Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Meet the Green council leader... who’s a vampire slayer
AWEST council has the perfect man in charge when it comes to slaying any deficits – for he has recently starred in a vampire film.
Gloucestershire’s newest Green council leader also hopes to apply his experience “slaying vampires” to tackling climate change in the Forest of Dean.
Mark Topping, 60, who represents the Lydney West and Aylburton ward on the Forest of Dean District Council, says he is an unlikely politician.
A former regional newspaper reporter, who also worked for BBC local radio, he now splits his time between acting and leading the minority Green Party administration in Coleford.
He believes anyone who expresses any desire to become a politician should automatically be excluded.
“I think that’s quite a popular idea,” he said. “I probably fall into the permissible category. I’ve had no intention of becoming a politician.
“Becoming a leader must have been due to a momentary lapse of concentration.”
Cllr Topping, who was born in Hackney, started his working life training to be a monk but soon had second thoughts and pursued a career in the regional press.
“I was a Franciscan novice, The Order of Friars Minor,” he said.
“I was connected with the friary for a couple years. Only doing the novitiate for about six months. I went to college in London, studied theology at King’s College.
“Then I went into the friary and six months later came out of it and got a job in journalism. I graduated in 1984 and left the friary in 1988.”
He then became a journalist working for newspapers in South London.
Then he became a press officer for the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) in London.”
He said the time he worked for CAFOD was fascinating and involved some travel to far flung places such as Ethiopia and Vietnam.
“I also went to Croatia during the war and Mozambique during their war.
“But as a press officer, you’re almost trying to sell a message rather than tell a story because it’s interesting.
“It was a relief to get back to the other side of it and work on BBC local radio in North Yorkshire.”
After leaving journalism and moving to Thornbury, South Gloucestershire, he got his first taste of acting.
He started doing a historic reenactment at Methodist founder John Wesley’s Chapel in Bristol.
“That then grew into presentations to visitors as Wesley, then guided tours. Then I went around the country doing one-man shows as John Wesley.”
He is most proud of the Wrath of Dracula which was released on Prime Video this summer in which he plays the mysterious Professor Van Helsing.
“It’s entertaining. I like to think of it as an important kung-fu vampire film,” he said.
“Hopefully there will be a sequel. I had it on my campaign leaflets, a picture of me with the crucifix, which is a still from a previous vampire film I did.”
Cllr Topping moved to Aylburton near Lydney in 1999 where he and his family have lived ever since.
He says his journey into politics, and in particular the Green Party, was not a straightforward one. But the climate and biodiversity crises were the main catalysts for getting involved.
“I had previously been in the Labour Party for some time in the early 1990s. Left that and gravitated towards the Green Party after moving to the Forest.
“I was not really active but I wanted to support the Green cause. It was ultimately the growing climate crisis.
“Then someone came around from the Green Party asking if I wanted to stand in the 2019 election.
“There was no likelihood of getting in. But then it was a three-way split and in 2019 both Labour and the Conservatives seemed unpopular and I came in through the middle and won that seat by 12 votes.
“That was a bit of a surprise. Without much premeditation about what it would involve, I thought, let’s rise to the challenge.”
And it proved to be something of a baptism of fire for him as a year later the coronavirus pandemic unfolded.
“Then Covid-19 happened which created many challenges. There was a lot of district council work but the parish council had a very active network. Then the next election came along and the Greens did very well.”
The Green Party won 15 of the 38 seats on the district council in May and now run a minority administration with tacit support from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and some Independents.
He says their goals of making sustainable changes for the authority will have to be done within the increasing financial constraints and with the support of other groups.
“On one level you want to encourage a sustainable economy, thriving communities, and up to a point, you would write a council plan that every councillor across the country would write.
“You want to do it within the financial constraints that you have. What would make us distinctive, not unique, is that it’s our intention to have that climate and nature emergency hardwired into what drives us.
“We need to remember we are in an emergency. Covid was such an educational experience, a really serious thing happening here, and the council responded magnificently.
“That does not tend to happen with the response to the climate crisis. We declare emergencies generally across the country, nationally and internationally and then put it on the to-do list and it’s business as usual.
“We have to work collaboratively with others and can’t go off and plough a green furrow as we don’t have an overall majority.”