Emma Must

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:Saskia Papadakis: Yes. I guess I’m thinking about like your, yes, like your vision as a campaigner.Emma Must: Yes it was that.Saskia Papadakis: Yes.Emma Must: It was stop the road through the hill. And implement these low cost alternatives based on the existing footprint of the A33. And jiggling about with the traffic lights and potentially a flyover which would have, okay, so really important to say that the stated aim of the missing link of the M3 through Twyford Down was to shave seven minutes off the journey time from Southampton to London. Seven minutes! That’s it. That’s the point of it. That’s what it was wanted for because of the economic benefit this would bring for the country. It's ludicrous when you, when you stand seven minutes against, you know, 100 million years of geological history and 4,000 years of human history. And protected, theoretically protected chalk grassland and water meadows. It’s just insane. And just so out of sympathy with the landscape. I mean I’ll show you a picture in a bit and just, you can see what it was. It just, just the audacity of it. The audacity of the thing. Yes. But our vision was this much lower, lower cost, simpler, straightforward alternative which was in keeping with the landscape.British Library catalogue number: C2037/28 Project clip number: 68