Spring

by Melissa Harrison

  H. E. Bates’ (d. 1974) works include The Darling Buds of May and Fair Stood the Wind for France. The countryside of Northamptonshire provided a great deal of inspiration for his writing, his love of nature clearly expressed in a wide variety of essays and short stories.

  Ginny Battson is a professional nature and landscape photographer with a lifelong love of wildlife, especially that of woodlands and watery habitats. Her passions include environmental ethics, ecoliteracy and being a mother. She enjoys walking, wading, observing and writing her blog seasonalight.wordpress.com. She has lived in the US and New Zealand before returning to live in Wales.

  R. D. Blackmore (d. 1900) was celebrated for his vibrant depictions of the English countryside in his works, particularly the area around Exmoor in Devon, which is portrayed in his most famous work, Lorna Doone (1869).

  Charlotte Brontë (d. 1855) was the eldest of the three Brontë sisters, all novelists. Charlotte originally published her work under the pseudonym Currer Bell to disguise her gender. She wrote several novels, although her first, Jane Eyre (1847), has remained her best-known work.

  Robert Browning (d. 1889) was one of the leading Victorian poets, famous for his dramatic monologues, and married to Elizabeth Barrett, also a respected poet. His most popular works include ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ (1855), ‘Home-Thoughts, from Abroad’ (1845) and ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’ (1842).

  Jo Cartmell is a lifelong naturalist with a special interest in water voles and wildflower meadows. She runs the Twitter accounts @WaterVole and @NearbyWild and also blogs for nearbywild.org.uk about her local wildlife.

  Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400) was a poet in the Middle Ages, best known for The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories written in the 1380s. Told from the point of view of a group of pilgrims travelling together from London to Canterbury, the tales provide an insight to English society at the time.

  Nicola Chester writes about the wildlife she finds wherever she is, mostly roaming the North Wessex Downs where she lives with her husband and three children. She has written professionally for over a decade. Nicola is particularly passionate about engaging people with nature and how language can communicate the thrill of wild experiences. You can read her blog here: nicolachester.wordpress.com.

  Ryan Clark is a 22-year-old professional ecologist based in Buckinghamshire. A lifelong wildlife recorder, he enjoys going for walks in the Chilterns, recording and photographing wildlife. His main passions are plants and pollinators, especially solitary bees. He loves sharing his passion for British wildlife with others and regularly blogs at ryanclarkecology.wordpress.com.

  Will Cohu has written for many newspapers and magazines, and was a regular columnist for the Daily Telegraph. His books include Urban Dog (2001), Out Of The Woods (2007), The Wolf Pit (2012) and Nothing But Grass (2015). He has been twice shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and was shortlisted in 2013 for the PEN/Ackerley Prize for The Wolf Pit.

  James Common is a dedicated naturalist, birder, writer and graduate conservation scientist from Northumberland. He is passionate about all aspects of natural history though his greatest interests lie in the realms of biological recording, ecology and ornithology. Elsewhere James is a keen blogger (commonbynature.co.uk) and a member of A Focus on Nature, the youth nature network.

  Peter Cooper is a lifelong naturalist, completing his final year of zoology at the University of Exeter Penryn Campus at time of print. He specialises in the study and conservation of British mammals, as well as engaging others in nature through his blog (petecooperwildlife.wordpress.com), and as a committee member for Britain’s youth nature network, A Focus on Nature.

  Rob Cowen is an award-winning writer who has authored columns on nature for the Independent and the Telegraph. Described by the Guardian as ‘one of the UK’s most exciting nature writers’, he received the Roger Deakin Award for his first book, Skimming Stones, in 2012. His latest book, Common Ground, was shortlisted for the Portico Prize 2015, and was selected as a ‘Book Of The Year’ in The Times.

  Alan Creedon writes about the connections between people and the landscape, identity and the environment, and about himself as part of nature. From rural to urban, the need for nature connection runs deep in his work. He writes from a place of feeling and reflection to convey a situation or idea as experienced and as a process of discovery and learning.

  Sue Croxford is a member of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust and author of the Bug Mad Girl wildlife blog. The blog, which has been awarded BBC Wildlife Magazine’s blog of the week, can be found at www.bugmadgirl.blogspot.co.uk. Sue has also written magazine articles that have been published in Best of British, Yours, Chiltern and Lymphoma Matters.

  Miriam Darlington writes a monthly column in the Saturday Times: the renowned Nature Notebook. Her previous books include Windfall (poetry) and Otter Country (a nature memoir about wild otters). She is currently working on a book about owls and humans. She teaches creative writing at Plymouth University, and lives in Devon.

  Elliot Dowding is 22 years old and lives in Sussex, where he was born and raised. He has been passionate about wildlife since early childhood, thanks largely to encouragement from his parents. He is also a keen birder, though his interests vary from archaeology to book collecting. Elliot is currently pursuing his dream of a career in writing.

  Thomas Furly Forster (d. 1825) was a botanist who compiled many lists and drawings of plants. After his death, his natural history journals were collated and published by his son as The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Natural Phenomena.

  Chris Foster is a birdwatcher, gradually evolving into an all-round naturalist, based in Reading, Berkshire. On top of teaching associate and PhD positions at Reading University, Chris is an aspiring nature writer supported by A Focus On Nature, the youth conservation network. His wildlife blog is entering its sixth year; his work has also appeared in Biosphere and Antenna magazines.

  Alexi Francis is an artist and illustrator living in Sussex. All her life she has been a lover of wildlife and studied zoology at university. She is interested in writing, especially about the natural world, and has had several articles published in anthologies and magazines such as Earthlines.

  Kenneth Grahame (d. 1932) became renowned for his children’s book The Wind in the Willows, based upon the bedtime stories of woodland creatures he told to his young son Alastair. He wrote numerous other stories and articles, but none were as well received as his great success, which continues to be popular today.

  Caroline Greville is writing a book on her involvement with badgers in the context of her family life and wider rural setting. This memoir forms the main part of her PhD at the University of Kent, alongside research into new nature writing. She is Secretary of the East Kent Badger Group and teaches creative writing.

  Sir Edward Grey (d. 1933) was a Liberal statesman, and the longest serving foreign secretary of the twentieth century (1905–16). He was also a keen ornithologist, and published The Charm of Birds in 1927, a record of his observations of birds and their song.

  Katie Halsall is inspired by documenting life and raising awareness. With an interest in both wildlife conservation and photography, pursuing Wildlife Media BA (Hons) was the obvious next step after completing photography at college. In the past five years Katie has gained experience in photographic, film and written forms of media whilst studying and maintaining both personal and media blogs.

  Thomas Hardy (d. 1928) wrote several famous works including Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) and Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891). Rural society was a major theme in his books; most were set in the partly imagined region of Wessex, based largely on areas of south and southwest England.

  Melissa Harrison’s first novel, Clay, was about urban wildlife – among other things. Set in a rural village, her second, At Hawthorn Time, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award. She writes the Nature Notebook in The Times, and has
a short book about rain due out from Faber and The National Trust in 2016.

  Felicia Hemans’ (d. 1835) first collection of poetry was published when she was just 14 years old. She went on to become a well-known literary figure; her most important works include The Forest Sanctuary (1825), Records of Woman and Songs of the Affections (1830).

  Gerard Manley Hopkins (d. 1899) was a poet with a passion for writing descriptions of the natural world, with works including ‘The Windhover’ and ‘The Sea and the Skylark’. He was also a priest and found himself conflicted between his religious belief and his poetry, giving the latter up for seven years at one point. Most of his poetry was not published during his lifetime.

  A. E. Housman (d. 1936) was a classicist and poet, best known for A Shropshire Lad, a collection of sixty-three poems, including II (‘Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now’) and XXIX (‘The Lent Lily’).

  Alice Hunter is a wildlife and landscape photographer with a particular interest in European flora and butterflies and a passion for sharing her love of the natural world through her work. She loves being outdoors and writes regularly for several branches of The Wildlife Trusts as well as blogging about her experiences. Visit www.hunterphotos.co.uk to see Alice’s work.

  Richard Jefferies (d. 1887) was a nature writer of both essays and novels, inspired by his upbringing on a farm. His works include The Amateur Poacher (1879), Round About a Great Estate (1880), Nature Near London (1883) and The Life of the Fields (1884). The collection Field and Hedgerow was published posthumously in 1889.

  Samshad Khan is a poet and coach in creative writing, resilience and inspired living. She works with individuals, theatres and community groups. She uses writing as a tool to empower individuals and develop communities. Her poetry collection Megalomaniac is published by Salt Publishing. Shamshad is currently working on a show with the Horse and Bamboo puppet theatre. She blogs at: shamshadkhan27.wordpress.com

  Reverend Francis Kilvert (d. 1879) was a clergyman who kept diaries recording his observations on rural life. His writings were collected, edited and published posthumously in three volumes from 1938 to 1940.

  Philip Larkin (d. 1985) was a poet and novelist, best known for his poetry collections including The Less Deceived (1955), The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He was the recipient of many honours, including the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1965.

  D. H. Lawrence (d. 1930) wrote the famously explicit Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928), which led to an obscenity trial when published in its entirety in 1960. He also wrote almost 800 poems, of which the best known are based on themes of nature, including the collection Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1932).

  Claire Leighton (d. 1989) was an artist, writer and illustrator famous for her work depicting scenes of rural life. Her best-known works include The Farmer’s Year: A Calendar of English Husbandry (1933) and Four Hedges: A Gardener’s Chronicle (1935).

  Sir John Lister-Kaye is a naturalist, conservationist and author. He is the director of Aigas Field Centre, a nature centre in Scotland and the author of several books including Song of the Rolling Earth: A Highland Odyssey (2003), which established him as one of the UK’s most respected nature writers.

  Kate Long is the author of eight novels, including the Sunday Times number one bestseller The Bad Mother’s Handbook. Her domestic comedy-drama has been adapted for radio and television and she has written for a range of newspapers and magazines such as Good Housekeeping, the Telegraph and BBC Wildlife Magazine. She is an enthusiastic ecologist and lives in Shropshire with her husband and two sons. www.katelongbooks.com

  Lucy McRobert is the Nature Matters campaigns manager for The Wildlife Trusts. She has written for publications including BBC Wildlife, is a columnist for Birdwatch magazine and was the Researcher on Tony Juniper’s What Nature does for Britain (2015). She is the creative director of A Focus On Nature, the youth nature network, and is a keen birdwatcher and mammal-watcher.

  Vijay Medtia is a novelist and a short story writer based in Manchester. His regular trips to India have inspired his fiction, as have some of the great writers from the past. He likes John Steinbeck’s quote, ‘The writing profession makes horse racing seem like a solid stable business.’ www.vijaymedtia.com

  Mary Russell Mitford (d. 1855) wrote a series of stories that portrayed a fascinating picture of life in a rural community, based on her own village. Originally published in the Lady’s Magazine, they were collected in to book form in 1824 as Our Village, her most famous work.

  Stephen Moss is a naturalist, author and TV producer based on the Somerset Levels. He is president of the Somerset Wildlife Trust.

  David North has been interested in wildlife and wild places as long as he can remember and his career includes working for National Trust, RSPB and for the last ten years at Norfolk Wildlife Trust. He lives in North Norfolk with his wife Tasha and at weekends can be found exploring the local coast between Cley Marshes and Salthouse.

  George Orwell (d. 1950) was the pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair, writer and critic best-known for his novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). He had a fondness for the natural world, often observing the changing of the seasons in his personal diaries.

  Eleanor Parker is a historian and writer, with a doctorate in medieval English literature from the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on historical narratives in literature produced in England between c.1000 and c.1400. ‘The Seafarer’ is an Old English poem from the point of view of a man alone at sea, recorded in the tenth century Exeter Book, a collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry.

  William Shakespeare (d. 1616) was one of the world’s greatest writers. He wrote about 154 sonnets and 38 plays, including Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Macbeth, which continue to be studied, performed and adapted all over the world to this day. His sonnets were published in 1609 but are believed to have been composed earlier.

  Jo Sinclair was born in Cambridge and lives in rural south Cambridgeshire. She is a freelance writer and writes about local British natural history.

  Melissa Spiers is a volunteer at Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and former trainee of Dorset Wildlife Trust. During her traineeship Melissa was based on Chesil beach, and her experience of this dramatic place inspired her to write the piece in this book. Melissa is a keen amateur birder and wildlife lover in general. She hopes to work in conservation communication.

  Edward Step (d. 1931) was the author of numerous books on nature, both popular and specialist, including Favourite Flowers of the Garden and Greenhouse (1896), The Romance of Wild Flowers (1901), Nature in the Garden (1910) and Nature Rambles: An Introduction to Country-lore (1930).

  Adelle Stripe is the author of three collections of poetry including the award-winning Dark Corners of the Land. Based in West Riding she lectures at Manchester Writing School and is currently writing her debut novel, Black Teeth, based on the life and work of the Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar. www.adellestripe.com

  Peter Tate has published several books on ornithology, including A Century of Bird Books (1979), Bird, Men and Books: A Literary History of Ornithology (1986) and most recently Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth, Legend and Superstition (2009).

  Dylan Thomas (d. 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer. Although most famous for his poetry, including ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’, his ‘play for voices’ Under Milk Wood is among his best-known works, having been adapted both for the stage and film.

  Edward Thomas’ (d. 1917) works were often noted for his portrayals of the English countryside, including In Pursuit of Spring (1914), The Heart of England (1906) and The South Country (1909).

  Alison Uttley (d. 1976) frequently focused her writing on rural topics, including her ‘Little Grey Rabbit’ series of young children’s tales and The Country Child (1931), based on her childhood experiences growing up on a farm.

  Reverend Gilbert White (d. 1793) was a curate, as well as a keen naturalist and ornithologist. His best known work is The Natural History and Anti
quities of Selborne (1789); his journals were published posthumously, in 1931. He is considered by many to have been a major influence in forming modern attitudes to and respect for nature.

  Dorothy Wordsworth (d. 1855) kept diaries and wrote poetry, but The Grasmere Journals was not published until long after her death, in 1897. It contains an extract that was a source for her brother William Wordsworth’s famous poem ‘Daffodils’.

  Annie Worsley is a mother of four and grandmother living on a coastal croft in the remote Northwest Highlands of Scotland. A former academic who explored the relationships between humans and environments in diverse parts of the world, including Papua New Guinea, she now writes about nature, wildlife and landscape. She tries to paint the wild using words.

  COMING SOON IN THIS SERIES

  The Seasons books aim to capture the changing year through evocative pieces of writing about nature, describing the life-cycles of flora and fauna, startling moments of transition, seasonal change in cities and gardens, wildlife experiences that epitomise a point in the year or the shifting patterns of country life.

  Each book includes a collection of writing, old and new – extracts from classic texts, lesser-known historical material, new works from established nature writers and some pieces by Wildlife Trusts supporters throughout the UK – threaded together to mirror the unfolding of the seasons.

  Summer – May 2016

  978-1-78396-244-0

  Autumn – August 2016

  978-1-78396-248-8

  Winter – November 2016

  978-1-78396-252-5

  First published 2016 by

  Elliott and Thompson Limited

  27 John Street, London WC1N 2BX

  www.eandtbooks.com

  epub: 978-1-78396-224-2

  MOBI: 978-1-78396-225-9

  This collection © Elliott & Thompson 2016

  Introduction © Melissa Harrison 2016

  Copyright in the contributions © the Contributors 2016