Daily Mail - 17.08.2019

Daily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019 Page 3
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SHE WEARS IT WELLIE

Carrie’s in eco-friendly summer

dress and boots as she champions

puffins in her first public speech

Wing and a prayer: Carrie Symonds. Right: With Deborah Meaden and Chris Packham

‘Gorgeous’: The public convenience

IF you’re ever at a loose end in

Hull, it’s the perfect place to

spend some time, according to

the Lonely Planet travel guide.

A visit to the Grade II-listed

public conveniences at the

city’s Victoria Pier is listed as

one of the top 500 travel expe-

riences in the UK.

They are in 483rd place,

hailed as ‘gorgeous temples

of lavatorial luxury built in

Edwardian style with art nou-

veau flourishes, resplendent

with gleaming white tiles, pol-

ished copper piping, var-

nished mahogany and a minor

jungle of potted plants’.

They opened in 196 to serve

Humber Ferry passengers and

were restored in the 1990s.

They take their place in the

guide alongside destinations

including the Giant’s Cause-

way in Northern Ireland and

Tate Modern in London.

Daily Mail Reporter

IN a £225 ‘eco-friendly’

dress and charity shop

wellies, Boris Johnson’s

environmentalist partner

Carrie Symonds made her

first public speaking

appearance yesterday.

The Prime Minister’s girl-

friend was at Birdfair – dubbed

‘the Glastonbury for bird-

watchers’ – where she con-

demned the trophy hunting of

puffins in Iceland.

She said she had been horrified

to see pictures of dead puffins in

a newspaper article, particularly

because she had enjoyed watch-

ing the birds with Mr Johnson at

a Yorkshire reserve.

She also used her appearance

at the event at Rutland Water

Nature Reserve to speak out

against the scourge of plastic pol-

lution in our seas.

‘We all share this crowded planet

and should all try to take care of

it,’ she told her audience. She

said she always ‘tried to remem-

ber to take a canvas bag’ to the

supermarket, and added: ‘I’m

wearing a sustainable dress.’

Her floral Liberty print dress

was by British designer Justine

Tabak, who uses ‘sustainably

sourced’ fabrics in her dresses,

which are made in England. Miss

Symonds, 31, also wore green

wellies from a charity shop, and

carried a red handbag and an ani-

mal print umbrella from Boots.

Formerly head of press for the

Tories, she is now an adviser at

US-based charity Oceana. While

she has kept a low profile since

Mr Johnson took over at No 10,

yesterday’s event suggests she

will use her position as the Prime

Minister’s girlfriend to highlight

environmental issues.

he was. And when I saw that puf-

fin in all its glory, I was just

delighted. When he turned his

head and I caught a glimpse of

that rainbow bill... I knew I’d

found the right guy. It was magic,

something I’ll never forget.

‘And then, just a couple of

weeks later I saw another

puffin. But this one wasn’t wad-

dling happily in and out of

his burrow. No. He was pictured

in a newspaper, his bloodstained

body lined up alongside dozens

of others, all slaughtered by so-

called “trophy hunters” on trips

to Iceland.

‘I ask you, why would anyone

want to shoot a puffin? Why

would anyone want to destroy

something so beautiful, then stuff

its poor lifeless body to keep as

some kind of macabre trophy?’

She added: ‘When we look

at trophy hunting, at habitat

loss, at climate change and the

catastrophic levels of plastic

pollution in our oceans – a million

sea birds die every year as a

result of ingesting plastic – we

see why events like Birdfair are

so important.’

BBC wildlife presenter Chris

Packham, who appeared on the

same platform as Miss Symonds

and businesswoman Deborah

Meaden, told the Daily Mail that

he was ‘very pleased’ that she

was speaking out against the tro-

phy hunting of puffins.

By Colin Fernandez

Environment Correspondent

‘I knew I’d found

the right guy’

Brolly good show:

Miss Symonds

yesterday

In her speech, Miss Symonds

said: ‘Just last month I took my

first trip to the stunning Bemp-

ton Cliffs [a nature reserve in

East Yorkshire] ... gannets, razor-

bills, guillemots, all soaring and

screeching and diving with the

majestic backdrop of those sheer

chalk walls.

‘But what I really wanted to see

was a puffin. We spent hours look-

ing. I was on tiptoes leaning over

the cliffs, craning my neck, peer-

ing through my binoculars, des-

perately trying to glimpse one.

‘We were about to give up, about

to go home. But suddenly – there

£

Feted, the Cistern Chapel of Hull

V