Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on signing the eco-pledge, exciting sins and the spiritual elevation of Sir David Attenborough

NEARLY 200 years ago, Britain's vast and rapacious alcohol industry was scared to death by the Band of Hope. This was a mass nationwide movement in which children signed a pledge declaring: "I promise to abstain from all intoxicating drinks." For thousands of kids, "signing the pledge" became a rite of passage. I thought of those earnest Victorian abstainers while watching the protesters at the Extinction Rebellion demos.