Sharing our story with Sir David Attenborough
I joined the Stop the Chop campaign relatively late on during October 2021, after the council voted to chop down the trees.
As a journalist, my voluntary role in the campaign was to write press releases and try to place articles about Stop the Chop in local and national press. I also wore out my laptop keyboard, writing letters to all and sundry, including councillors and celebrities who we thought might be willing to help.
One of the most exciting names on the very long list was Sir David Attenborough. I wrote to him in late October 2021, when it felt as though time was running out to save our Library Garden from destruction.
He wrote back within a few days and I was amazed. He said that while he sympathised with our plight, he couldn’t get involved personally but wished for more urban trees to be planted, rather than being cut down. It was a comfort to know he knew about our campaign.
Once the dust had settled after NSDC finally voted to overturn the car park plan, I wrote to Sir David Attenborough again in February 2022, to update him on our community success in saving the Library Garden.
Having already written to him once before and receiving a reply, I never expected another reply. After all, he’s a very busy and popular person! However, within three days, a handwritten letter arrived…
Our Green Heart event happened to be taking place that afternoon at the Library Garden. We decorated and hung green paper hearts on the trees we saved and wore beautiful green heart brooches made by the fabulous Pam Lilley. This was our way of joining The Climate Coalition in calling on our government and our MP Robert Jenrick to tackle climate change. Wendy asked me to read aloud the letter to the group. Before I did so, I said that the letter was a message for every single person who stood up for the trees and that they should imagine Sir David was speaking directly to them.
It was an emotional moment. As I read out Sir David’s words, I couldn’t help thinking of our amazing Fab Five - Wendy, Pamela, Darrell, Ali and Jo. We already knew that they were incredibly brave for having stayed to protect the trees for so long but now Sir David Attenborough had referred to them as ‘noble souls’...validation indeed.
To make things even more special, my six-year-old son Rafferty also received a lovely reply from Sir David after he sent him a drawing of his favourite animals and wrote to tell him that he loved his programmes. We ended up in the local paper and on the BBC news which was very exciting and unexpected.
We’ll treasure his handwritten notes forever, believe me, but more than anything it’s brilliant to know that Sir David knows about the story of our wonderful Library Garden - the little patch of urban green space and precious trees which we all fought so hard to save.
As the man himself, Sir David, said at COP26 in November 2021, the same week that NSDC chose to barricade Stop the Chop protesters into the Library Garden: “If working apart, we are a force powerful enough to destabilise our planet, surely, working together, we are powerful enough to save it.”
Here’s to working together to save our beautiful planet, now and always.
Louise Smith
