It was in that context that I met Polly Higgins, the lawyer with whom I co-founded the Stop Ecocide campaign. So I became much more of an on the ground campaigner at that stage. I’m going to inform myself and I’m gonna really take a stand on this. And I remember coming out of that meeting thinking that’s never going to happen again. And of course I told her that it probably wasn’t that easy, but she said ‘who can you talk to?’ I ended up talking to our local member of parliament and realised when he kind of did that classic politicians thing of slipping out of every question I asked. How is it possible that this is continuing? She said ‘mommy, what are you going to do about it? You’ve got to call them and tell them to stop’. And I just remember thinking a five-year-old is understanding this instantly. I remember talking about it in my household and my daughter who was five at the time, overheard me and burst into tears and she said, ‘mommy, I don’t understand if they’re poisoning the ground, surely they realise that they’re poisoning themselves as well’. The technique seems to me to be full of potential technical problems, potential health hazards, and just the very nature of it felt like a violation. I was deeply shocked by what I found out. When I heard about unconventional oil extraction or fracking as it’s known and that it was potentially coming to the UK, I started to research it. The issue that really got me out of that armchair was the issue of fracking. I think I was probably an armchair activist, as you might call it for several years. As I said, I grew up with parents who v ery deeply cared about nature. How did you become an environmental activist? I think with the anthropology it was a fascination with other cultures and working out how it was that different people experienced the world, different cultures, and particularly cultures that had a different and very direct relationship with nature. And although what I’ve sort of done subsequently in my, I wouldn’t say career, because it’s been sort of very varied, but it always has had a sort of recurring theme of communication. It always felt natural to me to gravitate towards languages. I picked up languages and often spoke them without an accent, which is something that my mother also did. I had a natural talent for languages and also for accents. You then chose to study languages and anthropology. We have a kind of semi communal way of living with housemates as well as our family and that is I think quite unusual but without it I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing because I wouldn’t be able to have the attention on my children that they need. We had quite a relaxed family atmosphere and we also always had additional people in the household which is something that my mother grew up with and I did too and now we do that also with our family. My father was very ill when I was younger and couldn’t walk very much so there was always a bit of a sense I suppose that perhaps I didn’t run around as much as some kids might’ve done with their dads, but it was always pretty harmonious. Those things were very much part of what I was aware of growing up. They are both teachers and there was always a very strong sense of connection to the Earth and care for nature. My parents met playing music together, so they are musicians. My mother is a singer, a songwriter and a poet. What kind of relationships did you have with your parents? What type of souvenirs do you have from your childhood? I guess my childhood was, to be honest, I spent most of it with my head in a book and I was always hugely imaginative child. I travelled around and lived in various places, but when I had children I came back to my hometown to bring them up here. It’s now quite well known because it’s also the birthplace of Extinction Rebellion and the founders were friends of mine and Polly’s. I grew up in a coastal town in the UK called Stroud. I will start by going back to your roots and I was curious to know where you grew up and what kind of childhood you had.
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