In the 1980s the writer Richard Adams helped in successful campaigns against the trapping of fur animals and the killing of seal pups. As chair of the RSPCA I was responsible for sending him to Canada to carry out a lecture tour against seal killing. He spoke forcefully and eloquently, and was accompanied by the RSPCA’s publicity director, Mike Seymour-Rouse, who had a military and intelligence background. On the flight home they touched down in the US, and Seymour-Rouse noticed on their carousel an unclaimed suitcase with a wire protruding from it. He alerted the airport authorities, who discovered that it was indeed a bomb that had failed to explode on their aircraft. Unfortunately, this incident was hushed up, but it illustrates the sort of brutal opposition that Richard had to contend with.
