Review of the Year 2023

Activism is how I pay my rent on planet Earth.This has been my year.

January

The year began with Greenpeace and medley of other groups continuing their campaign against high energy bills. We suggested renewable energy and home insulation. We take our campaign to the street of Altrincham and Glossop and find that nobody in either town liked their local Tory MP much. Graham Brady at least took the hint and announced he wouldn't be standing again in Altrincham. The government though didn't listen to us, but decided to bung the energy companies several billion quid. This rather shot our fox  After that the campaign should really have been about why tax revenue was being used to bail out the world's biggest polluters. 

In January Greenpeace sent me to Leeds to tell new supporters about what Greenpeace local groups did. I enjoyed free train travel thanks to Trans Pennine Express, who left mw waiting for a ghost train at Guide Bridge station and only removed it from the electronic sign board when it was seconds away from the platform and I was starting to wonder why I couldn't see it. All a perfectly normal for a day on Britain's privatised trains. What was not perfectly normal though was the life-sized Spinosaurus by the canal at the back of Leeds railway station. 

February

February saw me hanging out with two quite different groups of eco-warriors. Earth First! had their Winter Moot in a squat in Rusholme. Entering via a padlocked door, with a friendly security man parked outside all weekend, it was anarchy touched with some very cerebral discussions about sociology. 

Once upon a time Earth First! did more than just talk - it was central to the Road Protests of the 1990s - but although it's no longer a dynamic or mass movement it's children are everywhere these days: decentralised and anarchic, although usually rather less keen on sociology. The best part of the weekend was the talent show on the Saturday evening. Whoever you were who sang 4 Non Blondes' What's Up, you were brilliant. 

Later in the month it was down to Canonbury Villas for the first in-person meet-up of Greenpeace Local Group Coordinators since COVID. It was great to be back at HQ, and the revelling and quaffing was suitably epic. We also got to meet the new team and almost every manager had left over the previous twelve months. There was a mixture of the usual suspects and new faces and Manchester was well represented although Stuart, our video expert, may have made himself too widely available as a film editor. 

March

We'd been showing the Greenpeace film The Cost of Living for three months by this time, but in March I got to meet some of the cast by helping to organise the first showing in Malby, one of the towns where it was made. I met some of the very forceful miners wives who had supported their communities through the strike and who were now dealing with the cost of living crisis. This was a part of the 'red wall' where the women at least were not voting Tory. They weren't really into social media and organising film showings, which is why I ended up doing most of that, but I imagine they were difficult to say no to when they appeared on your doorstep. 

I also watched a different film in March as the Manchester group
campaigning against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline had its first event, a screening of the documentary EACOP: A Crude Reality. EACOP is one of the largest and most destructive fossil fuel projects in the world, and with significant victories in the USA in recent years it was one of the few pipelines left standing. It was also a way for the Greater Manchester Climate Justice coalition, which formed for the COP25 in Glasgow, to offer practical support to the Most Affected People and Areas (MAPA) in the world. 

April

It was back to campaigning on the cost of living again in April as the Manchester Greenpeace Group joined the Warm This Winter coalition for a day of action. This time we targeted the Conservative MP for Cheadle, Anne Robinson. Number one son even dragged himself out of bed to join us. We had a script to follow and thanks to our video ace Stuart we managed to film ourselves doing it. We were only one of eighty events happening across the country, but we managed to be most of the subsequent video the coalition put out. We can't really say we won, but as the government was trailing the opposition in the polls by a country mile, neither could they. 

However, the big story of April was that XR decided to go for a big protest in London that they called, appropriately enough, The Big One. I went down as part of the organising team and pitched camp in the Greenpeace warehouse for the duration. The Greenpeace Events team are fully occupied with preparations for Glastonbury, so the whole weekend is organised by Local Groups. 

We set up in the early hours opposite Oliver Cromwell's statue outside the Houses of Parliament. When we arrived we were outnumbered by the police, but by lunchtime there was a good sized protest going on and the police reluctantly closed the roads. The police insist we take down our banners, allegedly because they're attached to 'historic' railings, but almost certainly so they can observe us from parliament. The clue is that the railings are less than a decade old, and only added after Greenpeace climbed over and put a gas mask on Cromwell to highlight London's air pollution. 

I start of in charge of the money, which is a challenge in the rain, but by the afternoon the Sun comes out and I move front-of-house. We've organised a pretty good event, even if I say so myself and our team even had its own bespoke hats made. 

The next day is more of the same, but with a march and a 'die in' as well. I only briefly get to look around the rest of the site, but it's a marvelous mix of theatre, protest and general mingling around. XR certainly seem to have done their job in getting people to turn out. Alas, unlike their illegal protests, the media doesn't bother and it's only reported as 'local news' in London. 

I head home and just about have time for a shower before it's time for our annual walk to remember the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass of 1932. This year we're joined by Boff Whalley, the former Chumbawamba guitarist, and Commoners Choir. We meet up with the mass swimming trespass and the choir perform next to the water. Stuart once again makes a brilliant video of the event, although some of his clips end up on the cutting room floor as he fails to notice the wild swimmers disrobing in the background. 

May

Manchester's Stop EACOP campaign continues with a protest at the national BIBA insurance conference at GMex. Unfortunately, I'm laid low with a gippy tummy, so my contribution is just coordinating the social media and press from my sick bed. 

Back for the first time since COCID in May was Manchester's best free day out: Envirolution. We've missed it, and the weather is great for us. We've a campaign against Deep Sea Mining which involves children painting pictures of the amazing creatures that live at the bottom of the sea, so it's good that we're doing it outside with plenty of time and space. 

As usual, it's food and drink and we meet Afzal Khan MP again, and he endorses this campaign as well.  

June

We continued with the Deep Sea Mining campaign and in June we tried a fancy photo shoot at Castlefield. Sadly, the wind blew out the candles and our creative reach exceed our creative grasp.

A few days later it's flames of a different sort that attract my attention as, whilst on my evening walk, I find the local woods on fire. It's almost dark by the time the Fire Service arrive, but they manage to stop the whole hill going up. 

Manchester Metropolitan University had a sustainability festival in June, It was just in time for Greenpeace to release their new video, a jazz/rap version of Fleetwood Mac's Don't Stop, so I get to play that on an endless repeat to the students.

The next day it was time for me to head down to the Glastonbury Festival. Once again I'm a team leader for Greenpeace, but by getting there early and volunteering for extra shifts I get more time off during the festival weekend. Our team has to do some pretty unpleasant jobs but as a reward I get to see Seize the Day, Headmix, Seth Lakeman, surprise guests The Foo Fighters, Sparks (with special guest Galadriel), The Chemical Brothers, Unthanks, Billy Bragg, Steve Hillage, K Klass, Alison Goldfrapp and Elton John, who was wonderful. Even better, I went to the Sunday morning talks and got to meet Professor Alice Roberts and Dr Janina Ramirez, who were both wonderful. 

July

In July Sinéad O'Connor died. Her music, her activism and her troubled life touched me, but her relevance to me was that I was living in Ireland in the 1990s when the dam burst and a tsunami of allegations engulfed the Catholic Church and people realised Sinéad had been right.

Because of this she gets her own blog entry. 

August

In August I had a holiday. The family went to Shropshire and I finally got to climb Caer Caradoc. It was a good day out, but I didn't find Merlin's treasure. 

September 

Greenpeace launched it's new campaign, Operation Climate Vote, in Manchester. This involve door knocking to try to get people to sign up to a voting block big enough to influence the general election. Not a bad idea, but Greenpeace were certainly being ambitious. 

However, Marple people were certainly up for it and so we started our door knocking there. I can't say it was a campaign that caught my imagination though.

Slightly more exciting though is the start of the Derbyshire badger cull. This butchery has been going on for a decade now, and badgers are dying but TB is not going away, just as the scientists said. Even some farmers are now openly saying that vaccination should be given a chance. 

Opposing the cull not particularly effective as the government tends to just extend it until they have their quota, but we don't want to make things too easy for them. Additionally, the area we cover is also a black hole into which numerous protected birds disappear, and if the people killing the aren't the same ones shooting the badgers then you can call me Trufflehunter. Besides, what's not to like about tearing down country lanes in the middle of the night with the police in hot pursuit, sneaking around the countryside with night vision equipment and going face-to-face with an armed farmer in the dark?

October

In October we were visited by Patience Nabukalu, a Ugandan climate activist and friend of Greta Thunberg. She was in the UK to protest EACOP and arrived in Manchester after a difficult journey and not having slept for 36 hours. Despite this she immediately headed off to the HQ of the insurance company Chubb, where security stopped her getting in to talk to anyone. Instead she addressed our gathering outside.

I had the job of looking after her whilst she was in Manchester. She wanted to buy enough cheap clothes to avoid freezing to death, eat the nearest we could find to African food We went to Primark, Nandos and Old Trafford. I told my 21 year old son "I'm having your day out."

Thanks to this and other actions Manchester was finally achieving what we set out to do at our rally in support of COP26 in Glasgow and bring the voices of the Global South to the city. The insurance industry also looks like a good target for campaigns. They are not climate change deniers and know the risks from climate change. 

Also in October I went to Liverpool to meet the people who put together The Waiting List. This was complicated arts project funded by Greenpeace that involved some organic paper made with wild flower seeds and ashes from the Brazilian rain forest that was buried in a site owned by Tesco that overlooked the port where soya grown on what used to be Amazon rainforest is imported. The aim being to highlight the stupendous number of people on the waiting list for an allotment.  

November

In November I decided to have a bit of a career change and swap from being a Social Worker and occasional UNISON Steward to being a UNISON Convener and occasional Social Worker. 

December

COP28 was taking place in the petro-state of Dubai and goes about as well as can be expected. Well, maybe it went a bit better than that, but it still wasn't either good or enough.

The start of a genocidal campaign in Gaza by Israel somewhat distracted people from organising anything significant in Manchester about COP, and put paid to my plans for a ten year anniversary of the Barton Moss anti-fracking protests. However, we did manage a decent enough rally and march which briefly shut down a few branches of climate destruction funding banks. Sami the polar bear was able to come out for his one and only appearance of the year.  

Sinéad O'Connor

TRIGGER WARNING: I will be discussing the issue of child abuse in this blog.

It's been seven hours and fifteen days since I found that Sinéad O'Connor had been taken away. 

We've lost many talented musicians in recent years, but none have moved me as much as that of this amazing, talented, beautiful Irish artist.

Like most people, I became aware of Sinéad when the single Nothing Compares 2 U was released in 1990. Even as someone who prefers their music to arrive on albums, I could tell this was an amazing recording. The video was both artistic and touching, with Sinead shedding a real, unscripted tear, whilst looking fabulous and like no other artist.

I was saw her play the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury that year. As this was before the days of big screens, and I was a long way back in the crowd, 'saw' is perhaps not the best word. But I did hear her. (A recording of her set can be heard here.) The single was also being played by almost every stall that had a sound system, I remember. It was effectively the theme tune for the festival. People find it hard to believe now, but she really was talked about as being an Irish Madonna.  

Then came the infamous Saturday Night Live performance in 1992. This was the days before the internet, and I didn't even own a TV at the time, so I knew of this only as a news item. We're used to rock 'n' roll people shooting from the hip, but there was nothing impulsive about this act of rebellion. From the Ethiopian flags on the microphone to the Bob Marley song War she sang, everything was thought through. The picture of the Pope itself had belonged to her late mother and she been carrying it round waiting for the moment to destroy it. 

It nuked her career, but then she was never going to be the pop princess the record company wanted. I didn't see it at the time, but her appearance at the Bob Dylan tribute later that year is justifiably famous. When I watch the video now, and see her, so young and fragile, as she is booed by the crowd, it is still gut wrenchingly awful, right up until the moment Kris Kristofferson whispers in her ear "don't let the bastards get you down" and she launches into an acapella version of War. What's less appreciated is how significant the occasion was for Sinéad. Bob Dylan was her hero, whose music comforted and inspired her after she'd been floored by the death of Elvis. This was not a minor gig for Sinéad. 

I respected her for this, but I knew almost nothing about the issues she was trying to raise. I was hardly a fan of the Catholic Church, but the criticisms of the Church at that time were of the Father Ted variety, where priests were idiots, but not monsters. That changed a little over twelve months later when I found myself working for the Simon Community in Cork City. 

There I started to encounter the Ireland that Sinead was trying to tell people about. The other volunteers of the Simon Community either came from abroad, like me, or from the fringes of Irish society. The later were often themselves survivors, or at least witnesses, to abuse in Convent Schools or other Church establishments. Child abuse was, literally, never talked about in Ireland in the press, and the very few cases that came to light were usually referred to as 'incest', not abuse. From the Social Workers I encountered I also learnt how some abusers they had identified were effectively untouchable due to patronage from the Church. These people weren't priests, but just influential members of the congregation. What we didn't ask was why the Church didn't want any investigations. Nobody else asked either and Sinéad remained a loan, marginalised voice. But during the two years I lived in Ireland this all changed. 

First came the case of Brendan Smyth, a priest from Northern Ireland who'd been arrested for child abuse in Belfast, but who had then fled to the Republic, where the Catholic Church and the government protected him for three years. This was was not a minor scandal - it brought down the government - but at the time the issue was mainly one of cross-border extradition, always a difficult issue during the Troubles, rather than the abuse itself. 

Then in 1995 the bubble burst. There was a new case in the papers every month, it seemed, and this time they weren't being brushed under the carpet. Some people still refused to accept the truth. I remember one woman ringing in to a radio show to say that we should forgive priests as they were being deliberately tempted by Satan, and others simply chose to ignore the facts, but for most ordinary Irish it was now obvious that Sinéad had been right. 

How closely she was personally linked to abuse we would only later learn. She was named Sinéad after the mother of the doctor who delivered her. He was Eamon de Valera Junior, the son of a former Irish President. In a strange piece of synchronicity, it would later emerge that de Valera Junior had been involved in the covert kidnapping of children from the Magdalene Asylums to be adopted by childless couples. The Asylums, where single mothers, sometimes rape victims, were incarcerated for life were yet another Irish scandal.  Sinéad herself went to a reform school next to one Magdalene Asylum, and as a punishment she had to spend a night with the elderly ladies who's spent maybe sixty years in these prisons. This incredibly sad, and frightening experience was turned by Sinéad into one of her earliest songs, Take My Hand. 

But Sinéad didn't just witness abuse, she experienced it at home, from her mother, whilst that picture of Pope John Paul II looked on. This didn't just change her life, it changed her and she was eventually diagnosed with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Thanks to my work experience in Ireland I have gone on to become a qualified Social Worker. I have done child protection work, but I have also worked with abuse survivors and have been privileged to have them tell me their stories, sometimes before they told anyone else. 

This takes courage, and Sinéad was over the course of her life to show great bravery in describing herown abuse. Unfortunately, there is rarely a happily ever after in these stories. She had to live with the scars of her early life. Her mental health problems, her family and relationship issues, even her changes of faith, are totally familiar to those of us who work with survivors. You can help people like Sinéad, but you can never take away the damage that has been done. I'd have loved there to be a fairy tale ending to her story, but there never was going to be one.

Just before I left Ireland I had the opportunity to appear as an extra in the film Michael Collins, a dramatic, and realistic, depiction of how Ireland became free, and stars Liam Neeson as the title character, and the late Alan Rickman as Eamon de Valera. Sinéad sang on three songs on the soundtrack, and her collaboration with The Chieftains on the project would also give us a version of The Foggy Dew, which is one of my favourite tracks by her. 

The final song of the film is She Moved Through The Fair. Mystical and haunting, there is no other Irish trad. song like it and nobody, not even Van Morrison, has ever sung it better than Sinéad. She would recorder an even better version a couple of years later, which I've always loved, although now it is almost too poignant to listen to. 

I'll admit I've shed a tear for the death of Sinéad; for the death of a remarkable talent, a fearless activist and a beautiful but damaged soul. But I also mourn for the many other lives lost or diminished by abuse in families and institutions, both in Ireland and elsewhere. May we all, just like Sinéad did, work to ensure there are fewer victims in future.  

 

Worm Stones

 Location: Glossop, Derbyshire

Many of the liminal places in this blog aren't just on the edge in the imagination, they also occupy a place somewhere between certainty and speculation about the past.

Every square metre of Britain was, of course, once pagan, and mystics of old would have looked at every natural wonder and given most them a place in their shared mythology. Very occasionally we have an historical record of sorts. More often we have nothing at all. Sometimes, though, we have a clue.

The Worm Stones stand on Shaw Moor, clearly visible from the A624 as you leave the market town of Glossop heading towards Hayfield. They stand on the edge of open access land. To their east is Chunal Moor, and then the high plateau of Kinder Scout. To their west is the Greater Manchester urban conglomeration. Depending on your point of view, they either stand guard over the town, or hold back the urban jungle.

For most ramblers they are, at most, a place for a rest and a sandwich. There is a, now very hard to find, footpath that leads to the shooting cabin that can be seen to the north, or you can carry on to the trig point called Harry Hut, then turn left to climb Kinder, passing on the way the wreck of a Liberator bomber. This crashed during World War Two, and is one of the better preserved wrecks in the area. Although both crewmen were injured, they lived to tell the tale, which was unusual.

Long before that though this was the land of the pagan Brigantes. This was before the Romans came, and then after they left it was the home of the Anglo-Saxon Pecsaetan tribe, who were equally pagan but in a different way. The Pecsaetans have left us little but their name, which means peaklanders. Glossop also got its name from the Anglo-Saxons and was originally Glott's Hop. Glott must have been somebody in his time, which was probably the seventh century, and his Hop was his valley.

We don't know how old the name Worm Stones is. However, there is reason to think that it too might be Anglo-Saxon. In the language of their mythology a drake was a flying dragon, like Smaug in The Hobbit,  but a dragon without wings that crawled was a wyrm. A better translation would be 'great serpent', and wyrms are clearly related to the beasts of Egyptian, Ancient Greek and Biblical stories.

Visit this place with that in mind, and it is not long before the eroded limestone brings forth a face and other features. These rocks on which the occasional weary walker rests his bottom could easiy be a sleeping dragon, a secret guardian of this wild place.

Tread carefully then, and respectfully.

Review of the Year 2022

January

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. 

February

I get to pretend I'm an academic as I give the opening talk in a day organised by Liverpool Hope University to discuss COP26. It was an interesting day, which also includes a talk on the legacy of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, which is moving. 

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.

November

Greenpeace launches a new film. Called The Cost of Living it was made in the Rother Valley and shows how people are having to come together to survive the energy crisis. 

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.