130 Tatler October 2019 tatler.comPHOTOGRAPHS: FIONA REID; IMMO KLINKBut Serena’s most visible act of pro-
test was as one of the ‘Petroleum Nine’- a group of XR activists who glued
themselves to the door of the Inter-
Continental Hotel on Park Lane while
it was hosting an oil and gas industry
conference. She’s about to be tried. On
her second court date, the temperature
reaches 38.7°C, the UK’s hottest day
on record. She reflects on the protest: ‘I
absolutely knew that I had to do this.
Because if you’re superglued, they can’t
move you, which gives you the oppor-
tunity to speak gently to the delegates
that you’re doing it for their children.
They can’t continue pulling fossil fuels
out of the ground.’ Being arrested was
an emotional experience, she says: it
made her think of the terrible treat-
ment of conscientious objectors around
the world. ‘I’ve got the advantage of
being a white, middle-aged woman. It
wouldn’t be so easy if I was black.’ She
pauses, then continues: ‘And the other
thing is my character witnesses are
peers of the realm.’ She laughs, but I
suspect she’s only half-joking.
Serena’s certainly not the only well-connected
rebel – and big names occasionally cause problems.
When Emma Thompson gave a speech on the pink
boat in Oxford Circus in April, having flown in first-
class from LA, it was to a great deal of gleeful criticism
from the tabloids. I ask Alice, a 26-year-old Oxford
graduate who took part in those protests (but, sadly,
missed Thompson’s speech) what she thinks. ‘One
flight isn’t going to make a difference,’ she says. ‘It’s
about changing the zeitgeist, so someone like that –
whom so many people trust and admire – saying
something is way more important than a transatlantic
flight.’ And, she adds, it was only once Emma
Thompson got involved that her parents stopped
disapproving of her taking part in the protests.
And anyway, says 25-year-old XR member Flora,
who was privately educated and also went to Oxford,
central to the group is a culture of ‘no shame, no
blame’. ‘It’s about looking for systemic change rather
than personal change,’ she says. Which is why its
members are untroubled by accusations of hypocrisy.
‘We all mess up in our various ways,’ continues Flora.
‘I have a car. I drive it. We’re all part of the problem.’
Emma Thompson is far from alone among the
rich and influential in throwing their weight behind
the movement. Figures from Jeremy Clarkson to
Noam Chomsky to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
have voiced their support – leading the Daily Tele-
graph to castigate high-profile allies, such as Rowan
Williams, ‘who should know better’. When a hacker
stole unreleased music by Radiohead in June, the
band responded by releasing the recordings and
donating all proceeds to Extinction Rebellion. In
fashion, Dame Vivienne Westwood has been a vocal
Extinction Rebellion activists
disrupted London Fashion
Week in February 2019[Tatler types do indeed swell the
ranks of Extinction Rebellion: Old
Paulinas block-print the XR symbol
on to T-shirts at its events; OE
financiers fund it; Oxbridge graduates
buzz around the Bethnal Green offices
and on the streets. No surprise there:
historically, as Dr Gail Bradbrook, the
movement’s (working-class) co-found-
er points out, leaders of social move-
ments have often been members of the
elite. Take Emmeline Pankhurst, Dr
Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Man-
dela and Gandhi, who all came from
positions of relative privilege. The
rebels are in fact a diverse bunch
(though confess that they could be
more so – one of their recent tweets
read: ‘Are we a rebellion of middle-class
male Caucasians? The short answer is
no(ish)’). But, says Bradbrook, ‘What
we all believe in is that if you’ve got
privilege, you should use your privilege
for the good.’ And Amy, a 27-year-old
XR volunteer who went to St Paul’s
and Oxford, agrees. ‘It’s a really hot
topic,’ she says. ‘But there’s an argument to be had
that if those of us with the privilege to take time off
work or be in central London for an action don’t use
it, what is the point in having it?’
Andrew Medhurst agrees wholeheartedly. He was
one of the 1,100 rebels arrested in the first tranche of
XR protests in April who now faces trial. (On the first
day of the Summer Uprising, XR rebels – and their
boat – stationed themselves outside the Royal Courts
of Justice in response.) He quit a very successful 30-
year career in finance in the City of London to volun-
teer full-time for XR at the beginning of this year.
Last year’s IPCC report (warning that ‘rapid, far-
reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of
society’ would be required to limit global warming to
1.5°C) was one incentive, another the oppressively
hot summer of 2018. His first protest – ‘with my
wife and my dog’ – was on Waterloo Bridge in No-
vember last year; this year, he was arrested in the same
place in April. Within six weeks he was arrested again
for gluing himself to City Hall. He has just been
charged for the first offence: ‘I will appear at the City
of London Magistrates’ Court, which, ironically, is
just across the junction from the Bank of England,’
close to where he spent much of his career.
Medhurst talks about the importance of arrests to
the movement: ‘It’s absolutely important, it has to be
disruptive. If we were to just stand in a field and pro-
test about the climate, everyone would ignore us. The
fact that it is disruptive means the media write about
it, Londoners find out about it. From finding out
about it, some of them will join us.’ One new re-
cruit to the cause is his drama-student daughter,
formerly a pupil at Christ’s Hospital and one of the
1.4 million people worldwide to take part in theGreta Thunberg-inspired youth strikes against climate
change in spring this year. ‘One of my proudest
moments was seeing my 19-year-old daughter walk-
ing around with a banner that said, “CLIMATE
CHAOS, WE’RE F**KED”.’
Equally inspired by youth is Serena Schellenberg,
58, who goes to youth strikes with her (privately edu-
cated) nieces and nephews. ‘Because that’s where my
connections are – not with my own generation’, she
says. Serena (the daughter of Keith Schellenberg, the
famous playboy, Bystander regular, owner of a Scottish
island and founder of Les Avants Tobogganing and
Bobsleigh Club), has been a member of XR since
its launch last year. ‘I’d never, ever contemplated ac-
tivism,’ she says. ‘But I felt absolutely compelled that
I can’t sit back any more.’ A freelance TV producer,
she was behind the viral Keira Knightley video for
XR, and is making another about biodiversity loss
for the October rebellion.‘I’d never contemplatedactivism. Being arrestedwas an emotionalexperience... but mycharacter references arepeers of the realm’10-19WELL-Extinction.indd 130 15/08/2019 17:17