre, adding warning labels to the Antarctic krill on the shelves. All the local groups were doing this, be we were the first groups to get a reply from the company on their Twitter feed. Some poor PR person clearly had a difficult weekend thanks to us. March was also Andy Burnham's Green Summit. The Greater Manchester Mayor had promised this when he was elected last year. The event was at Manchester Central, and was very well organised and presented. Burnham's talent is bringing people together and this is what he did, with speakers such as
Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre and Steve Mogford of United Utilities more or less singing from the same hymn sheet. We also had ex-Manchester United player Gary Neville to add a bit of celebrity glamour to proceedings. There were some eye opening stalls around and about though. Manchester Airport were there, and claiming they were carbon neutral. Apparently they don't count the planes. Burnham himself made time to meet us at lunchtime. Restating his opposition to fracking was a bit of easy publicity for him as he doesn't really have much actual power or budget.
In the evening Frack Free Greater Manchester organised a fracking fringe event, and we had Maureen Mills come down from Lancashire and Eddie Thornton come over from Yorkshire to speak, along with our own Helena Coates. The battle goes on in Lancashire, but Eddie was able to tell us how it was won in Ryedale. An extremely well organised campaign caused the government to pause, and then the perilous state of Third Energy's finances gave them the excuse to pull the plug without looking like they were doing a U-turn. Protests work, but you've always got to give the opposition a way out. April
April started with the opening of the inquiry into Lancashire County Council's decision to stop Cuadrilla Resources from fracking in the village of Roseacre. When the government overturned the Preston New Road decision, Roseacre was left on the shelf. We had a rally outside and I gave a little speech. We still don't know the outcome of this, but my thoughts are still that it will be the test of whether the government is prepared to spend any more political capital on fracking. Hopefully they aren't, but we'll see. We were back in the Antarctic again in April. Dr Max Jones' talk took us back to the end of the heroic age of exploration. Manchester, it turned out, both welcomed polar explorer Fridjtof Nansen as a both a hero and a bit of all right ("all the women swooned, and so did some men" the papers reported) and helped fund Scott's ill fated mission. It was an interesting evening.
As far as our own Antarctic campaigning went, we were once again targeting Boots, this time with our 'krill-o-meter'. Funnily enough nobody really thought it was a good idea wipe out whales and penguins for a few vitamins. Boots staff were pleasant enough, but their HQ was reportedly having kittens. April also marked the start of campaigning on palm oil. This was to be our major local group campaign at the end of the year, but for the moment it was only taking place online. If deforestation was a country it would be the third largest contributor to climate change after the USA and China, and palm oil is one of the big four contributors, along with animal grazing, soya for animal feed and paper.
Greenpeace had run a petition asking PZ Cussons to stop using destructive palm oil, and as their HQ was near Manchester airport Canonbury Villas gave the task of handing it in to them to the local group.
It was nice to be trusted with this. The company wasn't expecting us, but on hearing that Greenpeace were in the foyer they immediately sent down their sustainability guy to speak to us. He seemed a reasonable sort of fellow, and suitably contrite about what they had been doing, so we agreed to pose for a 'smiley' photo with him. All good fun, but you have to be careful not to be drawn into the 'sustainable company' myth. At the end of the day they are wiping out orang-utans, displacing indigenous people and causing climate change just to make shampoo, and making decent amounts of money doing so, and that's not right May
In May we were visited by the anti-fracking Nanas from Lancashire. Aliki at Thoughtworks, an ethical tech firm, puts on occasional films for us and we were showing of the new Undercurrents film Power Trip. We'd invited one of the Nanas to speak, but an entire coach load actually turned up, plus honorary Nana Anne Power from Chorlton. It was a good evening.
Also in town, but not as welcome, were the people who brought us the Deepwater Horizon disaster, oil company BP. Greenpeace were gearing up for a big action on Total's AGM, and all the serious shareholder activists were in Holland for Shell's AGM, which was being held the day after to stop people who don't fly doing both. As a result it was down to Manchester activists - very much the B Team - to hold the company to account.
I asked a question about the Amazon Reef. This deep water reef, located below where the Amazon
River empties out in the Atlantic - which is exactly where you not expect to find one - was only announced to the world six years ago. A more recent scientific study, carried on the Greenpeace ship Esperanto, found the reef was much more extensive than first thought, and extended well into the area where BP planned to drill for oil. I had the scientific report in my bag, but despite this the BP board decided to lie to my face and claim that they were a long way from the reef, which they also said they'd known about for ages.
Speaking to the board afterwards they were clearly chuffed with themselves. They clearly weren't afraid of such well behaved protesters as us. However they did appear to be afraid of class action suits based around their climate change denial. It was frustrating, but at least I got to call them liars in the press release.
Also in May I took part in something a bit different organised by Mend Our Mountains, a
conservation effort run by the British Mountaineering Federation that aims to, well, mend our mountains. The idea was to get 1000 people with head torches to stand on the Great Ridge, which runs from Mam Tor to Lose Hill, and lies just south of Kinder Scout. Mam clearly means mother, and Lose is almost certainly a local version of Lugh, a Celtic god of light, so the two hills are named after a goddess and a god. If the natural ridge running between them wasn't an ancient processional way, then I'm not a druid.
I'm not quite sure if they got a thousand, but there were certainly several hundred people up there. It got cold when the sun set, but the resulting pictures were amazing.
Out this month on the internet was a little video by WellRedFilms about the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass of 1932. Partly filmed during the Manchester Greenpeace Group's 85th anniversary walk last year, I got to say a few words too. We didn't manage a Kinder Scout walk this year, but we will for 2019. June
The festival season begins and still the sun shines.
Envirolution once again proved it was Manchester's best free day out. Matt's small people helped us out and we had such a good response to our stall we ran out of petitions for people to sign.
The festival is also a bit of an AGM of all the Green and social justice groups in Manchester, so it was a chance to meet some familiar people and try to get one over on Friends of the Earth.
Next it was a new venture for Greenpeace: running the an eco-camp field at Download, Heavy Metal's biggest party. The regular Greenpeace festival team are a little apprehensive, but Jeff and I are in our element.
Download is basically 70,000 people getting very, very drunk, with a bit of music on the side. Greenpeace were running a camp site on the edge of the main field. It was part of the Castle Donnington deer park and so can only be used if it was looked after. People who camped with us signed up to recycle and not litter, and they did. We also had a vegan cafe and a yurt for the obligatory yoga session. Doing yoga and then going to watch death metal is probably the equivalent of coming out of a sauna and jumping into a frozen lake, so I hope nobody was permanently injured by the experience.
Metal fans tend to be oddballs and loners, which is why Jeff and I fit into the scene, and the Greenpeace field attracted both types, some of which were at their first festival. Download is such a friendly place though they all fitted right in.
It wasn't all work though and I got to see some bands and do some serious drinking. The one and only Damh the Bard was there. Guns and Roses were the big name, a band I felt like I'd grown up with. Mara pointed out that Axel Rose now looks like Donald trump in a hat, and it seems he can sing other people's songs better than his own now. Slash though made it a really amazing show. Other highlights were Avenged Sevenfold who are now a true headline act, and Thunder, a band I saw at university but who've still got it. Highlight of the weekend though was watching 'Jesus' crowd-surfing to Cradle of Filth whilst an aeroplane flew over trailing a 'God Loves You' banner. Surreal.
Back home our campaigning consists of taking to task Barclays for their financing of a tar sands
pipeline in Canada. This means getting the train into Manchester whilst carrying a large cardboard ATM machine, which was interesting.
Tar sands make fracking look clean and safe and although it's a pretty obscure campaign for Manchester, but people are supportive and sign messages of support. We also had a really angry branch manager when we handed our ATM into the bank, which was reassuring. It always makes me suspicious when they're nice.
July
This month we received news that all our krill campaigning had paid off: a huge group of companies that control most of the krill fishing announce they were pulling out of the Antarctic and would not be opposing Greenpeace's plans for an ocean sanctuary. A big success for our campaign.
Climate Change also came a bit nearer to home, as Saddleworth Moor caught fire, with the flames visible from my bedroom window. Fortunately the wind was blowing away from Glossop, so it was Tameside Social Services rather than us that had to evacuate people. At night the peat continued to burn and the red glow could be seen after it was too dark to see the hills themselves. It was like looking out over Mordor. I decide to link this with our Barclays campaigning and write a blog for the Greenpeace UK website.
This also made me doubly determined to do something when arch Climate Change denier Donald Trump was in London. I went down on the Manchester coach with Rachel and Hannah from work. It was one of those huge demonstrations where you don't move for two hours, but the atmosphere was great. The banners and costumes are amazing too, if not very polite.
Even though it was a Friday, there were more people in London campaigning against Trump than there had been in Washington celebrating his inauguration the previous year. There were a lot of people around I knew, as I'd expect, but the only one I met up with was Mara who, being American, had even more reason to be there than I had.
We also did some plastic campaigning, and decided to pay a visit to Sainsbury's flagship store at Cheadle Royal. We never know what we're going to get when we go here. Last time the only person who spoke to us was parking warden, who was pleased to meet people who didn't look down their noses at him.
Plastic seemed to be an issue that the SUV driving mums of Wilmslow wanted to engage with though, and many of them take our replacement paper bags to salve their consciences as they drive home.
August
The start of August found me on holiday in the one part of the UK not suffering a drought. However the wildlife in Dumphries and Galloway didn't seem to mind, and a pair of friendly badgers visited our cottage ever evening.
Greenpeace renewed its campaign to ban diesel cars, and went after old enemy VW again. As a result the pixies were out in Manchester, Altrincham and Stockport decorating VW diesels in the night. As usual, Canonbury Villas don't tell us why we're doing this, but it turns out to be the prelude to a re-branding of the VW offices in Milton Keynes.
I managed a bit more plastic campaigning in August too, firstly in Manchester itself, and then at my second festival of the year. This was RiZe in Chelmsford, which is what has replaced V. We were running the deposit return scheme, where we give people 10p back on their plastic skiffs and bottles.
The Greenpeace team were a fun bunch, and mostly half my age. As we didn't have our own field we were in crew catering, which meant three course meals twice a day. I also found the back stage artists toilets - which actually flushed - and once I'm on friendly terms with the security man I also don't get searched as I came and went, meaning I could bring in my own beer. This was good as they only sold lager on site, this being Essex and all that. The main act was Liam Gallagher, who was excellent when doing Oasis numbers. I saw Oasis before they were famous at a free festival in Preston. This felt like seeing them after they're famous. However the find of the festival for me were Brighton indie outfit Black Honey.
At the end of the month though came the sad news that Lord Peter Melchett, former director of Greenpeace UK, and the only peer of the realm I've ever shared a police cell with, had died. I first met him on the 'Lyng job' of 1999. He had led a fascinating life that took him from his father's farm in Norfolk, through politics in Jim Callaghan's government, to activism with Greenpeace, the Soil Association and other organisations. He was arrested twice, but only ever in Norfolk. My memories of him are here.
There was better news too, as we found out that our tar sands campaign had been successful. A Canadian court squashed the Trans Mountain Pipeline. Canada had planned three pipelines to get the tar sands oil for Alberta to the USA. They were all controversial, but this was the first one to be stopped. Two to go.
September
After baking in the sunshine at Envirolution, we were looking forward to the Wigan Diggers Festival, and thought it would be a good idea to sell water bottles to raise money for Greenpeace. However come the day we all got a drenching. Fortunately we had our own gazebo, and even more fortunately the people next to us didn't turn up so we could use theirs as well. Preston Greenpeace joined us, but their face painting wasn't too popular due to the weather. Evey and Helen had made cakes and wraps though and these sold well, even though the water bottles didn't. Once we'd finished we got to enjoy the music. Merry Hell were great. Alice had driven there in her new car, and we made it safely there and back again, despite my navigating.
Fortunately it's a bit drier when we return to plastic campaigning. Greenpeace promised a shoppers
revolt against pointless plastic and I was a bit cynical, thinking we'd be lucky to get one mildly dis-chuffed shopper. However they were right and I was wrong.
We had more volunteers than we could actually use - I don't know how many but it was double figures - and a really great response from the public. Even the manager of Chorlton Morrison's seemed pleased to see us. Getting shoppers in Manchester to use less plastic bags is a very long way from cleaning up the world's oceans, but it's a start. Hopefully next year we'll be setting people some more challenging targets.
October
We were back in the Antarctic in October, with one final push before the Antarctic Commission met in Hobart, Tasmania to decide if the Antarctic ocean sanctuary was going to happen. We showed some film of the Arctic Sunrise expedition and I talked about Greenpeace's 'Million Dollar Missions' in the 1980s. But best of all we had River talk about what it was like to actually be there. He'd served two tours with the British Antarctic Survey at a time when British Antarctica was all white and all male. Things have changed a bit since then thankfully.
Whilst all of the above was going on, the campaign against fracking in Blackpool had been going on.
Scores of people had been arrested for blockading the gates, locking-on and lorry surfing. Three people who'd done the latter last year had found out that Lancashire police had no way of getting them down, and so had ended up on the trucks for several days. The Crown Prosecution service hadn't liked that and so Simon, Richard and Rich had found themselves convicted of Public Nuisance and sent to prison. They weren't the first peaceful eco-warriors to end up behind bars, but they were probably the first since the Mass Trespass in 1932 to go straight to jail without first breaching bail or refusing to pay a fine.
They were released on appeal, and by coincidence a big rally was planned at Preston New Road the week after. Attending meant missing the big anti-Brexit demo in London, but it was worth it. This was the largest gathering there'd been at PNR. Former LibDem leader Tim Farron was there, along with John Ashton, Tina Louise and others, but there was no doubt who the stars of the show were: Simon, Richard and Rich.
Also October I invited the one and only Anne Power to Glossop for another showing of the film Power Trip. The 2014 Observer Ethical Award winner was the film's cover girl, so we had to invite her along.
Glossop isn't an area licensed to frack, which is why Frack Free Glossop is just Rod and I, but it was good too see that even here there is strong opposition to shale gas.
Anne told us about watching the Blitz on Liverpool in the Second World War, and the campaigns against fracking at Barton Moss and Lancashire. She is still going strong as a campaigner at 87, so she has a way of making us all feel inadequate. November
Barclays was visited again in November. The Trans Mountain Pipeline may be history, but they still had plenty of money invested in dirty fossil fuels, so using the contacts we'd made earlier in the year we encouraged people to get in touch with them and tell them to stop. Ben from Hebden Bridge was one who did.
November was also the month of Rang Tan. This short film, narrated by Emma Thompson, was originally produced by Greenpeace to use with schoolchildren. Iceland supermarket tried to use it as their Christmas TV advert, but fell foul of an obscure clause in the regulator's rules. However the result was an internet sensation that led to 60 million people watching the film, and a good number of Mumsnet shoppers ditching Waitrose for the frozen food retailer.
Our own contribution to the battle against destructive palm oil was to take to the streets of Manchester to get people to be photographed sending a message to Oreo. Once again we had a good turnout of volunteers, including new photographer Moe, and a lot of support from Manchester folk.
At the end of the month Matt, Helen and I are down in Canonbury Villas for the annual Greenpeace Local Groups Conference. Our privatised railways did their bit to try to stop me, with both my trains out and back being very late. However when I got there it was great to meet old friends again. Greenpeace appeared to have learnt their lesson from last year and just ordered bottles of beer, rather than a whole barrel, and so I still felt vaguely human on Sunday morning. Before I went down though I'd quickly edited a first rush of a 'Best of 2018' video. I got it on Greenwire and it was noticed by the ED, which was a Brownie point for Manchester.
I had to sing for my supper though by giving a presentation on how we ran the Manchester Group, which caused a little bit of a problem as we weren't entirely sure ourselves how we did run it. At the start of the month we'd got the bad news that Russia, China and Norway had all vetoed the Antarctic sanctuary, but we got the hint that there would be some good news on our other campaigns soon.
December
Greenpeace local group campaigning pretty much came to an end in December. However that didn't stop it being our most successful month of the year.
Firstly, VW appeared to have shifted their position significantly. After refusing to meet Greenpeace all year they relented after the action in Milton Keynes. The main news their ED wanted to pass on to ours was that he was resigning! However shortly afterwards came a more important announcement: VW were ditching the internal combustion engine and going electric. Not quick enough for us, but still significant news.
Then came the news that our Oreo campaigning had been effective. Mondelez International, the parent company that owns Oreo, as well as a load of familiar British brand names like Cadbury's, Terry's and Fry's, had got together with other palm oil users and put pressure on Wilmar International, their palm oil supplier in Indonesia. This pressure led to Wilmar announcing a raft of measures, including satellite surveillance of their suppliers, to try to stop deforestation. They will need to be kept an eye on to ensure they keep their promises, but it was a great victory.
The next bit of good news came from Brazil, where a court stopped Total's effort to drill off the Amazon Reef. This wasn't necessarily the end of BPs bid, but it made it extremely unlikely to succeed.
The final bit of good news had very little to do with either myself or Greenpeace, but was still very welcome. Fracking at Preston New Road had been repeatedly halted over the previous few weeks due to minor earthquakes. Cuadrilla had previously agreed a low threshold for stopping operations, but now they were asking the government to raise the limit. We don't know what the government's reply was, but just before Yule Cuadrilla took away all their compressors and started to dismantle the rig. We don't know if this really is it, but it was certainly not part of the plan.
So that was 2018. We failed in the Antarctic and the tangerine fascist is still in the White House. However on VW, on palm oil, on the Amazon Reef and finally on fracking in the UK we were making progress. Minor victories, in the grand scheme of things, but it's minor victories that keep us going.
And so it's on to 2019. This year we change the world, as I said last year.
Greenpeace again had me as a team leader, and I have a great bunch of people working for me. There was no major band I was hoping to see, but that was fine. Instead, I discovered new bands. Lambrini Girls were the find of the festival. Idles were excellent and Skindred were something. I also discovered Coldplay aren't boring live. 
And then there was a General Election and we finally got rid of the Tories. Although probably the biggest victory for the environment in the UK this year, I didn't really have anything to do with it, the Labour Party having banned me as a dangerous radical. I enjoy the night though and stay up for to see Rees-Mogg lose his seat.
And then just like that the Far Right was back.
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