The Gifts we Call on : Interview with Lesley Grahame

‘It’s good trouble, and I intend to grow up disgracefully causing more of it.‘

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I know Lesley through environmental and activist circles in Norwich – she is one of these amazing, tireless characters who seems to be in many different places at one time and can often be seen dashing about town on her bike with the various causes that she supports emblazoned on her panniers and high-vis jacket. She was also a kind, familiar face outside Wymondham Police Station, ready with snacks and drinks and a lift home after I was arrested in Norwich for holding the ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action sign.’

✨ How long have you been writing for? What kind of writing do you do?

I’m 66, so I guess about 60 years.  As a kid I wrote poems and journals, as a way of processing things.  I loved having penfriends and tried to entertain them so they’d keep writing to me.  As a young adult, the writing workload of a student put me off for a long time. I think everyone can write, just like everyone can sing, and these can both improve enormously with training, practice and technique.  

I rarely identify as a writer, but communication is key to most of the work I’ve ever done, and writing is a key tool in preparing and delivering said leaflet/speech/article/story/invitation.

✨ If you were to press one or two books into the hands of everyone you come across, what would it be and why?

The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk. It describes suffering and resisting fascist control over people and nature, in ways that become more real and less like fantasy every day of Trumps exec orders.  It’s a bit like The Handmaid’s Tale but less bleak.

✨ Did you have a favourite childhood book?

I loved all the Narnia books for their adventurous characters, and faith in things that can’t necessarily be understood.

✨ Who or what is your greatest inspiration?

Caroline Lucas, Angie Zelter, Arundati Roy, the Suffragettes, Anti-Apartheid. Throwing the Colston (slavetrader) statue into the river.  The Quaker community, for its firm insistence on equality, fairness, peace and integrity.  I met Quakers through peace campaigning, but it’s the commitment to equality that shines brightest. If you really believe that everyone contains an element of of the divine, you’re not going to meet interesting people then kill them, steal their resources, or destroy their land. You defend said people, with all your strength and commitment and love.

✨ What are you most proud of in your life?

My kids. Working in the NHS. Getting elected 3 times as the Green Party Councillor for Thorpe Hamlet ward in Norwich. The first time it’s on someone else’s record, after that it’s on your own.  

In 2006 I was one of 8 people who entered USAF Lakenheath. In 2025 I was selected as a Parliamentary candidate and when journalists search me on Google, or hopefully Ecosia, it was my criminal record that came up. It’s good trouble, and I intend to grow up disgracefully causing more of it.  I have to give a plug here for the 2026 Lakenheath Peace Camp, from 1st-6th April 2026 which you can read all about here.

✨ So what gifts can we call on?

Our bodies – on the line, in the way, refusing to look away.

Our voices -writing, singing, defending ourselves in court, putting weapons of mass destruction in the dock.

Our civil liberties, the right to a safe-ish environment, fair trials, even voting – all these are under threat so we must use them, amplify them, or lose them. 

Our experience – and ability to extrapolate from what we’ve lived through to what we only know through others. 

I grew up knowing about the Holocaust, fearing nuclear catastrophe and the dreaded question, could they happen here?  What would we do?  It seems they could, and we must rise to the challenge.  Many of us feel bad about moments when we could have done something helpful and didn’t, we also need to remember and value the times when we did what our values required of us, walked the talk, resisted the harm we could see coming.   

✨ Where is your favourite place in the world?

I moved into my current home at Christmas 1980, so I guess it’s the right home for me.  I love going away, but nothing beats coming home to a place where my neighbours are friends, my garden grows my favourite fruits, the tiny pond is doing ok and the bird feeders get regular visitors.  

✨ What work has been most meaningful for you over the years?

Nursing people in their homes, helping their recovery, or at least adaptation, making them smile, leaving them more comfortable than you found them.

Helping people navigate a council that generally wants to help but is tied up by its own rules.  

✨ Do you have any advice for people who want to write but lack confidence?

Think about why you need to speak, what you need to say, to whom.  Then, be bold, kind and strong. If you can, make people laugh as well as think.

If you’re not motivated by the love of your own voice, that’s probably a good thing.  It’s not all about your voice, but your voice may be the best tool you have to bring about the change you want to see. Think purpose. 

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Click here to read a sobering and important article Lesley wrote for the Eastern Daily Press in 2024 entitled Nearby nuclear issue is within Norwich’s zone of interest.

And click here to read another article she wrote for the same publication at the end of 2025 on the rise of fascism here in Norwich, representative of what is taking place across the UK.

Thank you Lesley for your courage, integrity and gifts you share with the community and the world. Keep causing that good kind of trouble, and keep growing up disgracefully.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Compliment it with reading my guest interviews with ecologist and writer Helen Baczkowska + Solar Punk writer JimJames.