Coming on the back of the deaths of Mylene and Bernard I was saddened to hear that Peter Melchett has also left us. I first met Peter Melchett, fourth Baron Melchett to use his official title, at a Soil Association Press conference at the Ethical Food awards. He sidled up to me as an unknown face in the audience, and with a subtle series of friendly questions worked out where I stood on a range of subjects from organic animal husbandry, homeopathic medicines, food in school and nuclear power. There then followed a very friendly and informative couple of hours discussion about the future of organic agriculture, biodiversity, the state of the Labour Party, rave parties and the sad decline of Teesside. Turns out he even knew my Gran, Anne Banner, a district midwife in Billingham.
Peter Melchett was an exceptional man, and early supporter of legalising cannabis and music festivals, he served his time at Environment ministry under Crosland during the Wilson Government moving to Northern Ireland when Callaghan became Prime Minister. Under Wilson he championed the first wild life protection legislation, as Northern Ireland secretary he introduced non sectarian schools, boosted the number of teachers across the six counties so that they had the best teacher student ratio in the UK, invested heavily in school sport facilities and rebuilt the mental health provision. I once joked that he must have thought the Irish thick, fat and mad. he laughed and replied that he believed that education was the key to building a united prosperous country, that playing sport together could bridge the sectarian divide and yes they were all mad.
But in my opinion it was his work after his political career that had the most impact, it is unfair on all the hundreds of environmental activists that have been campaigning on, at the time, very unfashionable subjects such as GMOs, wildlife protection, the freedom to walk across private land and the many more fringe environmental campaigns that raged the back part of the 20th century in the UK, to put all the credit for their success on one man. Peter Melchett himself would be the first to acknowledge the hard work of others, but Peter was a giant in the field. Under his benevolent watch Greenpeace was transformed to the militant international campaigning organisation so familiar today.
As I said I firs met him in his role as Policy Director, and really head lobbyist, of the Soil Association. With his eternal passion for the health of young people he was the driving force behind the Food for Life programme of the Association.
A more detailed report of his political and campaigning career can be found at the Wikipedia Peter Melchett Profile here
It is easy to say that he was one of a kind of liberal campaigning aristocrats, but I have never met anyone quite like him before. A warm intelligent man who loved good argument, good wine, organic of course. he will be hard to replace.
