A few days ago, a friend of mine, in fact the founder of Transition Town Berkhamsted, Danny Bonnett, got in touch to say that a Danish paper were doing an article on the Transition movement in the UK, and were interested in meeting up with someone from TTB to conduct an interview.  Given my more flexible lifestyle, I was able to put myself forward, as was Robin Williams, the TTB Energy Group leader.

We’ve all got excited about the Grand Union Community Energy opportunity started by Transition in Kings, or TiK (the Transition organisation in nearby Kings Langley), so I invited them to come along as well – John Ingleby and Vicky Bates (she was in BBC children’s programme the Riddlers, if you remember that).  Mette, the journalist from Information, was interested in physical projects that have got off the ground, and GUCE is a great example.

After a bit of phoning around, I managed to arrange a photo opportunity at the Hemel Food Garden (where food is grown locally by charity Sunnyside Rural Trust).

So it was that we met Mette in the Attic Café in Berkhamsted.  She (Mette) described Information as a daily paper in Denmark, similar to the Financial Times here in that is specialises in particular fields with coverage of more general news.  It is a left-of-centre paper that concentrates on social and environmental issues.

We started in a traditional interview format, answering a series of questions about our individual and group backgrounds.  Given that we in TTB had not spent a great deal of time with those from TiK / GUCE in the past, it wasn’t long before the interview moved more towards a meeting and sharing of ideas between our two Transition groups.

The eventual article reflected that.  Have a read to hear how it went – a chance to practise your Danish, or you might use Google translate to get the gist of what is written.

John Bell,

Ordinary bloke