I was born near the New Forest, lived in the wilder parts of the UK (father worked in forestry) – Cumbria, north east England, west Scotland on the banks of Loch Long, mid Wales, southern Snowdonia, west London and now in the Brecon Beacons. A Nature Prize (1975) at school set me on the road towards the environment, followed up by diving deep into the rural sector via a degree in Rural Land Management from Royal Agric University.
A college project in 1990 provides an inkling as to my train of thought 30 years later. I worked for the National Trust as a land agent, then a firm in Hertfordshire, before setting up my own rural surveying firm in 2002.
When I lived in London, for 13 years I commuting to Hertfordshire as a land agent while writing a column, ‘Urban Fox’, on London Wildlife for the ‘London Informer’). In 2010, I was commissioned to write a journalist-style report “New demands; old countryside“ which triggered me to found Countryside Reconciliation and Enviro Dialogue. I’m delighted to be a permanent resident of the Black Mountains, South Wales with my wife and two children.
In other news, I’ve written a book on the A to Z of Fishing for WH Smith (2004) and presented two outdoors reality TV shows for Discovery H&L Channel; one on survival fishing (Reel Wars, 2001) in Ireland and the other living off the land in a Welsh farmhouse (Great Escape, 2002).
