Richard Macrory

This audio clip is from a series of 100 life history interviews with environmental campaigners in the UK, 1970-2020. A quotation from this recording features in the book Voices for Change, published by UCL Press in November 2026 (available in print as well as a free PDF download). The full interview, along with the summaries, transcripts and recordings for this and the rest of the interview collection, is available at the British Library (Sound and Moving Image Collection, under the shelf-mark C2037). For more information, including educational materials and other resources, visit the Oral History of the Environmental Movement project website at www.royalholloway.ac.uk/ohemQuotation:Chris Church: Just briefly, this was happening at a fairly unparalleled time of environmental action with Chernobyl, ozone layer. Were you aware of-Richard Macrory: Yes. And, well I think I was, certainly Chernobyl I was very aware of because I remember being quite sort of, well, you know, this has happened out there and it’s very serious and it shows the vulnerability of nuclear power. But physically- And you know shall I worry? And I remember talking to my professor, you know, there’s one of the scientists, and I said, ‘Are you worried at all?’ And he said, ‘Well I’m telling my children not to drink milk for the time being.’ And that was quite scary thinking, you know, there are clouds going by. And certainly you know I mean the ozone layer I think, again, was, was very important in terms of, you know, people did suddenly make a connection between what they were doing, you know, just with hairsprays and things. And suddenly it had this cumulative effect. And I think that was probably the first- And because it was such a visual thing, you could see, you could see the pictures, that was very important. I mean it was almost as important as those, you know, the first pictures of earth, you know, the vulnerable earth from space which was a very symbolic, important thing of doing that. And this, this was, you know, I think that was, that was important in raising the profile.British Library catalogue number: C2037/49 Project clip number: 43