Journal

Ever since my Bryanston School days, I have loved hill forts like Hambledon and Hod Hill, where we would often repair back in the day, typically with a flagon or two of local cider. All of which built on a love of castles honed in places like Cyprus in the 1950s.

Happily, Dorset and its environs are rather well populated with hill forts – and today we (Julia Hailes, her husband Jamie Macdonald, Elaine and I) swarmed up one I had never swarmed up before, Eggardon Hill. A favourite of Julia’s. For a slightly more detailed account of the history, here’s Wikipedia‘s minimally more detailed version.

Just back from a wonderful few days with Julia Hailes and her husband Jamie Macdonald at Hooke Farm, after our time with Bryanston School (30 June entry) and Kingcombe National Nature Reserve (1 July entry).

It’s never easy to capture adventures in wonderlands, but here are some images spotlighting some elements of what happened when we stepped away from Bryanston, in a Tesla X, and through the looking glass that is the front gate of Hooke Farm. For more on what goes on there, I suggest visiting Julia’s website and blog.

Although I have long been a believer in serendipity, it rarely acts as full force as it did today. On the second day of the Bryanston Green Conference, Elaine and I were allowed to duck out and were lucky enough to be gifted a car for the day by Julia (Hailes) and her husband Jamie (Macdonald).

So we drove across to Kingcombe, in nearby Toller Porcorum, “the farm that time forgot.” This is an extraordinary conservation reserve I have known about as long ago as 1986, when I was still a director of the Earthlife Foundation, alongside the original (in every sense) co-founders, Nigel Tuersley and Phil Agland – which, incidentally, is where and when I first met Julia.

Elaine and I were simply expecting to wander around a bit, but were somewhat disappointed to find a private event flagged as we arrived. The site would close shortly. But we parked anyway, went in – and discovered we could have a coffee (and cheese-and-chive scone) before the large group of people attending the event arrived back from their circumnavigation of the reserve.

As we sat and talked, Brian Bleese, the CEO of the Dorset Wildlife Trust, came up to chat. Since neither of us had a clue who the other was, this was total serendipity. then, as we did so, I mentioned the Earthlife connection, where the foundation had toyed with bidding for the farm when it came onto the market back in the 1980s. Brian, pretty much in passing, noted that one of the people there for the impending event was Peter Scupholme, who I had worked with at BP back in the 1990s.

As one connection followed another, Brian invited us to stay for the lunch and event, designed to celebrate the site’s designation as a National Nature Reserve. We did, took a walk around the site, along the River Hooke, caught up with Peter, met a series of people who had run or guided the Dorset Wildlife Trust over time (including DWT Trustees Jim White (see his account of the Kingcombe story here), Tony Bates, Professor Mark Kibblewhite and Jo Davies, who now chairs the Trust), and signed up as members (we are already members of the London Wildlife Trust).

Elaine and I trained across to Poole on Wednesday, to pick up a cab to Spettisbury, where we were due to stay overnight. Walked along the old railway track behind the village, spotting very-low-flying buzzard and a skittish stoat, or similar, before pottering around the Stour water meadows, mill and the like.

Then across to Bryanston this morning, where we were greeted, among others, by Amanda Lovejoy and by the new head of school, Richard Jones. A couple of hundred students, at a rough count, took part in this Green Conference, whose theme was ‘What does regeneration look like?’. Many, perhaps most, of the students came from green and climate clubs in participating schools, a number of them from the state sector.

Spoke alongside Julia Hailes, my longstanding colleague and friend, and two of her sons, Connor Bryant (who talked about his Rubbish Project) and Monty Bryant (PeoplePower.fi). Among others taking part were Giles Davies of Conservation Capital, who has three children at the school, and Nick Radford of the Wildlife Conservation Society, working in the Congo Basin. Two prefects, Bella and Emily, had organised – and we were very impressed.

(Though we’re pondering how it might be done to even greater effect next time around.)

Across to Oxford yesterday, Sunday 26th, with Pavan Sukhdev of GIST, where I’m on the advisory board. Had taken a taxi across to Mill Hill to meet him, but then let it go – not knowing that it was meant to take us across to Oxford. (Because of the disruption from the train strikes.)

In the end, we got an electric taxi all the way.

Much of Sunday afternoon spent punting with GIST team members and friends of Pavan’s from his Oxford days. We seated at the Randolph Hotel, where I did a presentation to the first day of their formal process this morning. Delighted to be involved, though the COVID hangover cough continues to nag.