Keith Mann - Background

Background

Mann was raised in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, by his father, who worked as a caretaker, and his mother, Doreen, whom he describes as having done "everything else." His mother is supportive of his animal rights activism. She spoke to Ali Yousaf Khan in 2006 for a Channel 4 documentary on Mann: "To normal people, they're going to say he had no right to touch somebody's else property ... But frustration comes in here. He's petitioned, he has asked, he's demonstrated, he's done all sorts of things to ask these people not to do this ... If they were to speak to my son now, ask him what did he see behind these locked doors patrolled by guards and dogs, what did he see that would make him so angry, that he would have to go so far and destroy somebody's property."

His first job was on a dairy farm while on a youth training scheme at school. He writes in From Dusk 'Til Dawn that his lasting memory of the job is the cows crying out all day searching for the calves that had been removed from them. He first came into contact with animal rights activists in 1982, when local hunt saboteurs were handing out leaflets in the street. His first removal of an animal from captivity was when he took a rabbit from a hutch that he used to walk past every day, after having asked the owner for weeks to do something about the rabbit's situation. He writes that this incident changed his view of theft forever, and that he thereafter viewed himself as a "proud ALF activist." His next removal was of a tub of goldfish from a fairground, resulting in him having 53 goldfish in his bath for weeks until he found good ponds for them. These acts of "liberation," as Mann sees them, led to others to which he says he is unable to confess.

He writes that his involvement with the Animal Liberation Front has led to the happiest and saddest times of his life, as well as danger and trauma. "There is something thrilling about this," he writes, "the rush of adrenalin that comes from facing the unknown—alarms, a chase, live animals, dead animals, prison, none or all of it." He has been arrested, charged, and convicted for things he writes that he did not do, and has gone without food in prison because he was unwilling to eat animal products. He has fallen off buildings and through a roof, swum through a river wearing wellington boots before jumping soaking wet on a bus and begging a free ride; has been shot at, spat on, driven at, and punched, chased by men with spades, and had elephant urine thrown over him by an angry clown.