Dear Fashionably anonymous, having lived in Turley Road for 20 years I recognise
much you have written. It is such a shame that his life was mostly wasted in so
much misery and bitterness. However, it is a credit to the long suffering
"original community" of neighbours that have borne his intolerence and violent
outbursts, over many years, with such compasion and tolerant good grace, albeit
through gritted teeth. As for his green credentials, he would campaign for
people to switch off their engines and then go home and burn anything in his
wood burner regardless of the pollution and poison that belch out onto his
neighbours. "Green when it suited" as I suspect is common with many of his
cronies. If his life is to mean anything make it as an example of what not to
follow to save the planet.

Pete where ever you are I hope you have found peace at last.

Regards

Geoff

One of the neighbours driven away.



--- In easton_bristol@..., "FreeFire" <freefire@...> wrote:
>
> Over the past few days, there has understandably been much talk, sadness and
some postings on email lists about Pete Taylor (of Greenbank) who died last
week.
>
>
>
> Well, I know that one isn't meant to speak ill of the dead, etc. but I'm sure
that I can't be the only person who is breathing a sigh of relief now that Pete
Taylor is gone from us. Of course I don't like to think of anyone dying alone in
an asthma attack, I'd rather he'd realised his various dreams/fantasies of
moving to Ireland or Spain. But, in reading and hearing some of the (frankly
nauseous glorifying) tributes to him, I wonder if we're talking about the same
Pete Taylor (?) And if we are, then I think that this genuinly meant counter
will perhaps be uncomfortable, but not out of place.
>
>
>
> I certainly don't want to rid our community of difference, of mavericks, of
'characters', far from it, but Pete Taylor was a hateful (full of hatred) angry
man who could be aggressive and violent when he'd drunk too much or when he was
psychotic. He was an entrenched misogynist and would also pick on disabled
people in the area as objects of his hatred. There are people – adults and
children who still bare the scars of his persistant episodes of terror against
them, some are still here and others had their lives made such a misery that
they felt forced to leave the area.
>
>
>
> I think now, as I did while he lived, that he raised some difficult moral
conundrums for us that we could hardly acknowledge - a tireless environmental
campaigner who did have a 'love' for the planet, but who also had something of a
deep-set hatred of those people who live on it (particularly those of a female
gender and those physically weaker than him). Somehow the `environmentalist'
(representing much that is `good') seemed to stop us seeing the bad bits.
>
>
>
> Whilst I don't want a community that holds resentments and grudges, I do
question how forgiving the 'green' lobby and wider community were of this man -
I wonder why they could somehow see no further than `Pete the local character',
`the maverick' or 'Pete, the bolshy activist/campaigner' and sat by and watched,
laughed off or took his tireless rudeness, aggression and even violence with
little in the way of challenge. This was a man whose `green politics were more
akin to the (`right wing' and `redneck') early US Earth First movement than
anything that I thought that most green lobbyists here (including UK EF offshoot
movements) would sanction. A man who's social politics were more BMP than
`liberal'.
>
>
>
> Yes, we may have lost something in Pete dying, but if the local community and
worse, the green movement needs and makes a hero of someone like this, then I
really do worry about our priorities.
>
>
>
> I feel an overwhelming sense of relief and can't but think that the area will
be a better and safer place without him.
>
>
>
> (Fashionably) Anonymous.
>