RIP Pete Wilkinson

Posted: 23rd January 2025

Pete Wilkinson.

It is with great sadness that we have to inform you of the sudden, tragic loss of Pete Wilkinson. Pete had been chairman of Together Against Sizewell C for many years and only in the last year had he taken a slight back seat due to the devastating flood to his home during the October 2023 floods.

A legend in his own lifetime, the sudden, untimely death of Pete has left those who knew and worked with him shocked and desolate. It is almost impossible to comprehend that such a force of nature has left the stage, and without doubt, the planet has lost one of its toughest and most tenacious defenders.
Born in Deptford in southeast London, Pete’s early years were happy and memorable. He hit his teens as Britain began a transformation from the war years to what became known as the Swinging 60s. In a politically and socially volatile era, many young people were convinced they would die as the result of a nuclear war and young Pete became actively anti all things nuclear. Moving into the world of environmentalism, he co-founded Friends of the Earth and a few years later was appointed as one of the five members of the Greenpeace International board of directors.

Pete led 7 Greenpeace voyages to the Antarctic, to protect not only the wildlife but the continent itself, contributing hugely to the worldwide ban on mining in the Antarctic – ‘we forced the Antarctic Treaty nations to agree to a mining ban for 50 years and a World Park status for an entire continent’.
His autobiography, From Deptford to the Antarctic, is a fascinating insight into the man himself and his life’s work.

Pete adored his family. Essential to his well-being, Gaye and their two girls provided the strength and support that enabled Pete’s searchlight to shine out and show the truth. He was and remained a thorn in the side of parts of Government and various large corporations, and he did not suffer fools gladly.
Pete never stopped working tirelessly on behalf of the environment. In recent years he has helped and supported TASC through his knowledge, contacts and leadership, whilst simultaneously working on other projects, the problem of low-level radiation being a particular cause.

Tributes are pouring in and as one just said, ‘Pete was a lion of a man with a grade ‘A’ bullshit detector’.

We will all miss him enormously.

R.I.P. Wilks.