12
WORK
LIF E
9 3
A�ONE-DAY�DIARY��
FROM�MORNING�LATTE
TO�LIGHTS�OUT
Tamsin Omond,
environmental
activist
Tamsin Omond, 24, is the founder
of Climate Rush, an organisation
which protests about climate change.
She lives in west London
My working day is pretty hard to
define. For the whole of September
I was on the first Climate Rush road
show. I took 20 activists around the
UK and put on workshops about
how to mend your
clothes or bike and
how to organise a
protest. I woke up
at 6am, got the camp
fire started, put the
horses in harness
and also had to
fit in writing my
weekly column for
The Ecologist, which
helps pays the bills.
Generally though, I work from my
flat in Kilburn, where I live with my
flatmate, William. I wake up at 7am,
put on Radio 4, have a shower, make
a big pot of coffee and work out what
the interns are going to do that day.
When I left university two years ago, I wanted to be a priest. At university, I didn’t really know what I wanted to
do and became quite disillusioned with the whole professional world. It was Reverend Alice Goodman, my
chaplain at Trinity College, Cambridge, who made me consider going into the Church. She was a real inspiration
to me at the time. I wanted to shake things up; I didn’t think Christianity was working properly and I wanted to be
the one to change it. Religion and the priesthood has always been a part of my life and continues to be today – I
was raised as a Christian – but, in the end, I figured that the world probably didn’t need another priest, whereas it
definitely needs a few more environmental activists.
����WWW�STYLIST�CO�UK
6
TAMSIN MAKES HER
VOICE HEARD ABOUT
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Three interns
keep Climate
Rush going and
they’ve been
working since
I started the
company 18
months ago.
Climate Rush was born after I read
articles on environmental issues – the
more I read about what was happening
to our planet, the more compelled
I became to do something about it.
I just got to a point where I couldn’t
MY�PLAN�B��A�PRIEST�
NO ARMCHAIR ACTIVIST, TAMSIN
TOURS THE COUNTRY IN HER
FIGHT TO RESCUE OUR PLANET
sit by doing nothing any longer.
Before the interns arrive at 10am,
I do an hour of Ashtanga yoga. I don’t
really have much of a beauty regime,
but I love Mopp organic hair products
and sometimes treat myself to Aveda
products. People expect eco-warriors
to wear hemp skirts and Birkenstocks,
“We’ve scaled the houses
of Parliament and
strapped ourselves to
the underside of planes”
so I try to dress smartly. Martin
Margiela does great androgynous
trouser suits which I team with an
T-shirt from I Love Boxie. I love that
you tell them a story and they turn it
into a slogan on a T-shirt for you.
Once I’m dressed, I read all the
papers. A good protest action has
to be reactive to something live in the
media, like our action against Peter
Mandelson over the summer, when
we put wind turbines in his garden to
protest about his refusal to invest in
sustainable energy solutions. We’ve
also scaled Parliament and strapped
ourselves to the underside of planes.
Most days aren’t quite that eventful,
however. Around 11.30am, I start
lunch; a vegetarian soup or curry.
In the afternoon I’ll have meetings
with possible funders, journalists or
charities. I finish work around 6pm,
but because a lot of Climate Rush’s
members are voluntary and work
around existing jobs, we have three
evening meetings a week from my flat.
I write my Ecologist columns from
my four-poster bed. My bedroom is my
favourite place in the house. It’s full of
books and antiques, with an 18thcentury
mahogany bookshelf which
my grandad left me, and art nouveau
prints on my wall. The rest of the
space is taken up with Climate Rush
campaign memorabilia – particularly
our trademark red sashes. We dress
up for our demos; we’re inspired by
the Suffragettes, so we make costumes
with high collars and layered skirts
but with a contemporary, sexy twist.
My boyfriend lives in east London
so I spend a lot of time there. The
Hoxton Bar And Grill is great and I
like the Working Men’s Club in Bethnal
Green. We usually get a Vietnamese
takeaway and hang out at a friend’s
house. My friends are my tuning fork.
Climate Rush is about engaging with
people, so if they switch off when I’m
talking I know I’m not doing it right.
From living student life, suddenly
I’ve become someone who gets
arrested five times a year. I love
going to bed with no idea what
tomorrow will bring.
Rush! by Tamsin Omond is out now
(Marion Boyars Publishers, £7.99)
TAMSIN ONCE WANTED TO
JOIN THE PRIESTHOOD
WORDS��AMY�GRIER���PHOTOGRAPHY��DEAN�BELCHER��REX�FEATURES��GETTY�IMAGES���HAIR�&�MAKE-UP��SOPHIA�KNIGHT���
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