Farming Breeds: Claire (Athena) – the eco-warrior
Join us for a funny, irreverent look at some of the characters that make the British countryside what it is. Our tongue-in-cheek guide puts characters such as the retired Major, the “perfect” next-door farmer and the young tearaway under the microscope. Here we meet eco-warrior Claire, who goes by the name of Athena and won’t be sending her children to school…
Claire dropped out of school midway through A levels.
“I want to live life – not learn about it from books,” she declared, throwing some clothes into a rucksack and storming out. And then she came back for her stereo and her diary and some books and, with that, she was off.
She always had a big picture of a whale on her wall – but that never prepared us for this, her mother says, fighting back the tears. The first she heard was when Claire called on her mobile to say she had moved in with a community living in a lay-by in Wiltshire. “Oh, and please don’t call me Claire anymore,” she said. “It’s Athena.”
She chose Athena after the poster shop. And when she looked it up in the dictionary and saw it was the name of a virgin goddess from Greek mythology, her mind was made up.
She likes going to festivals, where she’ll drink cider and splash around in mud and eulogise about musicians who have refused to sign with a big label.
“Peace people” is what Athena calls her new extended family. Hippies, according to her mum. “They’ve got more buses than National Express,” her dad laughs – but it’s not a laughing matter. What’s he going to say to his friends at the golf club? He had such high hopes for his only daughter.
The Greenpeace leaflet that came through the door, that’s what started it, he reckons. It wasn’t long after that she started talking about the global warming. He told her not to be so silly. “All property is theft,” she replied.
Athena dreadlocks her hair, wears baggy trousers and Doc Martin boots. She likes going to festivals, where she’ll drink cider and splash around in mud and eulogise about musicians who have refused to sign with a big label. Artists like that, she feels, embody her spirit – a unique mix of compassion and rebelliousness.
She calls anyone who lives in anything bigger than a terrace house a “Tory pig”. And the farmer on whose land her home – a 1971 coach – is parked is a “fascist”.
Her friends from school went to college or to work in banks.
“Money doesn’t make you happy,” Athena says, boiling up some beans on her little gas stove. “Dinner”, she calls it out of habit – then quickly corrects herself: “scran”.
If there’s one thing Athena’s certain about, it’s that she won’t be sending her kids to school. Kids, however, are a long way away yet – she’s only 19 and has got six dogs to look after as it is.
Besides, Athena’s boyfriend Zeus (formerly Jeremy) only believes in intercourse when the moon is full – and that doesn’t happen as often as Athena would like. And even then he’s sometimes too busy playing his guitar or smoking (not Old Holborn, either) or planning a programme of peaceful protests in support of the Patagonian forest tapeworm of which there are only 36 million breeding pairs left.
“They’re persecuted,” says Athena, tuning in the wide-screen colour TV in the coach. “Just like us.”