I was raised in North-West London, with Golders Hill Park on the edge of Hampstead Heath just a few steps away. With its ditches and woods it was our playground. My mother always fed the birds, was interested in all wildlife, and encouraged our curiosity. There was never any revulsion for insects or slimy things, just a wish to observe and make space for them. Injured birds were nurtured back to health if at all possible, and I still have a shameful memory of mistakenly letting a sparrow out of the cage from which it was soon to be released having recovered from a broken wing, and it getting caught by the cat. Each Spring we would go to the ponds on the Heath to collect frogspawn, putting it in a fish tank and waiting impatiently for the tadpoles to emerge, when a tiny piece of liver would be tied to cotton and hung over the side. The excitement of the legs developing and the froglets getting ready to leave the water was intense, especially as we knew they must be carried back to the pond before they started hopping around the dining room!

I was one of four children but a friend, Judy, was an only child and her parents would regularly invite me to join them on days out and even on one occasion to go with them on a holiday to Wales. I was about 7 years old and the experience of being in a little cottage in a field miles from anywhere is with me still. I have a vivid memory of driving out to what was then the rural backwater of Hemel Hempstead and seeing cows for what felt like the first time (Judy’s father sang ‘We are the Ovalteenies’, from the advert for the milk drink).  I felt a real yearning to leave the city and live in the countryside, pleaded with my mother that we move out of London, and she would gently explain that it was because of my father’s work. I had to be patient enough to wait until I went off to university and in that first Spring, seeing a bluebell wood for the first time on a walk out of campus, was a magical experience. Moving to Devon to do my professional training in 1981 I was at last able to make my home in the countryside and my passion for the natural world, which I believe should be the most important thing in human lives, has been able to find its expression. This is why the Wildlife Warden scheme is so important to me.