EARTH D AY SPECIAL
Feargal Sharkey fell in love with trout streams as a boy. Now he’s the face of public protest against the ongoing pollution of our rivers. Chris Packham went to meet his punk hero…
CHRIS PACKHAM The last time we were in a room together was 18 November 1978. I’ll give you a prize if you can tell me where you were…
FEARGAL SHARKEY It was possibly on a short but sweet Rezillos tour? [Sharkey’s band, the Undertones, were also on the bill.]
CHRIS Correct! It was at a gig at Southampton University. I was in a punk band called the Titanic Survivors, and I’d sent you guys a tape saying, “Could we support you?” And the answer was no.
FEARGAL Oh, stop! Have you forgiven us?
CHRIS Of course, I forgave you years ago, at that amazing gig!
FEARGAL How fantastic, Chris Packham! I’d never have guessed.
CHRIS It was your first UK tour?
FEARGAL We then discovered motorway service stations at three o’clock in the morning! It wasn’t necessarily as glamorous as we were led to believe.
CHRIS So here we are now, 46 years later, having a conversation about critical matters of the environment. What led you from Teenage Kicks to the river bank?
FEARGAL My school in Derry was run on the kind of ethos that if you thought lessons finished at half past three, you’d lost your mind. And if you thought weekends were your own, you were delusional.
Part of the induction was: “Here’s a long list of after-school clubs and societies. You have to pick six, and, if you don’t, we will volunteer you.” There was a box named “debating”. My friends will tell you, it was no surprise that Sharkey was the youngest-ever captain of the senior debating team. And for some random reason I also ticked the box marked “fly fishing”!
CHRIS You started fly fishing while you were still at school?
FEARGAL Yeah, and that interest and passion developed.
CHRIS So, a river runs through Feargal Sharkey?
FEARGAL Oh, it does. I’ve always found it mentally quite difficult, if not impossible, to switch off and relax. But I need to focus so intently on that sullen, disobliging little trout that it allows me to push all the other noise and static into the back of my mind. It’s one of the few ways I have – and always have had – of just sitting down and trying to be quiet.
CHRIS You focus so much on that, that there’s no room for anything else in the world?
FEARGAL Not only does water provide the fundamental requirements for life itself, but it provides a means to travel, to explore, to develop, to deal with the dead, to
