I can't say that I have my current job because I was able to wander the fields around where I lived as a child, nor that I am working for the RSPB because two masters at my school invested some of their weekends in driving a minibus load of kids like me around Somerset and Gloucestershire in search of birds. Nor can I be sure quite how my parents' love of the countryside was transferred to me at an early age - particularly given that I haven't adopted all their other interests and likes.
But it feels to me that having the opportunity to get out and see nature - sometimes in structured ways and sometimes in unstructured ones - was very important in shaping me.
And so the RSPB report published today, Every Child Outdoors, rings true to me. It shows that children these days are having fewer opportunities to interact with nature than I did and it demonstrates the overwhelming public support for the importance of nature in childrens' lives.
The RSPB gives thousands of childrens opportunities to meet nature every year - through Wildlife Explorer groups, Field Teaching schemes and events on our nature reserves.
When the Star Chamber Ministers meet to decide Defra's budget cuts I wonder whether they will think about their own experiences of nature and those of their children. There are two things needed for children to experience nature - nature has to be there and they have to have the opportunity to find it. If wrong decisions are made now then each becomes more difficult.
The Strawberry Line in Somerset has hips, haws, blackberries, and sloes, etc. and is so colourful. The bounty of autumn. I don't see much of this elsewhere and hedges are already being flailed around the county.
There is a great connection between this post and the last one and that is the wider countryside. With hedges managed like towns peoples lawns these days, not a berry or a blackberry to pick what do you expect the kids to do along these monocultured hedgerows. The amount of food obtained from hedgerows in the past was amazing with Rose hip syrup [no need to go to the chemist or doctor], Sloe Gin, Elderberry Champagne, Rowan jelly, crab apple jam etc. The list is endless but sadly a thing of the past. What a great opportunity for the RSPB to get involved with children, schools and of course Women's Institutes.
The campaign - 'Bring back the hedgerow' .
A rich hedgerow means biodiversity. Working on Higher Level Strwardship the only thing farmers want to plant in the hedgerow are Hawthorn! Even cutting out Gorse means the loss of Linnets.
Yes Mark – influencing young children is key to both the child's 'growing-up" and its increasing awareness and appreciation of its responsibility for its / our environment - the sooner they experience it the better -
I remember many primary school teachers but my most vivid memory was Miss Latham – teaching us “Nature Study”. At secondary school our ‘biology’ master would be seen – walking to school – visibly drinking in the flowering cherry blossom or the conker trees and always refer to it - "did anyone notice the cherry blossom tree today?". This same teacher taught us A level Botany & Zoology whilst I was in the 6th form – we had a few Field Study trips – Devon and Constable country – indeed I slept in Willy Lott’s cottage – beat that! Different environments – different seasons. They were so real – truly fantastic – 24 hours a day – so fortunate.
My parents also loved Mother Nature – and despite my “vast recently acquired academic knowledge” – when we out walking – my mother would always say something like – “Ohhh Bob” (my father) – “look” - pointing to a wild flower – “ranunculacae bilbao vulgaris” (whatever) – I hadn’t got a clue!”
I am convinced that my parents' interest in nature, their willingness to let me be roaming outdoors until the bell went at bedtime and their compassion for other living things including trees and plants totally influenced me. Now I am working for wildlife. I am very happy to think that the land I explored as a child was saved by my father John Bayly and the artist David Harle so that eventually others could use it as the basis of the Gazen Salts Nature Reserve in Sandwich. I think all children are interested in wildlife but their interest is either encouraged or snuffed out by adults. Some maintain the interest in spite of everything.