I am haunted by the loss of wildlife \u2013 single trees, 10,000 trees, wildflower meadows and their worlds, spotted flycatchers, lapwings \u2013 the loss of a last nightingale. And I am simultaneously enchanted,\u00a0thrilled, utterly seduced and filled with hope by nature. It moves me as much as any human relationship \u2013 now there\u2019s a confession. But when did it all begin to mean so much to me? And why?<\/p>\n

It took writing a book, On Gallows Down, Place, Protest and Belonging<\/a><\/em>, to form a framework for the answer to these questions. Partly, nature means so much (and yes, as much as any human relationship) because the two are inseparable. We are nothing without nature because we are nature. And more than ever now, not to consider it in everything we do is to continue sawing off the branch we are sitting on. But also, as wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend (and all the other things we are), my very best memories and experiences with these relationships, these people, have happened in nature.<\/p>\n

We are nothing without nature because we are nature <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
To see life through the prism of nature is everything. It is a way of belonging; of getting under the skin and history of a place, whether you come from there, farming generations deep, or whether you have just arrived in a place; whether you are a landowner, or own nothing very much at all \u2013 least of all land and a house. Nature is the state we are in, hope for the future and a way to survive. It\u2019s why I write. Yet as soon as I remember consciously discovering nature, dawdling home from primary school the long way home, water-meadow mud oozing through my sensible brown sandals and up my socks like litmus paper, I knew loss. The rivers were poisoned of otters and the statuesque elms had been dying for a decade. I stacked the curves of their shed bark into little \u2018libraries\u2019, after poring over the linocut trilobite shapes left by the deadly, fungus-carrying, elm bark beetle. When we moved from that beloved place, it felt like a coming away of skin; a grieving.<\/p>\n

Podcast:<\/a> On Gallows Down: Tales of nature and protest with writer Nicola Chester<\/a><\/h4>\n
Roam Gallows Down on the Witshire, Hampshire, Berkshire border and hear tales of ancient and modern history \u2013 as well as the battles to defend the precious natural wonders of the area from new roads, American air bases and nuclear missiles. Author and activist Nicola Chester introduces Annabel Ross to the wonders of the North Wessex Downs.<\/p>\n
Listen now<\/a><\/h6>\n
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$\""Gallows\"$ <\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section><\/div>\n
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Then almost as soon as I \u2018got into\u2019 my new home (aged 11), making my acquaintance first through its woodlands and heaths, it was taken from me in dramatic fashion. A common enclosed in 1981 \u2013 Greenham Common in Berkshire, as it happens \u2013 which meant making room for 96 American nuclear warheads.<\/p>\n
Inspired by the 19-year-long protest by the Greenham Women\u2019s Peace Camp, I went on to join the road protests in the 1990s. Specifically, Newbury Bypass, which curved around my home, the rubble of the old Cold War runway at Greenham Common recycled under its tarmac. It destroyed my rural childhood playground as well as already threatened wildlife \u2013 and ignored the coming climate crisis.<\/p>\n
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Listen now<\/a><\/h6>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section><\/div>\n