Paul, my beloved stepson, passed away last week.
Paul came into my life when he was just over one year old, soon after I met Angela, his mother. That first time, he studied me intently, as if he was working out if I was OK to relate to. It’s something he would invariably do as a young child when he met anyone new, whether they were adults or other children. Fortunately, I seemed to pass the test. As an adult, Paul was incredibly sociable. But carefully weighing up a situation was something he continued to do, before making important decisions. Until near the end, that is, when making decisions became increasingly difficult.
His was not a typical upbringing, and not just because having two Dads was, at the time, unusual. Angela was a second wave radical feminist, when many of her political sisters were suggesting that they should separate completely from males, including from their male children. Angela refused to have to choose between her politics and her male child. She believed that male babies are not born oppressors, but that, under patriarchy, they are trained to become oppressors. She felt that it was worth putting time and energy into challenging that training. The man Paul grew into proved to her that she had been right to do this. The strong bond that she and Paul formed when he was a child endured, and remained powerful to the end.
“Our small sons are tomorrow’s adult male oppressors. If we want to change that, if we do not accept that this is inevitable, we have to begin interfering in some way now with the process that brings this about. Patriarchy depends, for its continuance, on our sons. It needs them to become the next generation of adult male oppressors of women in order to reproduce this system of male supremacy. But what would happen to the patriarchal system if our sons did not carry out this allotted task? … How can we, to paraphrase Robin Morgan, ensure that our male children remain ‘children of the mother’ and that their faces are not turned from us?”
Angela Hamblin - What Can One Do with a Son? Feminist Politics and Male Children (in S Friedman & E Sarah, eds, On the Problem of Men, 1982)
During Paul’s primary school years in North London in the late 1970s, his teachers were often on strike, so much of his education took place outside the classroom. When Angela went to radio studios to be interviewed, as part of the campaign against forced adoption that she founded in 1975, she sometimes took Paul with her to watch the interview taking place. Paul and I proudly listened as Angela gave a speech in Trafalgar Square, London, as part of a Women Against Rape demonstration in 1977. And much of our bonding as a family during those years took place protesting noisily on demonstrations to defend abortion rights.
Some days when his teachers were on strike I took Paul to my work. Usually I was able to drop him off at the Polytechnic’s creche while I was actually teaching, even though he was older than the other children. A couple of times, though, the creche was full, and I’d ask one of my students if they’d sit with him at the back while I lectured. One of those times there was laughter half way into the lecture. At the end I asked the student who was with Paul what was so funny - apparently he had leaned over to her and asked in a loud voice “Is it usually this boring?”
Environmental activism
Paul’s lifelong interest in environmental issues started in his teens. He went on to study Environmental Management at Manchester Polytechnic, then Environmental Impact Assessment at Aberystwyth University. In his vacations, he did voluntary conservation work - with BTCV, with RSPB, and in a National Forest in Washington State, USA. After university he took on responsibility for communications in our local Friends of the Earth group. He aimed to get a news item published each week in the local newspaper - and he achieved it. During this time he met his lifelong partner, Janet, who was Chair of the local Greenpeace group (and who greatly impressed Angela and I by driving a truck loaded with equipment up to Cumbria for an action against the Sellafield plutonium production plant).
A dream job, for which Paul was ideally suited, was advertised not long after Angela had been hospitalised with severe ME in 1994. We agonised about how we would cope when Angela came out of hospital, but concluded that he should go for it. He got the job, as a campaigner with CPRE (the Campaign to Protect Rural England), For a few months, before I was able to take early retirement and become Angela’s full time carer, Paul and I managed to juggle our jobs while taking turns to care for Angela.
Paul thrived in the job, and, building on the communications skills he had developed at Friends of the Earth, he became an accomplished interviewee on TV and radio. He went on from there to set up National Parks England (NPE). Here he became a successful networker, building up close links with Government Ministers and senior civil servants, and successfully shielding the National Parks from the most severe budget cuts when the Coalition Government’s austerity policy took hold. He also made full use of his contacts to widen the aims of the National Parks, promoting the health benefits of improved access to open spaces, for example.
“Landscape feeds us in many ways. It can be the motivator to get us out and about to energise our bodies. It can open our minds, it can replenish our souls. Landscape touches us, strengthening our connection with the world around us.”
Paul Hamblin, Britain’s Breathing Spaces (introduction to Landscape Photographer of the Year Collection 03, 2009)
The final years
In 2020, as Covid-19 was taking hold, Paul was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. He had to leave his job at NPE, shortly after being appointed its first Chief Executive. Surgery was followed by intensive treatment, both conventional and experimental. This coincided with a marked deterioration in Angela’s health, and it was typical of Paul that he made sure that in between treatment sessions he would visit us to be able to spend quality time with her. For a time, he was able to take on a voluntary role as a trustee of National Trails. It reminded me of one of my fondest memories of Paul in his late teens - we took a day each year, for three successive years, to walk part of the South West Coast Path.
Paul continued to visit as often as he could after Angela died, and his support at that difficult time meant a lot to me. But although Initially his treatment had seemed to be successful, early this year Paul heard that the cancer had spread, and before long it became clear that he had run out of treatment options. He and Janet decided to get married, and their reception in July was a wonderfully life-affirming occasion. Paul was determined not to let cancer deprive him of this, and Janet arranged for him to be taken by ambulance to the venue, where he was able to stay for a couple of hours. He surprised everyone by giving a short speech. The whole afternoon was incredibly moving - a tribute to Paul’s resilience and determination, and to Janet’s loving support of him.
The last thing Paul wrote to me began: “All our journeys have changed so much in these last months.”
I treasure the fact that he shared so much of his life journey with me.