Email: editorial@Dalesman.co.uk
To the Editor of the Yorkshire Dalesman
Re Myra Robinson’s item on ‘What happened to the Nature Table’
(Dalesman Aug. 2024 Vol. 86 (5): 92).
To accommodate the massed ranks of us Baby-boomers in Newby, Scarborough our school and adjacent Highfields housing estate, was built on former farmland and was therefore conveniently adjacent to hedgerows and fields, a never ending source of Nature Table paraphernalia.
Being one of those children euphemistically referred to as a slow learner, a small group of similarly designated, though I think quite originally-minded children, were consigned to the ‘Progress Class’ and placed in the nurturing hands Mrs. Green. Our tiny classroom, the benign realm of the sainted Mrs. Green, became our private world away from the distracting hoards of the rest of our year, and was where our Nature Table became a centrepiece of our learning and inspiration.
Mrs. Green, took us on Nature walks, collecting leave of local trees and shrubs; hedgerow fruits such as Rose Hips, Hawthorn and Elder berries, and the winged ‘propellers’ of Sycamore keys; and grasses, yes grasses … and to this day I remember and can still identify Rye-grass, Cock’s-foot, Brome, Wall Barley, Timothy, Couch and Yorkshire Fog.
There was a nearby Beck, the source of Minnows, Stone Loaches and Bullheads to those adept with jam jar and string; a marsh which produced seasonal harvests of Toad and Frog-spawn and plants like Milkmaids and King-cups. In their season, samples of all these and more were hauled back, exhibited and labelled on the Nature Table.
As Myra Robinson observed (Dalesman Aug. 2024 Vol. 86 (5): 92) nature tables could be smelly affairs and probably a health hazard, and so it was with ours. I triumphantly, though naïvely donated a Skate tail, found at low tide in Scarborough Harbour. This foetid, though to me endlessly fascinating object, was duly labelled and exhibited. After the class could no longer stand the stench it was consigned to the dustbins but only after Mrs. Green, a paragon of the democratic method, had convincingly/diplomatically made the case for its disposal.
C.A. Howes (2024)
Send to: editorial @dalesman.co.uk
From: colinhowes@blueyonder.co.uk
Re The Yorkshire Dalesman Jan. 2024: 53-57.
Dear Sir,
Richard Bell’s piece on the Young Naturalist’s Magazine and Geoffrey Watson’s Junior Naturalists Association revived floods of memories of those inspirational days. At the impressionable age of seven my parents took me on a visit to Wood End Natural History Museum which I found endlessly fascinating. Geoffrey Watson had just taken over as Curator and was about to launch the Junior Naturalists Association which I enthusiastically joined … and really haven’t looked back since. Somewhere I’ve still got my JNA badge with its badger’s paw logo.
Meetings were on Saturday mornings, attracted swarms of our ‘baby boomer’ generation of local kids and either Geoff Watson or his assistant Mike Clegg (later of Yorkshire TV’s ‘Clegg’s People’ fame) would give us talks on all aspects of natural history, illustrated by specimens from the collections. On other occasions, packed up with flasks and sandwiches, we would go off to look at a Badger’s sett, the Kittiwake colony on the Marine Drive, seals and migrating birds at Filey Brigg or go rock pooling and looking for fossils and dinosaur footprints at Cayton Bay, Boggle Hole or Scalby Mills. I attended field studies and outward bound courses at The Holt, Hutton Buscel, enduring some of the Spartan privation described in Richard Bell’s piece. Later, our excursions became more ambitious, including camping expeditions, surveying the wildlife of the Hebridean Islands of Eigg, Rassay and Rhum.
Annual conferences at Scarborough Central Library brought together members of JNA groups from elsewhere in England. Natural History supply firms would exhibit their collecting equipment, microscopes, literature etc. and the ever-persuasive Geoff Watson twisted the arms of top natural history authors and celebrities to appear as speakers.
The image of the characteristically pipe-smoking Major Geoffrey G. Watson amazingly conjured up the ‘stench’ of his tobacco, contrasting with the Lilac fragrance and the wax polish the attendants used on the highly polished floors at Wood End. Due to his rather distinguished balding pate, we youngsters disrespectfully (if secretly) referred to him as ‘Fuzz’ … and yes, I knew Jean Levy and Ewen Ritchie as JNA members, and remembered Tony Brewster and Geoff Stansfield both becoming leading lights in their respective subjects of Archaeology and Museum Studies.
Although it was the age of the Goon Show and Hancock’s Half Hour, the humour of ‘Young Nat’ was still eagerly looked for in our monthly magazine.
Colin Howes (Doncaster, DN4 9DS) (2024)