Today we talk to Ian Curtis – former cricketer, founder of Oxfordshire ClimateXchange and development officer at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment

 

WHAT I’M CALLED: I’m called “weird” by the kids. And “Dot” is the politest thing on a cricket pitch. Ian Curtis by the taxman.

MY AGE: A 15-year old 53.

WHAT I DO: Cricket. Photos. Birds. And someone pays me to be a sort of ugly Green Robin Hood: getting rich people to invest in university research for planet saving. At night I’m part of a secret-handshake society trying to mobilise Oxfordshire’s amazing all-round expertise in the same. World needs BIG examples in small places.

WHERE I LIVE: The wonderful Wolvercote Flood Zone, with a street party view on life.

WHO I LOVE: Apart from my top of the pops (girlfriend – okay, the wife – my crazy kids, family, friends)? Everybody with a positive passion or two.

HAPPIEST YEAR: Next year…. It will rain less, shine more, my wife will be even more lovely, the kids more fun, and I might buy a friend a beer.

DARKEST MOMENT: Dropping Viv Richards at Somerset County Cricket Club... didn’t get a finger on it. The only silver lining was that a Cambridge bloke bowled the ball.

PROUDEST BOAST: A hat-trick! 1. On the Sun’s Page 3; 2. in New Musical Express dancing (well, bowling) as the reincarnation of my Joy Division namesake; and 3. being accidentally chosen by the BBC to play against the West Indies.

WORST WEAKNESS: (Chocolate) Cake! Baked by my mum.

LESSONS LEARNED: This is the only planet with chocolate cake (handle with care). Find passions and live them a lot. Photograph something beautiful every day. Walk like a child... never in straight lines. Dance... play a musical instrument (fortunately for the world I do neither.) Tell the kids not to let themselves be led – at any level – by people who are incompetent, corrupt, or morally bankrupt. The next couple of decades will be the most exhilarating rollercoaster in human history. We need a new bylaw – the 100 most astonishing Oxonians have to visit two schools a month. Let go of ideas... someone else will add something you could never add. Sport is the ignored magic for saving the planet. Laugh more.

DULLEST JOB: Mending bike puncture... which I’m doing now. Bike tyre manufacturers should be staked out in an ant pit and covered in honey.

GREATEST SHAME: Knowing one day I have to tell my kids how little I did a. to stop other kids starving to death; and b. to keep the planet beautiful.

LIFELONG HERO: Sir Vivian Richards (why I dropped him above!). Exquisite exhilaration, alongside great dignity on and off the cricket pitch.

OLDEST FRIEND: Dave, Professor of Classics somewhere up north. We were a hopeless centre forward and inside right, age eight. Same schools, university, first house …the cleverest and most modest person I know.

WIDEST SMILE: My wife ..from top to bottom... I mean to the tips of her toes.

FAVOURITE DREAM: Floating across this amazing world in a balloon with friends.

BIGGEST REGRET: Not saying thank you enough to mum, dad, family, and friends. Not meeting Jo 15 years earlier on a Padstow beach. And missing a photo of Sir Roger Bannister and Bill Clinton together this evening.