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Jet McDonald made an epic dash across Britain to emphasise how time is running out for action over climate change. How did the people he met on the way react?
When I came back from the ride there were so many questions. How long did it take? Did the ice melt? How are your legs? But one question stood out, from a woman being dragged along the road by her toddler, more to herself than to me, “What do you do with it? What do you do with the grief?” Whose grief and for what? The oceans, the polar ice caps, my middle-aged knees?
Day One: Wetlands Café – Slimbridge – Gloucestershire
A man approaches at the café where I’ve paused to change my damp socks.
“No much point is there,” he says as he gestures with his walking stick and his wife lines up her phone for a snap, “if Russia and China and India aren’t doing anything?”
“Someone’s got to take a lead,” I say, “and we started the industrial revolution.”
“Well I don’t trust the politicians. It’s got to come from the people.” And then, somewhat unexpectedly, he lifts up his hand for a fist bump. “You’re a good man.”
Day Two: Canal Path – Stourbridge – West Midlands
I get lost on Stourbridge canal path. Which is pretty impressive given there is only one canal. A young man with a carrier bag in one hand, the other pulling an anorak hood over his head against the driving rain, watches me try to manoeuvre the bike, with its trailer and block of ice, up another series of steps.
“You ok?” he says, barely able to make out my blurry image in the rain and encroaching dark.
“Yeah,” I say, in a voice clearly not ok.
“Where have you come from?’
“Bristol.”
A pause.
“Where you off to tonight?’
“Stafford.”
“Stafford?” Stafford is sixty-five kilometres down the road.
He stares at me as the rain pummels our faces.
Day Three: Bus Shelter – Stoke – Staffordshire
I get a phone call from a producer for Talk Radio.
“We’d be interested in having you on the evening show.”
“Who’s show?”
A moment’s pause. The producer gives me the name of a notoriously antagonistic interviewer.
“He won’t haul me over the coals, will he?”
“Don’t worry,” the producer says, “it’s not like Newsnight.”
“I’ll call you back.”
I park the bike trailer outside a cafe and order a jacket potato with beans. There is the warm burr of Staffordshire accents, as I scroll through the presenter’s ranting twitter feed. And the only thing I can get to grips with is that he’s “not like Newsnight.”
I ring my Mum. Poor mum. Head of press relations for the middle-aged man towing an ice block to Glasgow.
“Shall I go on Talk Radio Mum?”
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea. Who’s it with?”
“With **********”
“Who’s **********?”
“He’s a bit like Jeremy Kyle.”
“Jeremy Kyle?” I can see images blooming in my mother’s mind of her long grown-up son wrestling with love cheats and drunk drivers.
“He’s like Jeremy Kyle.”
“But Jeremy Kyle?”
“You don’t need to worry, it’s not like Newsnight.” And then I realise, as I pierce the bottom of my jacket potato with my fork and dangle the skin over my mouth, that actually, actually, I’d much rather be on Newsnight.