Current Nature Writing Projects

What would have been my mother's 80th birthday seems a good time to acknowledge the degree to which my own interest in wildlife and nature writing is owed directly to her influence. Not only was my mum someone who encouraged a respect for the natural world in daily life, she was also able to do so through her work in nurseries and with younger school children, not least through the production of some factual descriptions of British wildlife for child readers. It is no mawkish exagerration to say that I learned more from these lovingly crafted educational provisions than from many "official" nature books.

One of my childhood memories is of my mother supporting a "Save the Whales" campaign in the 1980's, and it was therefore a somewhat bittersweet irony that I was reading a book about whales at the time of her death. The work of Sally Carrighar and other naturalists such as JA Baker, Rachel Carson, Nan Shephard, Valmik Thapar and Ann Zwinger, has directly influenced my own work. Of more recent times I am inclined towards the writings of emerging nature writers like Alexi Francis, and James MacDonald Lockhart, whose Raptor: A Journey Through Birds (Fourth Estate, 2016) is a rairty in modern bird books in actually being more about birds than about its author's own life.

As we emerge out of covid restrictions, the loss of my mother makes it hard for me to share in any general joi-de-vivre, though I know that I am far from alone in this, after a year or more in which so many have lost loved ones. But I do of course share the sentiment at a fundamental level, and it has been pleasant and refreshing to wander the countryside knowing that it is possible to stop off for a coffee at some riverside cafe, or that before long these excursions will grow further and more adventurous in scope, aided by the use of public transport. Of late I have contented myself with walks close to home, which have provided the impetus for a new nature column in the Halifax Courier, together with some pieces for Go Local magazine. These articles are partly taken from existing works on local nature, while I am looking forward to condensing those that are not into a small compendium of local nature writings.

I'm not particularly persuaded by the "writing as therapy" idea, and no amount of creative effort dulls the reality of grief, but it is at least a comfort to me that I might carry on my mother's legacy of celebrating the natural world. I have also been working on various long-standing projects inspired by the sights and sounds of my local patch, including a series of videos and photographs of Calder Valley water birds.

My poetry collection An Invertebrate Fable is due in the next few weeks from Brambleby Books, while the next of my fortnightly Courier articles is due on Thursday 20th May.

My mother Patricia, 1941 - 2021