In today's blog we're going to catch up with the second half of my 'Desert Island Discs' style interview with Philip Lymbery, Animal Welfarist, Environmentalist, Photographer, Author, Songwriter and CEO of Compassion In World Farming.
If you missed the first half of the interview, you can find it here.
Jon
All your choices so far have been along that anthemic line, but ‘Speed Your Love To Me’ by Simple Minds just seems to be a straight ahead, thumping 80s classic stadium rock song….is that it or is there more?
Phil
Yes, I just love it for its infectious energy, the relentless momentum. In those days, again the 80s, I’d be doing a lot of hitchhiking, sometimes 8 hours at a time to go and watch birds. I’d be getting into lorries in the pouring rain, drivers would be asking me where I was going, what I was doing and I’d tell them that I just, love, birds, and ‘Speed Your Love To Me’ was a kind of soundtrack that was playing in my head. Hitch-hiking was a tedious, sometimes tense experience, that song is like a pep talk to me. A pep talk for a penniless, bedraggled teenager, sleeping on park benches and in bird hides, trying to follow his passion.
Jon
Your next choice is a song by Big Country, did you chose it along those some lines? I don’t know if you remember the video at all…?
I recount the apparent storyline of the video, which is a bit absurd, (you’ll see it in a minute) Phil listens with eyebrows raised…. And starts laughing. Phil chose a different youtube clip for you, but you can view the original video for the song here.
I was hoping for some kind of understanding of the song from the video, but it came up a bit short… hahaha
Phil
That right there is why I try not to watch the videos of my favourite songs. I like to have my own narrative, my own storyline or choreography that I imagine, you know? What the songs mean to me. ‘In A Big Country’ has a very clear message to me about, resurgence and triumph from adversity, I don’t want it taken away by someone’s else’s bonkers storyline. It’s the song I always play when I get hit by some kind of difficulty. Jobs, relationships, anything like that. I just find it motivating.
When I was young I had a load of rubbish jobs. I worked in factories, warehouses. I had a job in a plating shop standing above vats of acid. Every Friday the vats got refilled and you couldn’t see across the shop because of the fumes.
Jon
Wow….
Phil
I’d get through a pair of jeans every few weeks because they’d just disintegrate, and I developed an allergy to alcohol.
At this point Phil explains how he dealt with this allergy, which I’m not going to recount on the basis that I’m sure it’s not medically sound…
I had many jobs kind of like that that I did purely for the money. I didn’t like them one bit, I didn’t agree with them exactly, and they didn’t agree with me. Sometimes I told people and the result was that sometimes I didn’t last very long in that job. When I got home though ‘In A Big Country’ was the song I played, really loudly…it just got me through.
Jon
I think everybody should have to do rubbish jobs first, it makes you appreciate things more, and you realise the kind of things that you find more motivating… but a job which dissolves your clothing is a level above!
Phil
It was bonkers, but there you go… It did help me realise that I had a calling, and that that wasn’t it. My Dad had a calling with the church, I realised that mine was to nature, animals and the planet, and that’s what I wanted to pursue. So, all through the 80s I knew the direction I wanted to go in, but it wasn’t until 1990 that it really started to happen.
In my last job of that period, I was working for a packaging company. I’d started on the shop floor, but I’d worked my way up to being offered a role as a packaging designer. Company car… new factory opening, the job was becoming a career, and a potentially good one too. I recognised it as a real crossroads in my life, and I realised my heart was never going to be in it, so instead of taking the promotion, I tendered my resignation.
I’d decided that enough was enough, and that I wasn’t going to meander around with jobs that held no interest for me, I was going to follow my calling, I’d saved up some money, and I was going to be a volunteer for an animal welfare charity, and build up my experience from there.
During my notice period, I was called for an interview with the founder of ‘Compassion in World Farming’ (CIWF) as a Campaigns Officer. I put everything I had into that interview, my heart and soul, and I got a call the following day to say that I hadn’t got the job.
They did however see something in me, a passion and a sense of commitment for the work they were doing, so they created a role for me as Campaigns Assistant. The charity was very small at the time, maybe only eight staff, so it was a big deal, would I like the job? and I obviously said ‘yes!’
So I moved from Bedfordshire down to Hampshire. Looking back now it’s quite a surprise that I’ve spent more time here on the south coast than back in Bedfordshire, but I’ve now been involved with CIWF for 35 years, and been a much happier person. So I’ve played ‘In A Big Country’ far less in the last few decades than I used to!
Jon
In your books, particularly Farmaggedon, you talk a lot about poor factory conditions, obviously particularly most from an animal welfare standpoint… I was just thinking whether your personal experience of those poorer conditions from your ‘rubbish jobs’ helps give you an extra bit of insight into how important these situations are. It’s not something that I ever knew that you really did.
Phil
Well what I do now is so far removed from that time, that it doesn’t really come up very much. This process of thinking about the music that’s potentially help shape my life has brought it all up a bit, but you’re absolutely right… having seen first hand how factories can be so dehumanising, and where everything is brought down to process, momentum, bottom lines… and machines, it’s especially real to me the tragedy it is for us to treat animals, as machines.
Jon
As factory components…
Phil
Exactly. Nothing more than output.
I’m eternally appreciative of Peter Roberts (the founder and first CEO of Compassion In World Farming), as an ex farmer, who became aware of the issue of factory farming in the 1060s, started the charity to campaign against it, and quite frankly the punt that he took on me. Like I said I didn’t get the job I went for, because I didn’t have the experience, but I had the passion, and after 15 years I was running the company. He gave me a real sense of purpose and certainly saved me from all those rubbish jobs.
It’s grown from being 8 people in Petersfield, to 200 people across 14 countries on 4 continents. There’s so much that we’ve achieved, but there’s so much more we need to achieve.
Jon
Amazing. So… moving onto your next choice, and speaking of being a product of your experiences, ‘68 Guns’ by The Alarm appears to be about ganglands in Glasgow… is that something you have much experience of???
Phil
Hahahahaha. The song was inspired by the camaraderie of being in a gang, that was the inspiration of Mike Peters and Eddie McDonald, but it’s really just a rallying call to stand up for what you believe in…. ‘68 guns will never die, 68 guns our battle cry….’ It’s about having a cause, a purpose to live for. I did a podcast recently and played that song at the end. It’s a call to action, as simple as that.
I know I’ve said that I don’t often like music videos, so I deliberately sent you a clip of The Alarm playing on Top Of The Pops, September 22nd, 1983. I remember it clearly because I was at my best friend's house for his birthday and we watched it together. I’ve seen that band more times than I can count. My wife and I have been regular visitors to ‘The Gathering’ an ‘Alarm Fest’ if you will In North Wales, I just love the band so much.
It’s funny how circular life is. I remember seeing The Alarm in Dunstable in 1985, and thinking that they were just, amazing, my heroes. Skip forward to 1994, and CIWF hired their first full time Fundraising Officer in Sharon McDonald, Eddie’s wife. So I’ve been lucky enough to have been friends with Eddie McDonald, the original bassist from The Alarm ever since, and indeed he ended up writing a 30th anniversary song for CIWF, which featured Joanna Lumley and a few other celebrities.
Sharon sadly passed away in her early 40s, so I eventually met and spoke with Mike Peters, even though it was under the worst possible circumstances. I say spoke to, he spoke to me, I just stood there tongue tied….
Jon
I met Peter Buck from R.E.M. a few years ago when he was touring with ‘Filthy Friends’ and had a similar experience, but he was very polite about it, even when he found out that I play his guitar role in REMbrandt. It was cool but a bit surreal.
Phil
The other thing I should say about Eddie is that when I was working with Sharon, I stayed with them on a number of occasions and had to sleep in the home studio where The Alarm did some of their recordings. That band is woven into the tapestry of my life.
Jon
It’s great though isn’t it? to find out that some of your heroes are just ordinary people, albeit in extraordinary circumstances.
Phil
Absolutely.
Jon
Last choice then, ‘Gloria’ by U2. U2…not people I associate with being ordinary people, although I did see Adam Clayton on Gardeners World the other week…
Phil
Really? I didn’t know that.
Jon
He bought the house in Dublin across the fields from the school where they met as a band, which they’d hired to record in. This was relatively early on I think, but he’s systematically relandscaped all the grounds, and it’s beautiful, a very enlightened and passionate gardener, apparently.
‘Gloria’ was your choice though, possibly one of the least successful U2 singles ever I think… from the ‘October’ LP, it does have some oddities about it, but why this particular song?
Phil
From the moment I heard it, it’s my enduring, most favourite song. No other song makes me feel the same way. It combines both my past and what came to be my future, it’s deeply spiritual, there’s a lot of Latin….
Jon
Yes, there’s a lot of Latin for a pop song!
Phil
A lot of Latin…but to me it transcends religious belief. It feels like a song about higher purpose, which has been the guiding light of my life, to find a higher purpose. To get away from those rubbish jobs of the 80s as a ‘know nothing’ kid who couldn’t wait to escape his A-Levels and be somewhere else, most of the time.
To give yourself over to something or someone more important than just yourself. It’s who I am. I’ve married once, ‘one and done’....I’ve never felt I needed more than that, I married late at 45, and much of my life has been about following that calling, saving animals and getting us out of the Farmageddon scenario that threatens us all.
The energy of that song, the passion and the feeling, encapsulate my inner belief. Sometimes when I’m about to speak to a crowd at a conference or a rally, this is the song that’s playing in my head. It’s my absolute motivation.
Jon
Beautiful, thank you. So, obviously I’ve read your Wikipedia page but, how would you describe yourself in a nutshell?
Phil
‘Animal Welfarist, Environmentalist and Photographer’.
Jon
And lastly, is all new music rubbish??
Phil
Hahaha…. (huge pause and whispers)... maybe a bit.
Jon
Ha! I think maybe what you said at the outset is probably right. There’s a time in our lives when music suddenly starts to speak to you, and regardless of how good that music is in real terms, nothing ever has the same impact again. I think that’s true for a lot of people.
Phil
In fairness I don’t get the chance to listen to much new music nowadays, unfortunately. The guitar kind of just sits in the corner. I can’t remember the artist's name, but there is a country version of ‘Blinding Light’ I saw on Instagram which I really enjoyed. If you forced me to choose a new song, even though I suppose it’s a cover, that’d be it.
Jon
Can you see yourself playing music again? You wrote and recorded some great stuff back in the day.
Phil
Photography has really filled the space in my life that music occupied before our first book ‘Farmageddon’ was released. It’s a bit more compatible with bird watching, and with the holidays or trips I manage, particularly if my wife is with me. I can feed it back into my work, so right now it’s a better fit, but I’d love to get back to music properly one day, when time allows.
Jon
Thanks Phil. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about all this stuff, and it was great to catch up!
We'll allow Phil this 'bonus' choice then ;-) This is the track he was trying to remember!
Compassion In World Farming
In the meantime if you'd like to find out more about the work Compassion In World Farming do please visit their website ciwf.org.uk.
If you'd like to donate towards their work in banning live exports and putting an end to factory farming, you can do so from the website too.
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