Peter Melchett

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in the year two thousand, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is an environmentalist. His background is noble, his instincts radical. After becoming the youngest Labour hereditary peer, he moved swiftly into office and served as a whip and as a minister in Northern Ireland. He then abandoned conventional politics to devote himself to the issues that concern him most, first as President of the Ramblers' Association, and for the last eleven years as one of the leaders of Greenpeace. Five years ago, he famously led the campaign against the disposal of the Brent Spa drilling rig, and last year was charged with theft and criminal damage after leading a dawn raid to destroy a field of GM crops. Prison and controversy don't frighten the man whose calm exterior belies passionate convictions. The lack of man's humility in meddling with these things is overwhelming, he says. Now the executive director of Greenpeace, he is Lord Melchett. Toff spends night in jail. Very much grabbed the headlines last summer, Peter. It was a classic piece of direct action. How do you feel when you're doing things like that?

Peter Melchett1:35

Well, uh combination of things I suppose. Nervous. Hopefully trying to focus on the the problem, on on the damage to the environment, to keep that in one's mind.

Presenter1:47

Of course. But but when you say nervous, I mean, are you nervous because you're breaking the law? Because as a well brought up chap, you know, Eton, Cambridge?

Peter Melchett1:54

Eaten cake.

Presenter1:56

Ex-government minister, that you're actively breaking the law. There's something sort of taboo about that.

Peter Melchett2:02

No, I don't really feel that. I mean, I studied law at university and and it's always seemed to me the law is is a much more movable and flexible thing. It changes over time. Most of the changes in the law that I can think of have been marks of our civilization, you know, of us becoming more civilized, more intelligent, more sensitive. So the fact that the law prohibits something doesn't mean to say that in my view that it's wrong always.

Presenter2:31

So in your book, civil disobedience is okay if your motives are good?

Peter Melchett2:38

I think it's important for someone to feel personally that that what they're doing is justified and that they're willing to take full responsibility for it and to defend it and believe that it's right and therefore not illegal or shouldn't be illegal.

Presenter2:53

So you're challenging in that sense, yes. But but where do you draw the line in your own mind? I mean, there obviously there are things that you wouldn't do. You wouldn't set fire to something you disapproved of, would you? Or would you?

Peter Melchett3:04

Well, I wouldn't I w I would draw the line between non violence and violence, and for me that's an absolute line, and violence, in my view, I don't believe can be justified.

Presenter3:16

But publicity, of course, is your greatest weapon. That's what you need, to to draw public attention to it, to get the public on your side, to to raise money.

Peter Melchett3:26

Well, no, I don't think that's right. Uh in the end of the day that you only win a campaign if people support you.

Peter Melchett3:32

And people will only support you if you're right. I mean, if what you're saying is correct or if what you predict turns out to be the case. I mean, we campaigned against French nuclear testing in the Pacific for twenty five years. We said this would cause radioactive pollution in the Pacific. We said that people would get cancer as a result of it. And when we were totally dismissed twenty five, thirty years ago, ridiculous, outlandish claims, this was when nuclear weapons were tested in the atmosphere. Well, of course, we now know that Pacific Islanders have had appalling

Peter Melchett4:06

illnesses and terrible hereditary diseases passed on to their children because of the pollution from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing.

Presenter4:13

Yeah.

Presenter4:16

Tell me about your first record.

Peter Melchett4:18

One of the things that people say about direct action is that it's a a modern phenomenon or it's very recent. Of course, it's not, it has a long history. Greenpeace was inspired by Quakers and the actions they took, and there'd been many other examples, Gandhi and so on.

Peter Melchett4:35

But in this country, I think some of the greatest early direct action in not in my lifetime, but in recent times, has been the the struggle for rights in the countryside, people fighting to keep rights of way open and protect them or to gain rights of access. And this song about the Manchester Rambler symbolizes that for me, the great actions that people took in the nineteen twenties and thirties in this country.

Peter Melchett5:00

I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler from Manchester Way I get all my pleasure the hot Poland way I may be a wage slave on Monday

Presenter5:09

Uh

Speaker 15:09

Be away

Peter Melchett5:13

But I am a free man on Sunday.

Presenter5:13

But I I'm not sure.

Peter Melchett5:17

The day was just ending and I was descending down Grindsbrook just by Appertor.

Peter Melchett5:25

When a voice cried, Hey you, in the way keepers do here.

Presenter5:30

You and McCall and the Manchester Rambler. When was the first time, then, Peter, that you you publicly and and wittingly broke the law for campaigning purposes?

Peter Melchett5:40

I was asked by a woman called Andrew Zelter, who's a great campaigner for peace in this country. She was running a campaign in East Anglia, in Norfolk, against nuclear weapons. And I'd been involved in that in the early eighties, and particularly looking at the impact that a nuclear war would have on the countryside and farming, one of the sort of unexplored

Peter Melchett6:06

It was the time when people were still the governments were saying you can survive a nuclear war, it'll be okay chaps, you know, get under a a blanket with a brown paper bag over your head.

Peter Melchett6:17

And some farmers actually from Cor Devon and Cornwall started to think, well, what would that really happen? Of course, as soon as you look in any detail, you discover the world almost comes to an end and everything dies and it's unbelievable. And there was a campaign of symbolic protest against the nuclear weapons which were all over East Anglia, including at a place called Skelthorpe close to where we have a farm in Norfolk.

Presenter6:44

And so you went along there. The the ob uh the object of the exercise was to get yourself arrested, was it?

Peter Melchett6:48

Yes, the object of the campaign was to try and involve more and more people in a very simple and peaceful way, just cutting one link of the

Peter Melchett6:57

Hundreds of miles of chain-linked fences and barbed wire which surrounded these large bits of East Anglia was

Presenter7:03

So you were up front doing the cutting?

Peter Melchett7:05

I was, made a little speech, and uh started to cut the fence. I was interrupted by a voice from the back of the crowd.

Peter Melchett7:12

Uh some organization, I can't remember what it was called now, Families for Defence or something, Lady Olga Olga Maitland.

Peter Melchett7:18

called out Peter, Peter, think of your career

Peter Melchett7:23

I couldn't think what she was talking about. I must say of all the heckles I've ever had in my life, that one just completely floored me away.

Presenter7:31

Huh.

Peter Melchett7:32

I got got on with the sewing.

Presenter7:32

And

Presenter7:33

It wasn't long after that that you you joined Greenpeace, and Greenpeace obviously were involved in that action. Do you think in a in a sense you were kind of being tested, you were earning your spurs?

Peter Melchett7:43

No, I don't think so. No. I um I g I got involved in Greenpeace actually through um getting to know the people in Greenpeace who are campaigning against whaling.

Peter Melchett7:53

which was something can I was involved in in in other ways.

Presenter7:56

But when you got there, when you got to Greenpeace and you arrived there in kind of what, your late thirties, I would think, did you feel, after your experience in public office and so on, did you have a sense of being in the right place?

Peter Melchett8:11

Yes, definitely. Yes. Because it's an organization which is um dedicated to trying to change things and without ideological baggage of of of any sort. It just sort of gets on with the job. Um and I found that very refreshing after

Presenter8:24

Hmm.

Peter Melchett8:29

Not only working as a politician, but also in Parliament and with other NGOs. I mean, this was.

Peter Melchett8:36

an organisation which said what it thought and and aimed to secure change.

Presenter8:42

Let's pause there for the second piece of music. What is it?

Peter Melchett8:45

Well, in thinking about things changing and trying to be optimistic, I am optimistic. Certainly the greatest change in my lifetime has been the a revolution in attitudes to women and the feminism and the women's movement. I suppose in in my own life I was influenced by that and particularly by my partner, so I thought uh uh a song about that would be appropriate.

Speaker 39:10

Nothing was a sign.

Speaker 39:13

Used to say

Speaker 39:17

Behind the

Speaker 39:19

To be a great mind.

Speaker 39:24

All the leaves time of channeling.

Presenter9:28

No this

Speaker 39:28

Uh

Presenter9:29

No, I'm not sure.

Presenter9:31

So we're coming out of the kitchen Cause there's something we forgot to say to you

Presenter9:39

Rhythmics with Aretha Franklin and sisters are doing it for themselves. You come, as I said, Peter Melchit, from an honourable line of establishment radicals. Um as one writer put it, the Melchits get stuck in. Your great great grandfather was a brilliant chemist who came over here from Germany, I think.

Peter Melchett9:56

Yes, from a a Jewish family. His mum thought that if Britain could have a Jewish Prime Minister that it might be a good place for her son to m make his way in the world.

Presenter10:06

Braylee.

Peter Melchett10:06

Yeah.

Presenter10:07

Yeah, and was he the founder of ICI or wasn't he started?

Peter Melchett10:10

I started a chemical company which then my great-grandfather was the the one of the people involved in starting ICI and that company went into it with a lot of others.

Presenter10:21

This was Alfred Alfred Mond.

Peter Melchett10:22

Alfred Mond.

Presenter10:23

He was the one, wasn't he, who was ennobled. He got the the the hereditary peerage from Lloyd George. And what what what was

Peter Melchett10:26

Okay.

Peter Melchett10:31

No doubt because of generous contributions to party funds, so that hasn't changed either.

Presenter10:35

Indeed, I mean your family did a lot of that, have done a lot of that over the years. Well, before you, anyway, by the time you came along, I don't think there was much money left.

Peter Melchett10:41

There wasn't much left.

Presenter10:42

But national treasures to to to the National Gallery? What what sort of stuff?

Peter Melchett10:46

Yeah.

Peter Melchett10:47

a lot of uh magnificent paintings and and money to build a room in the National Gallery as well. I think it was probably a part of uh a wanting to belong and wanting to be part of the establishment. That must have been a very strong driver as it was in you know having big country houses and going hunting and all the things that my

Peter Melchett11:08

Grandfather and great-grandfather did.

Presenter11:10

Your grandfather was master of the foxhounds, is that right?

Peter Melchett11:12

Yes, unremoved because he was a Jew.

Presenter11:15

Really?

Peter Melchett11:15

Really? Yeah, so the the racism was still prevalent in his time as well, and I came up with it occasionally, although I'm not actually Jewish myself. Yeah, well, I did as a child a little bit.

Presenter11:23

Do you?

Peter Melchett11:27

Not now.

Presenter11:28

There's a kind of irony in all of this, though, isn't it? That the family made its money out of chemicals, which you now oppose as grandfather, master of the foxhounds, you're anti-hunting. You know, there's some um

Peter Melchett11:37

You hear this?

Presenter11:38

God avoid the irony there.

Peter Melchett11:40

Well, they they nevertheless challenged some of the established assumptions. I mean ICI, I think, provided the first paid holidays for workers at the factory in Cheshire. And the the landowners around were so horrified at this precedent that they refused, and they had the power to stop local people working for ICI. So they uh a lot of people came from Ireland to work there, and still many Irish families in that area at Runcorn.

Presenter12:06

I'm still making it.

Peter Melchett12:09

From that period.

Presenter12:10

By the time you came along the estate had been sold, the death duties were high and so on, and you you were not terribly well off as a as a child, as your family.

Peter Melchett12:20

No, my father we work started a business after the war and we lived in rented cottages, holiday homes on the North Norfolk coast, which was great fun, particularly during the summer when the holiday homes were occupied by the holidaymakers and we had to we went to live in a flat in a disused control tower in the middle of the airfield where the factory, the making animal feed which my dad was running was. And of course I thought this was amazing, you know, living in a in a flat in a control tower, in an airfield with this huge factory all around.

Presenter12:30

In Norfolk.

Peter Melchett12:54

Amazing machines and fascinating smells and things. It must have been a complete nightmare somewhere, apparently.

Presenter13:00

But this is where you developed your love of the countryside.

Peter Melchett13:03

Yeah, sailing on the North Norfolk coast. Um an amazing area of wilderness and wildlife.

Presenter13:10

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Peter Melchett13:12

Well, another thing I think the establishment and many other people have always been wrong about is cannabis.

Peter Melchett13:19

I it's just unbelievable to me that it hasn't been legalised. And it's largely because the ill effects from the criminalisation affect young black kids in places like London and not white middle class people who basically get away with it. And I think it's horrible. And this is a Dillon song which celebrates the weed.

Speaker 113:41

Only when you're at the breakfast table

Speaker 113:46

They'll stone you in, you are unable

Speaker 113:51

They're scorn you when you're trying to make a blood

Speaker 113:56

They'll stone you and then they'll say good love

Speaker 114:00

But I would not feel so all alone.

Speaker 114:06

Everybody must get gone.

Presenter14:12

Bob Dylan and Rainy Day Women. Were you aware, Peter, at Eton, of having different political instincts from the others? That you were so good.

Peter Melchett14:20

I did once do a survey before I think I can't remember which election it was, but I remember seeing Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle speaking in in Slough at an election rally, and I think I was the only person who was going to vote Labour out of about seventy.

Presenter14:34

Really?

Presenter14:35

So you did know. Your mother has said that you you were very open, but not very gregarious when you were at at at school.

Presenter14:43

I pick up a feeling that you just weren't very happy at boarding school.

Peter Melchett14:48

No, I know that that you know, it's it's sort of a usual thing people say about public school, but in reality, I mean, I had a very happy childhood and and and I'm conscious of very privileged childhood as well.

Presenter15:00

But you haven't sent your own children to um fee paying school. Is that a political decision, financial decision, or because you just disapproved?

Peter Melchett15:07

Both would apply, but I'd certainly think it's wrong to have private education people buying themselves out of the system.

Presenter15:13

You also saved your son, as it were, from inheriting the family title because you haven't married his mother. I mean, again, was that.

Presenter15:22

Deliberate because you'd disapprove.

Peter Melchett15:24

Well, of course my partner had a say in this as well, and uh we both of us uh didn't like the idea of marriage as an institution very much, and uh I'm not very keen on on sort of institutional uh things of that sort, ceremonies. I don't like them, it's true. I I think if you're going to make a commitment to someone, it's a personal thing.

Speaker 115:40

But

Peter Melchett15:44

But yes, I was also keen that uh

Peter Melchett15:48

Inherited privilege of that sort shouldn't be perpetuated.

Presenter15:52

The title became yours prematurely, didn't it? Because your father died very suddenly when you were twenty five. He would have been in his late forties. What happened?

Peter Melchett16:01

Yes. He had a heart attack. It was the second time he'd had a heart attack. Um and we thought everyone thought he got over the first one, but he hadn't.

Presenter16:10

Terrible shock.

Peter Melchett16:12

It was, yes. And I probably dealt with it very badly. I sort of threw myself into doing things in a very British upper class way.

Peter Melchett16:21

Not much help to my mum, I expect.

Presenter16:24

Great shock, though, to suddenly inherit that title, which was to change your life in so many ways, as we shall hear. But let's pause and just have your next record.

Peter Melchett16:30

Yeah.

Peter Melchett16:33

Well, the um my main involvement in music has been through pop festivals, um, and particularly, um thinking you know, if I think about when I really listen to music intensely, it's been at places like Lastonbury.

Presenter16:46

Could you a minister for Pol?

Peter Melchett16:47

I was minister for the Pop Festival. Pop Suprema. Pop Suprema.

Presenter16:49

Pop Suprema.

Peter Melchett16:51

Michael Eves, the great organiser of the Glastonbury Festivals, has said that my Pop Festival's working party had something to do with Glastonbury surviving all these years, and if that's true, I think it's probably my greatest achievement. And this song by The Rolling Stones is one of the ones I associate with some of those early festivals back in the seventies.

Speaker 317:16

I see a red door and I want it painted black.

Speaker 317:22

No colours anymore, I want them to turn black.

Speaker 117:29

The girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes

Speaker 117:35

I have to turn my head until my darkness goes.

Presenter17:42

The Rolling Stones and Painted Black. Let's just touch on your conventional political career for a second, because you became Lord Melchit, as I say, at the age of twenty-five, youngest hereditary Labour peer. You opted to take the Labour whip, no question in your mind, although your family had been both Liberals and Tories, I think.

Peter Melchett17:59

Yes, and swapping around between the two are very rough.

Presenter18:04

And there you were. You went in, it was the Callaghan Government, and you moved really quite swiftly through it. You seemed to take to politics, you enjoyed it.

Peter Melchett18:12

I did enjoy it. I mean it was extraordinary. And even in Northern Ireland, where the levels of violence when I was there were terrible, and the suffering of ordinary people terrible, and in all sorts of other ways, not just the violence, but I mean I saw housing conditions and social deprivation, unemployment going back generations, affecting whole families just, you know, it really opened my eyes. And a lot of other aspects of the human condition I hadn't come across before, given my background, I mean, in hospitals, in special schools and so on, which I was responsible for.

Speaker 118:17

Northern Ireland

Peter Melchett18:51

But I found ultimately uh I got quite disenchanted with politics. I think for two reasons. First of all, the House of Lords is has no legitimacy whatsoever.

Peter Melchett19:01

And I also found that, you know, the cynicism that pol many politicians not all, but but I think most develop because of the constant criticisms and the nature of the life they lead.

Presenter19:14

What do you mean by that? You called it I mean, you said talked about cynicism, you've called it a lying game. What do you mean when you say that?

Peter Melchett19:20

Yeah.

Peter Melchett19:21

Y first of all, uh and this is true of many other jobs, of course, you have to stick with the party line and the government line if you're in the government.

Peter Melchett19:29

And say things you don't believe and don't agree with. Now that goes with the job and you either stay and do it or you resign. Collective responsibility.

Presenter19:36

Collective responsibility.

Peter Melchett19:39

Um I d and that didn't that didn't worry me'cause I say that that is goes with the job. I think it it was more the sense that

Peter Melchett19:47

it would be very difficult to remain open minded and responsive to people because the the demands of the job and the pressures on you, and as I say, the constant attacks and

Peter Melchett20:02

um repetitions of things which are unfair and untrue, which of course is how the politician receives most of the attacks, does make a lot of people create a very hard shell around them. That's what's what I saw happening, and I didn't want that to happen to me.

Presenter20:18

Next record.

Peter Melchett20:19

Well, I said Northern Ireland was an extraordinary experience and the thing I remember from it is the above all is how friendly and energetic and lively much of life there was despite the terrible conditions. And it was lovely to see some real radicalism and a feeling that things could change, which of course they have hugely for the better since that time. And this punk rock record was symbolised that for me. I was Minister for the Arts, I think the first one in Northern Ireland who'd been willing to listen to punk rock, let alone like some of it.

Presenter20:59

I'll stay.

Speaker 121:00

Uh

Presenter21:01

All the young ladies like

Presenter21:05

And they say they're a part of you, and that's not true, you know. They say they got control of you, and that's a lie, you know. They say you will never

Presenter21:17

Breathe

Presenter21:28

stiff little fingers and alternative ulster.

Presenter21:31

Then, as I say, you abandoned Westminster, you went into green politics and you've risen to the top Executive Director of Greenpeace. You did make sorry to remind you about this, a terrible boo boo in nineteen ninety five when you claimed that the Brent Spa oil platform

Presenter21:46

um, contained, what did you say, five and a half thousand tons of oil in its storage tanks, which was a a very good reason why it shouldn't be disposed of as at sea. That turned out to be total baloney, a bit undermining that, huh?

Peter Melchett21:57

No, I don't think so, although we did make a mistake, you're quite right, about that. But the campaign, which Greenpeace run for a decade actually, was against dumping things in the oceans. It was

Peter Melchett22:10

A campaign where we were saying it we have to change the way we produce things. Fundamental changes are needed. And we can't produce things on the assumption that we'll be able to chuck them away when we finish with them.

Peter Melchett22:24

And the easiest place to chuck nasty things was in the oceans, because it's out of sight, out of mind, it's not in anyone's backyard except, of course, the environment, and except, of course, much of it comes back to haunt us. And we'd more or less won this campaign. We'd got the the dumping of nuclear waste and industrial waste and human sewage banned by international law and then along camps Shell and the British government says let's dump uh oil rigs. And this was sort of, you know

Peter Melchett22:53

Something we Greenpeace internationally just could not agree to. Of course. So that was the basis of the campaign.

Presenter22:57

Of course.

Presenter23:00

But it would have helped if you got your facts.

Peter Melchett23:02

Well, it would have helped if we hadn't been drawn into this argument about how toxic it is, which happened very late in the campaign, a few days before Shell changed their mind. We released these figures. But if you you win something, which we did, and it's now illegal to dump oil installations. Certainly you won, despite it all. You won, didn't you? Well no, we won, not despite it all. We won because it was right that you shouldn't use the oceans for dumping grounds. People believe you shouldn't. They'd shown that in all the previous decisions that democratic elected governments had made to stop it, and it was right in this case. But when you're right and you're considered by many people illegitimate, if you make a mistake, boy does it come back to haunt you.

Presenter23:02

Uh

Presenter23:18

Certainly you won.

Presenter23:41

Cassatin

Peter Melchett23:41

That goes with the territory, I guess.

Presenter23:42

But it's interesting, isn't it, that no company oil company now would consider dumping something like that. I mean, there's been a complete shift, not just in the general public, but with these large businesses. And it almost seems to me that you get on with big business these days. I mean, it's quite good natured, your relationship. You're quite mated.

Peter Melchett23:48

I mean there's been a

Peter Melchett23:51

Yeah.

Peter Melchett24:02

I I don't think Bob Shapiro, who's the boss of Monsanto, and would say that.

Presenter24:07

But the oil business I talk about first of all, it's interesting how they slowly come onside.

Peter Melchett24:09

It's interesting.

Peter Melchett24:12

Yes, they've seized our bank accounts and don't want to do other things to us on and I don't think they are on site. I mean, some companies have recognized, and BP is an example of this, and after them Shell,

Peter Melchett24:23

that that there are real problems with climate change.

Peter Melchett24:28

I still I mean I do get angry that if you look at the the lives now that are being lost because of the changes in the climate and changes in weather patterns, the storms, the hurricanes, the floods and so on, and very difficult to get people to think we really do have to change what we're doing.

Presenter24:48

I want to ask you some more about that, but let's just pause for your next record.

Peter Melchett24:52

Well, like any parent with teenage children, most of the music I actually listen to at the moment is chosen by my kids, and this will certainly remind me of them.

Speaker 125:03

I wanna give you some good

Presenter25:06

You love me.

Speaker 125:07

Yeah, uh-uh. Loving you is like a song I replay every three minutes and thirty seconds of every day. And every chorus was written for us to recite. Every beautiful melody of devotion every night, this potion might, this ocean might carry me in the wave of emotion to ask you to marry me. And every word, every second and every third expresses a happiness more clearly than ever heard.

Peter Melchett25:15

Uh

Presenter25:32

Bob Marley and Lauren Hill with Turn Your Lights Down Low. You did, of course, win a famous battle last year, Peter, to protect wildlife off in the Atlantic, off the north coast of Scotland, stopping licences being issued for oil exploration. What were you protecting? Dolphins?

Peter Melchett25:49

Whales and dolphins and deep sea coral, which people have only just discovered that there are coral reefs in the deep waters of the Atlantic, amazingly rich habitats for wildlife. But also, as a result of the end of the Cold War, the Americans released some information from their deep sonar systems they had for tracking Russian submarines, which showed that there were blue whales, some of the rarest of the great whales, using that area. In fact, it's now been called a motorway for whales. I'm not sure the right metaphor, but it's an amazing area. Again, great richness threatened by industrial

Peter Melchett26:26

And this is viewing.

Presenter26:28

And this was you in court against ten oil companies.

Peter Melchett26:30

Then oil companies and the government.

Presenter26:32

Yeah.

Peter Melchett26:32

There's a huge risk for an organization like Greenpeace. I mean we're very small by comparison with any one of these opponents, let alone ten companies in the government.

Presenter26:41

And your members do put themselves on occasions in the way of of these things, don't they? I mean, there are you I mean, I've I've seen footage of you practising throwing yourselves over the sides of dinghies and so on to sort of

Peter Melchett26:48

Actusing

Peter Melchett26:52

Well, not just practicing. We've had people just uh at the beginning of this year in the Arctic throwing themselves into the sea in front of Japanese whaling ships in incredibly dangerous conditions, but uh

Presenter27:05

Well, between the harpoon and the whale.

Peter Melchett27:07

Between the harpoon and the whale in some of the iciest and most dangerous seas in the world.

Presenter27:12

The scale of the problem is daunting, isn't it? Because it is a global problem and there will always be people who won't abide by any kind of rules or indeed court agreements, as it were.

Peter Melchett27:15

The global

Peter Melchett27:19

Yeah.

Peter Melchett27:22

Yeah.

Presenter27:23

You know, how how do you begin to tackle all of that?

Peter Melchett27:26

Well, I I you're right that these problems seem sometimes so huge and so impossible to deal with that it can be very dispiriting. I mean, I get dispirited and know many other people do. So one of the

Peter Melchett27:39

things that an organization like Greenpeace has to do is try and identify things that we can change, which will have implications beyond the immediate.

Peter Melchett27:49

try and take things in bite-sized chunks that people can understand and see a connection, particularly between what they can do and change happening.

Speaker 127:52

Uh

Presenter27:52

Uh

Presenter27:59

But you also need essentially underlying it all you need a sense of optimism which patently you have.

Peter Melchett28:05

Yes, because I as I think in many ways things have changed for the better in my lifetime. And uh and I think the awareness of the environment when I first started being concerned, the idea that anyone worried about the environment was seen as pretty silly. Well, that's certainly changed.

Presenter28:22

Record number seven.

Peter Melchett28:24

Well, we're talking about these problems being international and one of the things that this country's done to Ireland, one of the many terrible things we've done, is pollute the Irish Sea with radioactive discharges from Sellerfield. And an early action which I went on with Greenpeace was when you two visited Sellerfield as part of the campaign against reprocessing in the nuclear business at Sellerfield.

Speaker 128:49

Melton on a Marquis.

Speaker 128:53

What then he really says?

Speaker 128:58

One man lost on an empty beach One man betrayed without a care

Presenter29:19

You too, and Pride. Okay, so so where is this desert island that you might like to be cast away on, Peter? Have you been there already?

Peter Melchett29:27

Well, I I hope it's not. Um, somewhere where sea level rise is going to I I thought this campa this programme ought to be campaigning actually on climate change because more or less any desert island is going to disappear if

Peter Melchett29:39

Sea levels rise to the extent that that many scientists predict. And there are nations in the Pacific that are at risk of disappearing, and they take

Peter Melchett29:49

the threat of climate change a bit more seriously than some people in other countries.

Presenter29:54

But where is your little atoll, then, if it remains? Well.

Peter Melchett29:59

I hope somewhere where there's still some wildlife, not one that's been used for nuclear testing by the French or the Americans or anyone else.

Peter Melchett30:09

The the the records are going to be played on a solar powered.

Peter Melchett30:13

So we're using

Presenter30:15

No, it's a it's a wind-up old gramophone.

Peter Melchett30:17

A wind up. Oh well that's that's good, renewable energy as well.

Presenter30:21

Tell me about your last record.

Peter Melchett30:23

This is uh the arrhythmics from their latest album, which they launched on the Rainbow Warrior. It was a magical moment on the Thames. And this is an optimistic song about peace, and I've always loved their music, and the fact that they support Greenpeace has been an added bonus.

Presenter30:39

What do you want?

Speaker 130:42

That's what you want. Peace.

Speaker 130:47

Peace! Woo!

Speaker 130:50

Peace.

Speaker 130:55

International peace! That's how you get peace!

Speaker 130:59

Peace, John Green, peace.

Speaker 131:01

That's how you get to the

Presenter31:02

It's

Speaker 131:03

Uh

Presenter31:03

Are you ready for that?

Presenter31:06

Two, and three, and four, and peace for your rhythmics and peace recorded live on The Rainbow Warrior. If you could only take one of those records, Peter, which one would you take?

Peter Melchett31:17

I think the last one probably. It was a an amazing day.

Presenter31:21

And your book?

Peter Melchett31:22

I'd like to take a a field guide to the wildlife of this the region where this island is still surviving, because it seems to me one of the things that would be fascinating would be to start to learn a little about what was happening in in the ecology of the island.

Peter Melchett31:39

And it would be a big help if I could start by being able to identify the species, plants and birds and insects and fish as well, I hope.

Presenter31:49

And your luxury.

Peter Melchett31:51

I would find it unbearable, I think, to be on a desert island without being able to see what was happening under water. That's always been one of the greatest things of my life, and so I think a mask and snorkel has to be it.

Presenter32:04

Peter Melchit, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Peter Melchett32:08

Thank you.

Speaker 332:17

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.