Profile: Chris Tomlinson

by: Milan Rai

London: Profile: Chris Tomlinson (This is the full-length version of our profile, part of which appears in the September Peace News.) I was born in a council estate just outside Portsmouth, Leigh Park, it's considered the second-largest housing estate in Europe. One place was called "The Warren", it was so over-developed. The lovely thing was, there were fields and trees and a big reservoir, it wasn't just a sprawling estate. We used to run amok around the reservoir, swing on ropes and, once, I fell off a tree and fractured my arm. When I was a child, there used to be a local farm as well, with cows and sheep. Really bizarre! Beyond the reservoir, it connected up with the Havant Thicket, and you just walk for miles. And then you end up in Hampshire countryside. It goes on and on. At the infants school I went to, they had big oak trees. As a child I was quite a day dreamer, and I'd always be mesmerised by all these trees. Living in that environment is why, I think, I've always had this thing, I feel really upset seeing the destruction of the environment, especially trees, because it's always been there with me, these trees have always been around me, playing as a kid around trees. Just watching butterflies and little insects. I just met up a month ago with someone I went to school with. I remember this incident which happened when I was about 12, at the back of his garden, which backed onto Havant Thicket. A group from school were on the way home, got stones and tried to knock a bird's nest out of a tree. That left a big impression on me. I said: "That's destruction of nature. What're you doing, guys?" I got a really good beating off them, they beat me up over that. It left an impact. I thought: "That's just wrong. What are you doing? This is a beautiful place to be." After that I joined the RSPB. I lived there until I was 17. My father was a bus driver for 32 years, and my mum worked part-time as a school dinner lady. My dad was made redundant because Margaret Thatcher got in power and privatised things, including the national bus service and my dad [snaps his fingers]. He was very narked about that because he's always had socialist tendencies. He was a member of the TUC. I remember as a child going in his cupboard and finding a book on the TUC and thinking: "Wow, this is quite cool!" Now I'm doing veganic growing on my allotment; I support the Vegan Organic Network. "Organic" means still using animal by-products which then ties in with global warming because cows produce methane. I work two plots on a local allotment. The top end, I grow seasonal vegetables, and at the moment I've got squashes coming up, which I'm going to check later because of the rain last night, and I hope they haven't been eaten by slugs (because I don't use slug pellets). The bottom plot is mainly a mini-forest garden, it's a term coined by Robert A. Hart, who lived in Shropshire. He built this forest garden for his disabled grandson, who he thought would benefit because the colours and smells would enhance his life. It just inspired me, I read that book and I thought: "If he can do it, I can do it." It really empowered me. So I just went up to a local garden nursery and started buying trees and it became quite an obsession. I think I've got 31 trees planted out. I've started keeping seeds from the fruit I grow on the allotment, and growing on trees. But this year has not been a very good year, because the amount of rainfall has been ridiculous. The reason I grow all this food is because it's less airmiles. Just to walk out the back garden and pick a plum, as I did this morning, is great. I've not had to go to a big supermarket, I've not got in a car, I've not got on a plane. There it is, a plum, outside my back door, from buying a tree. And it's so simple. You go to your nursery, buy a tree, stick it in the ground, water it. The first year you keep it regularly watered, mulch it. There is a book I'd recommend, RHS Fruit Gardening. That's the beauty of it. I've got a low carbon footprint. An incredibly low carbon footprint! I cycle everywhere. I combine it with the train. If I'm visiting my parents in Portsmouth [over 80 miles away], I cycle out to Polegate [16 miles away] and then I just put my bike on the train to Havant. If I get offered a lift in a car, I say: "No way, I'd rather put my money into public transport. If no one's supporting it, it doesn't run for free." I don't like getting in cars either! It just doesn't feel natural. I was born with legs and I was born free, and I just feel it's like another imprisonment. And it feels it's a contradiction in terms after I've gone up to Twyford, which was right on my doorstep in Hampshire, to see these beautiful water meadows trashed, and woodland again. This friend of mine, Grace Dodd, who was an animal rights activist in her 70s and who really woke me up in my teenage years to the horrificness of what happens to animals, she said to me: "If you can be only one thing in your life, Chris, be true to yourself." And that's just rung true over the years. If I do something something out of order, I think: "Oh, no!" I've cheated myself. I'm not cheating anyone else. And I have to live with that. I studied religions in my 20s: Rastafarianism, Buddhism, Christianity. I studied quite a lot, and it all came back to: no matter what, be true to yourself, be honest with yourself. The nearest I've come to a spiritual teacher in my life was Grace Dodd, really. She was a real gentle soul. She took me out on demos. I just remember her as a very happy person, very contented. If we were using permaculture, zone zero is me. Zone one is where I live. I looked in Permaculture Magazine once, about zone zero, and this guy had a hat with something growing on it. That's how crazy it can get. So when he's walking along he can pick berries off his hat as they're growing. Zone one, where I live, I subscribe to a green energy company called Ecotricity. The money I pay quarterly goes into funding wind turbines. I found them easy to deal with. Others were less happy with me sending a cheque because I'm on a low income. Throughout the house there are energy efficient light bulbs. I have no real trappings except a Panasonic hi-fi with CDs which I've picked up in charity shops, and vinyl – I love me vinyl (charity shops again). That's my luxury item. I also have a little portable solar-powered, wind-up radio. Otherwise, I have no washing machine, I use the local launderette or handwash, using the washing line. Heating-wise, if I feel up for it, I have an open fire, bringing wood from the allotment or having a look around. I do put on the gas. When I use the toilet, I urinate into a bucket and pour it round the fruit trees, it's really good for that. I compost all the food that I produce – I do it on the allotment because I don't have the space in the back garden. When I wash up, I pour the water round the trees or use it as grey water. If I'm writing letters, I use the back of paper; I re-use envelopes. I'm on the look-out for pens made out of paper. When I cook, I use electric hobs. Say I'm cooking potatos and vegetables. I boil the potatos and the hob stays hot for five minutes. I switch off the hob and put on the vegetables, so they get cooked with the knock-on effect. My last quarterly electricity bill from Ecotricity was about £5.50. The person at the other end couldn't believe it themselves. Gas, I think I charged up two months ago to £5, and last time I looked I was only on £4.38. I get hung up on this class thing. Psychologically it destroys me, it really messes me up. Patrick Nicholson, who is a local activist, I can talk to him, but sometimes I feel I'm on a different wave-length, what I'm prattling on about sounds like just nonsense, or that I'm, I wouldn't say, lesser, but when I'm talking to someone who's had a good education, I don't feel that confident around them. It really hurts my feelings. I think: "What do they really think?" Does it sound like I'm talking tabloid while they're talking Guardian? The thing is, we're friends and we're the same, and I hate that, getting wrapped up in the class system, because biologically we're the same, but I get wrapped up in the class thing, or someone pulls me into the class thing, and it ruins my day, because I'm like: "Oh yeah, I'm scummy working class, right, yeah, okay, and we all read the Sport, and we don't give a shit, and we all get in planes." Sorry about the swear word. What I've seen in my time of campaigning since the age of 17, setting up Friends of the Earth Havant and getting involved in animal rights all at 17, is I find the environmental movement is more middle class and I find the animal rights movement is more working class. I don't know why, but it just seems that way. I hang out with the animal rights people, and I get a buzz. I think a lot of them, I think that's why they enjoy going hunt sabbing, because they can have a go at the rich. They can go: "That's wrong, why are you owning this land? Why are you ripping foxes to pieces? Because you own the land. And you're probably all judges and it's all connected." I find the eco movement seems more lifestyle-y. I find the vegan and animal rights activists, front-line people, are very working class. A lot of them I've spoke to over the years, they've fought for the bloody underdog, because they are the underdog. And the people who own the laboratories are the rich, and the people who hunt, as I say, are the rich, and the people who own the pharmaceutical companies are the rich. All the exploitation on the planet seems to be done by the rich. As for the environmental movement, some conservationists go out hunting, and they see that is conservation, to curb the numbers of something. I see it as complete murder. When I've hung out with the environment movement, at Twyford and Newbury, nine times out of ten, it seemed house-owners and middle-class people. I felt quite alienated.