Regular readers of my Ramblings in Friday’s Morning Star will have already met my granddaughter Lizzie. She has penned a couple of Star articles herself and is a great source of ideas for environmental articles as well as sometimes being my sternest critic.

Lizzie (21), who I have always described as to the left of Rosa Luxemburg and Greener than David Attenborough, has already packed a lot of political and environmental campaigning into her life.

She won a UN essay competition visiting Auschwitz to become a Holocaust ambassador. She was elected to the RSPB’s Young Members’ Forum and in the 2016 general election she became the youngest ever paid employee of the Labour Party.

She campaigned to get thousands of young people on the electoral register. It was only after she applied, was interviewed and then did the job very successfully that the Labour Party realised Lizzie wasn’t actually old enough to vote herself.

After taking advice from Morning Star editor Ben Chacko she enrolled for a four-year course in Chinese Language and Studies at SOAS. Her second year has been spent at Beijing University. Prior to starting her university course spent a gap year in China teaching English to young Chinese children.

Mum Jane (55) — my daughter-in-law — spent a year of her university time in the German Democratic Republic.  
She was a Labour councillor in Hammersmith before moving to Bedford. Jane was an influential environmentalist at the Local Government Management Board where she was responsible for rolling out the UK’s Local Agenda 21 campaign.  

Ten years ago I wouldn’t have been able to even think about such a journey

Jane has spoken at the UN on sustainable development indicators. She worked for the World Wildlife Fund and the Audit Commission before the Tories shut it down. For some years Jane was vice chair of SERA — Labour’s Environmental Campaign. All this since being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in her twenties.

Lizzie wasn’t going to get a gas-guzzling jumbo jet home. She and Mum will climb into a train in Beijing next week and, five thousand miles, 10 countries and 23 days later, alight at their home station Bedford.

The amazing trip will take them across China into Mongolia where overnight accommodation will be in a nomad’s Ger tent near Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar.

They then cross the Russian border and journey on to Irkutsk along the the shores of Lake Baikal before joining the famous Trans Siberian Railway passing the Siberian cities of Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk on the way across the seemingly unending Russian steppes.

They reach the Ural Mountains — the geographical border of Asia and Europe — at Ekaterinburg and from here they head for Russia’s capital Moscow with a brief detour to St Petersburg.

From Moscow they journey through Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium and France where they cross the channel before the home leg to Bedford.    

Jane told the Morning Star: “Ten years ago I wouldn’t have been able to even think about such a journey. Now, thanks to new treatments and particularly help and care from the Bedford and Northampton MS Therapy Centre I’m ready to take part in this incredible green journey.”

Lizzie chipped in: “Mum and I want to use this trip to raise funds for this wonderful organisation.”

Anyone who wants to help sponsor our trip can do so by visiting our www.justgiving.com — just search for “Lizzie and Jane.”
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jane-morris21

“We chose the train as one of the greenest methods of long distant travel” but the pair also admit “It is going to be a really incredible adventure and one we hope later to share with Morning Star readers.”

All funds raised will go direct to the work of the MS Centre as Lizzie and her mum are covering all their own travel costs.

They are being supported by Bedford travel agency Global Travel Experts. Thanks also to the Trans-Siberian Travel Company.

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