Robin Russell-Jones

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:Toby Butler: So was this a place that you got through your work or did you rent a flat? Or did you buy a property?Robin Russell-Jones: No I had a, I was renting a flat on the second floor of Montagu Square. So it was a fabulous place to live. And I used to go to Guy’s on a motorbike. That’s how I got around. And I- We had a neighbour who was, well he was American, he was the Vice-President of Chemical Bank. And she was a Christian Palestinian. Very interesting couple. But he said to me, ‘Aren’t you worried-’ They, we met, the wives met at an antenatal class. This must have been ’76. And he said to me over dinner, ‘Aren’t you worried about lead in London?’ I said, ‘Why should I be worried about lead in London?’ He said, ‘Well you’ve got old pipes in London, they’re made of lead. You’ve got old paint in London and it’s all got a high lead content. And of course it’s polluted, the environment’s polluted.’ So I said, ‘Well I had never heard about this.’ He said, ‘Well you ought to look it up.’ So I did. I went and started investigating it. And I was quite worried about what I read. And I actually had my daughter’s lead level measured in 1978. And the result was twenty-three micrograms per decilitre which in those days was considered perfectly normal because the DHSS level of concern was thirty-five micrograms per decilitre, so it was well within the range that was thought of as normal. But of course now the US Paediatric Association say anything above five is a cause for concern. So twenty-three was high.British Library catalogue number: C2037/39 Project clip number: 50