The author and nature writer talks to BBC Countryfile about the inspiration behind his book, Sarn Helen. <\/p>
Walking the length of Wales, author Tom Bullough discovered how urgently we need action on climate issues. He paints a portrait of a nation in the midst of dramatic change in his book Sarn Helen.<\/em> Here, he talks to BBC Countryfile magazine.<\/p>\n Sarn Helen is a Roman road. It once ran the length of Wales, and it still runs clearly through the Brecon Beacons, where I live. I have wanted to walk its full course for years, but I didn\u2019t set out until July 2020, just after the first Covid lockdown. Like so many of us, I was desperate to see a different landscape \u2013 and there was Sarn Helen, as if pointing the way.<\/p>\n That\u2019s tricky, because everything is interconnected and we have left ourselves so very few options. We need \u201ceverything, everywhere, all at once\u201d, as Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, the UN Secretary General said recently. On the walk itself, I was keenly aware of the collapse in our wildlife populations \u2013 from curlew to water vole, salmon to kestrel \u2013 but also, with the ever-present noise of engines, just how basically reliant we are on fossil fuels.<\/p>\n Lovely to meet Tom Bullough today and to chat about starlings and king fishers as he signed copies of his latest book SARN HELEN, beautifully illustrated by Jackie Morris pic.twitter.com\/yPdx8rq2bg<\/a><\/p>\u2014 Waterstones Carms (@WstonesCarm) February 6, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote>What is Sarn Helen and what inspired you to walk it?<\/h4>\n
The book is as much about the climate crisis as it is about Wales. What was the most urgent climate issue you became aware of during your walk?<\/h4>\n