I first met Christopher Haskins while walking my dog on a public footpath across his farm in the village of Skidby in the East Riding of Yorkshire, more than four decades ago. It soon became clear that he was not a typical local farmer.
He had an Irish accent. His sheepdog was called Jomo, after Jomo Kenyatta, who led Kenya to independence, and I went on to meet him with Tutu, Tambo and Mbeki. He and his wife, Gilda, had campaigned vigorously against apartheid in South Africa since student days in Dublin.
Our conversations ranged widely - cricket, birdlife on his farm, the city of Hull, where we both worked, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, for which he and Gilda had marched, and the politics of the Labour party.
In 1999 I was delighted to propose him for an honorary degree at the University of Hull, as “a businessman of vision and advocate for social justice”.
