Bill Bryson is an American author who has mainly written travel books about his experiences of travelling around Britain, Europe, Australia and his native US. As a huge Anglophile, he emigrated to Britain in the 1970s, married an Englishwoman and had children and became a columnist in The Times newspaper. He eventually left London to live in a pretty village in the Yorkshire Dales. A few years ago, he moved back to America (against his wishes) as his wife and Anglo-American kids wanted to live fo there for a while. Recently, however, he moved BACK to Britain and is now a member of an organisation that seeks to protect the great British traditional pub and became a member of the woodland trust, helping to protect British woodland. Here he is speaking in The Times about his new task of saving Britain's beautiful bluebell woods.....
Notes From A Small Island is a book written by Bryson about his travels around Britain
The Sunday Times May 14, 2006
Notes to a small island: hang on to your bluebell woods
Forests are part of Britain’s soul but are vanishing fast. That’s why Bill Bryson is out to save them
British bluebell wood.
In the 30-something years that I’ve been admiring the British landscape, an awful lot of it has disappeared. Go back even further — around 7,000 years — and almost all of Britain was covered in forest. Now just 3% is made up of ancient woodland.
It’s a shame, and not just because of the environmental fallout: woods are an important part of the British countryside, and that countryside is an integral part of what makes this country the most civilised in the world.
That’s why, 30 years ago, I joined the Woodland Trust. I was living in the New Forest, working as a reporter on a newspaper in nearby Bournemouth, and it’s the one continuing charitable interest I’ve maintained.
At the moment we are campaigning to — among other things — protect 350 ancient woods currently under threat from development. Of course houses need to be built and airports need to expand, but progress doesn’t need to stop us maintaining our forests.
On the train from Cambridge to London I look out of the window and see that England is still green, lush and inviting. But I see only patches of trees and, even sadder, that lots of the hedgerows are dying. Hedgerows are a mini-woodland in themselves. They act as wildlife corridors, like motorways for tiny rodents. When the network is interrupted animals are left stranded and the result is localised extinction.
In Norfolk, where I live, there are still hedgerows around the fields. At this time of year it’s frightening how much birdsong comes out of them. In a few weeks it’ll be butterflies. Yes, these are romantic images — but they’re more than that. If you stand on a hilltop in England and see lots of well-maintained woods and hedgerows you are looking at a beautiful landscape. That’s good for the ozone but it’s also good for our general wellbeing.
The Dorsets and Devons and Cotswolds of this world aren’t only areas of outstanding natural beauty, they’re part of Britain’s soul. Take them away and what are you left with? Iowa, where I grew up. Topographically there’s little difference between middle America and most of the British landscape. This would be prairie if it were the States. In England, it is a garden.
But England is a garden not thanks to nature but thanks to man. To keep it this way it has to be looked after. Farming is constantly in decline, so the way the countryside was traditionally maintained is falling away. The best way to combat this would be to turn the British countryside into one big national park. Not just the Yorkshire Dales, the Norfolk Broads or Exmoor — but all of it. Leicestershire, Rutland, and so on. Are these places not worthy of protection? Of course they are.
This doesn’t mean I’ve got anything against sensitive development — even when it’s in my own back yard. I don’t think the countryside is incompatible with new buildings, much in the way that city parks aren’t incompatible with the urban sprawl. But I don’t think building huge housing estates constitutes sensitive development. Instead, you can create an awful lot of extra housing by building smaller developments within existing communities.
We can all do something by supporting organisations like the Woodland Trust or the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and demand that our parliamentarians and councillors make woodlands a priority. I’m not suggesting anyone go without a heart operation, but woods need public money spending on them and I can guarantee you that a mile of hedgerow is an awful lot cheaper than a mile of motorway.
One of the amazing things about this island — given how densely utilised it is — is that almost everyone can get in a car and be standing in a field in 20 minutes. If you want to keep it that way then it’s time to stop taking your countryside for granted.
Bill Bryson was talking to Giles Hattersley
thetimesonline.co.uk
Notes From A Small Island is a book written by Bryson about his travels around Britain
The Sunday Times May 14, 2006
Notes to a small island: hang on to your bluebell woods
Forests are part of Britain’s soul but are vanishing fast. That’s why Bill Bryson is out to save them
British bluebell wood.
In the 30-something years that I’ve been admiring the British landscape, an awful lot of it has disappeared. Go back even further — around 7,000 years — and almost all of Britain was covered in forest. Now just 3% is made up of ancient woodland.
It’s a shame, and not just because of the environmental fallout: woods are an important part of the British countryside, and that countryside is an integral part of what makes this country the most civilised in the world.
That’s why, 30 years ago, I joined the Woodland Trust. I was living in the New Forest, working as a reporter on a newspaper in nearby Bournemouth, and it’s the one continuing charitable interest I’ve maintained.
At the moment we are campaigning to — among other things — protect 350 ancient woods currently under threat from development. Of course houses need to be built and airports need to expand, but progress doesn’t need to stop us maintaining our forests.
On the train from Cambridge to London I look out of the window and see that England is still green, lush and inviting. But I see only patches of trees and, even sadder, that lots of the hedgerows are dying. Hedgerows are a mini-woodland in themselves. They act as wildlife corridors, like motorways for tiny rodents. When the network is interrupted animals are left stranded and the result is localised extinction.
In Norfolk, where I live, there are still hedgerows around the fields. At this time of year it’s frightening how much birdsong comes out of them. In a few weeks it’ll be butterflies. Yes, these are romantic images — but they’re more than that. If you stand on a hilltop in England and see lots of well-maintained woods and hedgerows you are looking at a beautiful landscape. That’s good for the ozone but it’s also good for our general wellbeing.
The Dorsets and Devons and Cotswolds of this world aren’t only areas of outstanding natural beauty, they’re part of Britain’s soul. Take them away and what are you left with? Iowa, where I grew up. Topographically there’s little difference between middle America and most of the British landscape. This would be prairie if it were the States. In England, it is a garden.
But England is a garden not thanks to nature but thanks to man. To keep it this way it has to be looked after. Farming is constantly in decline, so the way the countryside was traditionally maintained is falling away. The best way to combat this would be to turn the British countryside into one big national park. Not just the Yorkshire Dales, the Norfolk Broads or Exmoor — but all of it. Leicestershire, Rutland, and so on. Are these places not worthy of protection? Of course they are.
This doesn’t mean I’ve got anything against sensitive development — even when it’s in my own back yard. I don’t think the countryside is incompatible with new buildings, much in the way that city parks aren’t incompatible with the urban sprawl. But I don’t think building huge housing estates constitutes sensitive development. Instead, you can create an awful lot of extra housing by building smaller developments within existing communities.
We can all do something by supporting organisations like the Woodland Trust or the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and demand that our parliamentarians and councillors make woodlands a priority. I’m not suggesting anyone go without a heart operation, but woods need public money spending on them and I can guarantee you that a mile of hedgerow is an awful lot cheaper than a mile of motorway.
One of the amazing things about this island — given how densely utilised it is — is that almost everyone can get in a car and be standing in a field in 20 minutes. If you want to keep it that way then it’s time to stop taking your countryside for granted.
Bill Bryson was talking to Giles Hattersley
thetimesonline.co.uk
