Naturist or Naturalist?

I’m still not quite sure how I ended up a beekeeper. I’ve always loved nature, the outdoors and animals but I wasn’t one of those kids that collected beasties or had a fascination with insects. In fact my interest in bees properly started when I read a novel called “The Beekeeper’s Daughter” by Santa Montefiore and fell in love with the romantic notion that you could be ‘at one’ with the bees!

Growing up I was lucky to have a set of grandparents who had an incredible love and interest in our natural environment - I always get in a muddle; were they naturalists or naturists!? They didn’t take their clothes off, so the other one!

My grandad Fred, was the warden for a beautiful piece of woodland called Thrift Wood in Bicknacre, Essex. My dad and uncle had grown up playing in the woods as they backed onto Nan (Doris) and grandad’s home and so when I arrived in 1978 (and the first grandchild) I spent a lot of time with my grandparents in their eccentric home and exploring the 46 acre wood too.

I had one of those childhoods that kids in the 1980’s had - no technology keeping me inside and only 4 TV channels so I didn’t have square eyes! Doris nan and grandad Fred encouraged outdoor play too, Nan was the most fantastic gardener with a love of roses particularly. They had a big green lawn where I learnt to ride my first bike (it was gold and was bought from the local petrol station!), the hedge that ran alongside the garden was immense with topiary birds born from grandad’s skill with the shears. There were plants in old boots and teapots, a pond with a brick built castle on it’s bank (another grandad creation) a well where wishes came true and an old apple tree which come autumn was weighed down with produce.

The garden was sectioned off, and passing the ancient apple tree you’d walk into a wildlife haven, unkempt and beautiful, with a car left to become one with the undergrowth, a place for hide and seek and also where grandad taught us (I have a younger brother) to build teepees.

Thrift wood and the garden at Woodside Cottage is where I learnt the difference between red squirrels and grey (because my nan got very animated towards a couple of men who turned up at the house one day wanting payment because they had killed the grey squirrels - not on her watch!), that there are trees that once grew everywhere and now had become rare (the wood had a Wild Service (Chequers) tree). That doormice are very special creatures and deserved to be helped (grandad made homes for them with their own signs, dotted around the wood). I also learnt that butterflies and moths were not all the same and that some were going extinct and again needed our help, that frogspawn could be moved from other ponds in order to help improve a local population, that woodpeckers make quite the racket and that if you get caught short and need a wee in the woods an Ant Hill is not the place to drop your dungarees!

Looking back I guess it isn’t surprising that a desk job never quite gave me the fulfilment I yearned!

Grandad Fred by “the pond” where he built seats out of old tree trunks and encouraged a vibrant ecosystem.