Daniel Hooper

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:Daniel Hooper: And then this guy called Ollie came to Allercombe and helped us build, you know, showed us more about- Because that was at Fairmile and we were Allercombe down the road. And he showed us, he took us up the tree and we did a couple of walkways together. And then I was off. I can do it then. And showed us how to lash beams and stuff. So you know my first treehouse was ridiculous but you know you learn to build treehouses and yes.Toby Butler: So would you basically live in the benders but then in shifts kind of be in the treehouses to stop the trees from coming down.Daniel Hooper: Well once I’d built my treehouse I lived in my treehouse all the time.Toby Butler: Lived in the treehouse, oh right, I see. Okay.Daniel Hooper: Yes, yes. Yes. So my bed route was like several walkways, climb a tree, climb this oak tree, couple of, a few walkways, and you’re over to your, the ash tree that I lived in. And yes, so it was great, you know. The wind, you know. When you’re in the treehouse the wind would sort of make it sway, you know. It was brilliant. Yes. It was nice. And I used to get up and abseil down for breakfast in the morning, you know. And you’d learn, because you’re doing the same abseil every morning, you’d just go down at ridiculous speeds and catch yourself at the bottom, always with a, you know- All my sleeves had burn marks where the abseil rope had burnt through. [laughing] And you’d catch yourself at the bottom just right, you know. [laughing] Quite an exciting way to get up in the morning. Yes.British Library catalogue number: C2037/34 Project clip number: 85