There’s A Hippo In My Cistern: One Man’s Misadventures on the Eco-Frontline. Pete May
by a course for the world’s most boring sport. It’s where Terry and June would go if they won the Pools.
But now the horticultural revolution is imminent. We’re stalking our way past tees and fairways and bunkers. ‘If any one asks us questions, we’re looking for golf balls,’ commands Oliver, in the fashion of a Green Andy McNab. He looks purposeful, no doubt ready to defend himself with a rolled-up copy of the Independent should he be apprehended by security guards.
We drift through woods and past pairs of golfers. A golfer eventually challenges us and Oliver replies ‘We’re looking for golf balls!’ Luckily his received pronunciation appears to win us some time. Did the Dam Busters feel like this? We’re deep in enemy territory now – the heartland of Daily Mail readers.
We carry on skulking in the undergrowth looking for our fellow 20th-century Diggers. But then there’s the drone of a helicopter engine. It appears overhead, hovering. It feels like we’re in the Vietnam War. We run for the safety of the woods, wondering if we’re soon to be strafed by machine-gun fire as Wagner plays over the soundtrack. Maybe we could throw golf balls at it. We embark upon a strategic retreat, trowels and plants in hand.
At the gatehouse to the golf club a uniformed security man is surprisingly friendly. ‘We had reports there were stalkers outside Cliff Richard’s house,’ he explains in a mystified tone.
‘Nicola, you’re just a Devil Woman,’ I tell her.
The ignominy. Being mistaken for a Green Digger was tolerable – but a Cliff Richard fan? Gerrard Winstanley would have scarpered immediately if it had happened to him.
It’s not been as dramatic as a Greenpeace action. But it was my first outing as an activist, and I realise I felt kind of proud to have carried a plant pot into action. We were there, and we were prepared to dig, and it took a police helicopter before we threw in the trowel.
But was this real commitment? And if so, to what? To the Green cause, or to my Green girlfriend?
‘I’m the joint winner of the David Thomas Prize!’ exclaims Nicola, tearing open a newly-arrived letter.
‘Great, brilliant, but who does David Thomas play for?’
‘No you idiot, it’s the prize I entered…’
‘The one I said was a waste of time? Well, I’m a complete durr brain. You’re a genius. Let me give you a hug. What’s the prize?’
‘My essay gets published in the Financial Times and there’s a prize of £5,000 that I can use for an FMF project to promote sustainable forestry in the Solomon Islands! Isn’t that brilliant. And I get to go to the Solomons again!’
It turns out that David Thomas was a Financial Times journalist who was killed while on a foreign assignment; his family set up the prize in his honour. This year it’s being awarded to whoever wrote the best piece about ‘development issues’. Nicola’s written a great piece on logging in the Solomon Islands and it’s won the prize and I’m really pleased for her. Although, of course, this may not bode well for our relationship. The last time she went to the Solomons she stayed for two years. Will she want me to go? And what good would Pete May be in a canoe?
We celebrate and over the next few days Nicola finalises her plans. She wants to take a study group of Solomon Islanders to a project in Papua New Guinea that has already been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) as practising sustainable forestry. What’s sustainable forestry exactly? She tries to explain, and it seems it’s where you tell the bloke with the chainsaw to chop down only selected trees. Nicola’s ability to organise new projects is always surprising to a man like me who struggles to order his sock drawer. She keeps saying that I should open a credit card account with the Co-operative Bank because it doesn’t invest in the arms trade, but I haven’t even managed to do that yet.
Nicola is still besotted with the Solomon Islands. She plans to take a flight there, via Australia, pick up her islanders and then take them on to PNG. After that she’s been offered a job helping with the administration of the FSC-certified project somewhere in the remotest bush of PNG. She’s going to be away for five months and everyone agrees long-distance relationships don’t work. She says that I can come and live with her there if I want. Or if I don’t, then that’s fine too.
‘What do you think I should do?’ I ask my mate John in the pub.
‘Women don’t ever mean what they say,’ says John, sagely. ‘When they attack you for not squeezing the bottom of the toothpaste tube you know it’s really for something else. So if she says you don’t have to go then it probably means you do.’
‘But I’m not sure I want to leave everything. I’ve got a book to write and columns to write, I’m getting published in Time Out, Loaded, Midweek and FC and everything’s going really well,’ I sigh into my pint of IPA. ‘And I’m useless in the heat.’
‘Well, maybe you should compromise. Agree to stay with her for a few weeks. That way at least you’ve tried it.’
‘Yeah, good idea. That way it’s a holiday and not an exile. And there might be loads of models from James and Tim’s photo-shoots throwing themselves at me while she’s away. Women who wear make-up. And don’t mind if I eat takeaways and turn the heating on. Do you want the same again?’
Should I be so reluctant to leave Britain? My travel experience is mainly in safe English-speaking countries such as Australia and New Zealand. Living in places that didn’t have bars or Sky TV is, to be honest, quite terrifying. So Nicola and I end up agreeing that she’ll go to the Solomons first and then I’ll fly out to visit her for three weeks.
We go to the David Thomas Prize ceremony at the FT. It’s full of people who know about development stuff and I feel proud of Nicola as I consume their white wine and kettle crisps and chat to previous winner Nick Clegg.
It does occur to me that soon we’ll be flying to the other side of the world and emitting tons of carbon during this tree-saving sojourn, but surely it’s worth it to save the rainforest? Blimey. I’m in danger of thinking like a Green.
A week later I travel with Nicola to Heathrow and kiss her goodbye at the departure gates as she heads for the Solomons. After two years with her, I’m suddenly alone in London, living the life of the Loaded lothario. But it’s not like the stories I’ve been subbing. Isn’t London full of babes? Well, no, not in N5. Life continues as previously, working till late most nights filing copy, attending PR dos, but it all feels a little lonelier. Nicola sends faxes to me and phones; I send her the news about Hugh Grant. He’s been arrested by the police after being caught asking prostitute Divine Brown for a blowjob in LA and girlfriend Liz Hurley isn’t happy. He’ll surely be number one in Loaded’s Platinum Rogues, a monthly top ten of bad behaviour. He looks suitably embarrassed in the police mug shots. But at least Hugh has been tested by temptation. Single life doesn’t seem quite as good as in the lad mags.
My columns are written in advance and in August 1995 it’s time to fly to the Solomons. It takes three days, via a night sleeping in a Brisbane hotel. After a month apart we embrace in the stifling heat of Henderson Field airport on Guadalcanal. It’s good to see her; maybe I’ve been missing her ethical monitoring of my life. And maybe, soon, I’ll be able to match the Oxford Greens and their tales of PNG with my own stories of the SI.
But first I have to cope with one of my main phobias about travelling to equatorial states – my body’s capacity for exuding large amounts of sweat. You don’t want to smell my sandals. Nicola has arranged a gentle introduction, a three-night stay at a beachside resort north of the capital, Honiara. It’s undoubtedly a beautiful country. Coconuts on the beach, white sand, blue sea and all that. Everyone moves slowly because of the heat and the Solomon Islanders seem even more laid back