My downland patch: wild playing, the march of progress and a career in conservation
My childhood was dominated by the chalk grasslands of the North Downs — both literally and emotionally. We lived at the base of the chalk scarp. It was our backdrop, it was our playground, it was our home. It was also in the way.
Chalk grassland is the result of centuries of livestock farming. With low-level grazing, the thin, poor-quality soils produce a rich aromatic turf of chalk-loving plants: devil’s-bit scabious, bird’s-foot trefoil, wild thyme, vetches and the picnickers’ peril - the carline thistle. Orchids too thrive on the chalk; my favourites including the bee, pyramidal and late spider orchids. The grasses have sublime names such as quaking grass, sheep’s-fescue and crested hair grass. The flower-filled sward attracts an array of butterflies and other insects.
My patch of chalk grassland was bounded to the west by a beech hanger, the trees holding on precariously to the hillside above Chalkpit Lane. To the east, an area of mixed woodland was home to the biggest and best conkers for miles. At the base of the grassland scarp ran the ancient Pilgrims’ Way, weaving its way from Winchester to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury – the track was home to the now legally protected Roman snail.
Just seven miles away to the north-west, Charles Darwin pondered: “It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.” The bank he refers to is likely the orchid-rich Downe Bank adjacent to Down House — Darwin’s home and the location of so many of his scientific experiments. So special is chalk grassland as a habitat, Downe Bank is now protected as a nature reserve.
The Downs were our “tangled bank”. In the spring, they were a place to gather primroses and listen for the first cuckoo. In summer, the grass provided perfect spots for picnics, building camps and catching butterflies, especially the blues. In autumn, field mushrooms were the target and in winter, we had an epic toboggan run.
Chalk grassland is indeed “clothed with many plants of many kinds” — sometimes 40 different plant species can be found in a square metre. But remove the grazing from chalk grassland and, slowly, hawthorn, blackthorn and other shrubby plants move in. Within a few years, the grassland is on its way to woodland. Indeed, since World War Two, we have lost 80% of our chalk grasslands, largely, but not exclusively, as a result of the loss of grazing and the increase in more intensive agricultural practices[1].
Another way of destroying chalk grassland, other than intensive farming, is to carve a giant trench for a North Sea gas pipeline and follow this up with a new orbital motorway around London; to be called the M25. This was the fate of my childhood patch.
Natural gas came to my home town of Oxted in Surrey in the 1960s, to be stored in a grotesque, giant gasometer that dominated the town. Ironically, with technology, the gasholder soon became obsolete and it sat there, derelict and disintegrating, for some 20 years. It was finally demolished, not long ago, to make way for housing. I doubt many people shed a tear.
When I drive along the M25, through the middle of my toboggan run, I can still identify the path of the gas pipeline, where more than 50 years ago, it sliced through the irreplaceable grassland sward. More than half a century later, the turf has still not fully recovered. How could it, without 100s of years of grazing history? The fine grasses and wildflowers have not returned, and if I drive slowly, I can see that the more vigorous plants have colonised the strip.
As if the pipeline was not enough to bear, striking through the heart of our playground as it did, news of the building of a motorway circulated. As unofficial custodians of the patch, we youngsters decided that direct action was needed. We tried and failed to uproot lines of wooden stakes that appeared — we assumed they were to mark out the planned route. Not long after, the diggers arrived.
What saddens me further is that the area of once open grassland beyond the pipeline scar, is now slowly shrinking under an invasion of shrubs from all sides. Perhaps it is no longer profitable for livestock, and there are too few rabbits left to help with the grazing that is so vital to maintain the sward. One day, I will drive by and my grassland patch will have been swallowed up, lost forever — but for a generation of children who played on that chalkland bank, the memories will remain and my connection will not be severed.
I have come to terms with the loss of my patch to the march of progress, but its largescale destruction was to be the catalyst for a lifetime of environmental activism. I read anything Richard Mabey wrote, qualified as a geography teacher and took my pupils on as many field trips as I could get away with. Eventually, in 1982, I moved into full-time conservation education with my local County Wildlife Trust, at a time when conservation education within the movement was in its infancy.
Every time I drive through my patch, I consider the dilemma of land use conflict and the battle between infrastructure and nature conservation. I also feel a sense of loss on behalf of those young people who, for so many reasons, rarely encounter or connect with the natural world. Those who have never had the chance to trample through waist high grass, climb trees, build camps or smell the scent of meadow-sweet. I could boycott the M25 and help snarl up the choked settlements that line the A25. This hardly seems sensible. I could give up driving altogether, but I think I can make more of a difference without resorting to the hair-shirt approach.
My grassland patch was a place where children could run wild and run free, experiencing a closeness with nature that is no longer the norm. A closeness that John Muir experienced as a child: “The sudden plash into pure wildness — baptism in Nature’s warm heart — how utterly happy it made us! Nature streaming into us, wooingly teaching her wonderful glowing lessons, so unlike the dismal grammar ashes and cinders so long thrashed into us. . . . Young hearts, young leaves, flowers, animals, the winds and the streams and the sparkling lake, all wildly, gladly rejoicing together!”[2]
On a recent trip to Spain, in a remote wooded limestone valley near Pamplona, I watched a gaggle of children playing: collecting fallen branches to build dens, raiding each other’s bases and racing and screaming as they tried to capture the enemy. Sitting close by, but not interfering, were their teachers. These children were not being taught about the formation of this impressive limestone gorge, they were simply having fun, connecting with nature, running wild. We spoke with their teachers who told us they had come from a town further south. For some children, it was their first time ‘wild playing’. They will remember this day for that reason, and who knows how much it may influence their behaviour and attitude towards the environment as adults.
It is clear, from a growing body of research that nature enhances our wellbeing. It makes us happier and healthier; even just small interactions such as feeding birds can make a difference. The Wildlife Trust’s ’30 Day’s Wild’ project endorsed the results of a range of research studies (such as that of Wells and Laskie, 2006[3]) which have shown that it is a connection with nature rather than knowledge-based activities that makes the difference. Better to blow the seeds from a dandelion clock than study the parts of a flower, or in the case of the children mentioned above, better to build a woodland den than understand the mechanics of river erosion. As David Sobel articulates in his Orion article, exhilaration should be the goal not cognition[4].
For me, wild playing is what connected me with nature. It is what led to more than 35 years of working in conservation education and communication. I hope that along the way, I have made a difference and there are people out there who pond dipped, bug hunted, tree climbed or just sat on a woodland floor with me and listened to the sounds of nature at play. People who are now out there making a difference too.
[1] https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/whats-special-about-chalk-grassland
[2] https://orionmagazine.org/article/look-dont-touch1/
[3] Research by Wells and Lekies showed that when children had the chance to regularly connect with nature, this positively influenced their attitude and behaviour towards the environment as adults. “Nature and the Life Course: Pathways from Childhood Nature Experiences to Adult Environmentalism.” Wells, N. & Lekies, K. (2006) Cornell University
[4] https://orionmagazine.org/article/look-dont-touch1/