Theodora Eleni talks to Emma Silverthorn about her book which tells the story of how her grandparents, Anna and Peter Roberts, changed the way in which we farm today by founding what is now the world’s largest and most successful animal welfare charity.
Together they discuss how Anna and Peter’s campaign changed how corporate giants such as McDonalds and others changed the way in which they produced their meat and how their campaign influenced the Royal Family to change the way they consumed livestock products by changing to free range produce.
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A very interesting and informative listen!
Great podcast Theodora and Emma.
Thank you for asking such interesting, insightful & thought-provoking questions Theodora. Hope this interview will shine even more of a light on CIWF!
A very interesting and wide ranging interview. And very timely considering what’s going on in the world right now.
Very informative interview . Also the book is a great read and I think it could be made into a film
David, Emma Silverthorn here. I have only just seen this lovely and fascinating comment above. Thank you for sharing your recollections and I hope you enjoyed ‘Roaming Wild’. My mum (Gillian Silverthorn, middle-daughter of Anna and Peter) remembers you and Lady and Lord Dowding well too and has very fond memories. Just watched the BWC video you link to as well for the first time, it’s fantastically executed. Here’s to those who fight the power! Wishing you well, Emma.
Great interview! Very interesting. I learned so much from this conversation. The book is absolutely brilliant too
Writer of ‘Roaming Wild’ here just seen all these lovely comments! Thanks so much for listening and for the kind words David, Gillian, Kevin, Marylyn and Hatty! I agree let’s get it optioned for the film Marylyn…. I’m thinking Jonny Flynn for a young Peter Roberts!
I left England in 1988, so thanks to my daughter I’ve just learnt about Emma’s book remembering the pioneering work her that parents achieved.
I was privileged to know Peter & Anna very well. Like my mother & grandmother, they were members of The White Eagle Lodge, vegetarian, and during the mid 1980s I was for a short time the general secretary of CIWF.
Being a journalist filming & exposing animal abuse around the world for my mother, Lady Dowding’s ‘Beauty Without Cruelty’ animal welfare charity, which was founded in the 1950s, my press card helped me gain access for Peter to Matthews turkey farms & slaughter house, investigate the monks of Storrington Priory who were running a battery veal calf establishment, and later Peter kindly mounted a campaign for me using some of my film for the CIWF ‘Hopping Madness’ video to expose the cruel export of frozen frogs legs from India, where I had been investigating several time during the 1970s.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJPoFIEdn3g&t=7s
Although my meeting with the Indian PM in 1978 did not then end the slaughter of bull frogs, India has since banned the export of frog’s legs.
It’s so uplifting to remember old friends and witness the successes they have made for a better world in these troubled geopolitical times, (especially for those of us who lived through the last world conflict).