Nature and the environment have been interests of mine from an early age – growing up in the rural Oxfordshire Cotswolds I suppose it was inevitable. A couple of visits to the nascent Centre for Alternative Technology in the early 1970s with my then boyfriend, a subscription to the 1970s/80s alternative technology magazine “Undercurrents” (there’s an archive here) and the 1973 oil crisis all had an impact as well. And, of course, I’ve been a reader of (and frequently a subscriber to) New Scientist since my sixth-form days.
Earning a living and the other busyness of existence rather pushed such interests into the background during my working life. But when disability forced retirement, and eventually in 2011 a move away from London to my present city of Worcester, the climate crisis was becoming more evident and government inaction more frightening. In January 2012 I resigned from the Labour Party and joined the Greens (blog post here).
My involvement with the Green Party grew gradually. An initial contact of being asked to sign nomination forms for an election candidate, to standing as a purely-token “paper candidate” myself (blog post), through attending monthly meetings, being asked to house the duplicator that produces the local newsletters (blog post), and in 2020 being asked to stand and elected as Chair of Worcester Green Party.
on to “my carbon footprint“