environmental issues
Rob has been interested in Environmental issues for all of his adult life. As an undergraduate, he studied Environmental Sciences - the first year this degree course was offered at University of East Anglia. He has been involved in campaigning on environmental issues and a keen supporter of Friends of the Earth since leaving University in 1971.

He was one of the founders of the Bricycles (Brighton Cycling Campaign) and involved in theBrighton Urban Wildlife group which, in the early 1980s, helped to set up the network of 'Friends' of local wildlife open spaces which still flourishes

Rob started work as an Education Officer for the Tidy Britain Group in 1978, a job he considers.....a delight


Rob feels that when the Enviroment became 'everybody's thing' he started to lose his sense of purpose and zest for campaigning. His personal choices are still, today, made according to Environmental principles but nowadays he is less likely to be involved in active campaigning


Rob does not recall being very aware of national events during the 1980s:

I was more concerned with Environmental issues and the politics that I saw as behind them. I've got now somewhere in this house, newspaper cuttings, folders thatI would collect articles and paste them into scrapbooks. But I had other interests. I was interested in environmental building, and issues that really weren't at that time politicised in a way - much more recently there has been a move towards sustainable housing, in fact the word sustainable had a totally different meaning at the time. So I was very involved in Environmental campaigning with Friends of the Earth.