I was introduced to wildflowers at the age of nine, by my primary school teacher – the late John Vaughan. This was in the early 1950s and we were encouraged to bring flowers to school for identification. We were limited to two of each species. I remember going on a school trip to Castleton, Derbyshire and told to look for Jacob’s Ladder. Our instruction was “bring just one flower and leave the rest attached to the stalk, as this plant is very rare in the wild”. I still have my wildflower identification guide from that time. In addition to our teacher, my mother had a passing interest in wildlife and did nothing to discourage me from my interest.
However, aged 11, I moved to Rotherham Grammar School and the interest went on a back burner until some twenty years later, when I found my brother-in-law Richard was a passionate wildflower photographer. I started looking at wildflowers again but with a camera in my hand. We both soon joined Rotherham Naturalists’ Society, B.S.B.I. and the Wildflower Society. I was hooked.
About this time there was local government reorganisation and whilst our rates doubled there were a few additional services a local authority could provide including a biological records centre. In Rotherham, the Keeper of Natural History at Rotherham Museum, Bill Ely took on that role. My brother-in-law even became his assistant for a period before Bill was moved to another department, whilst Richard remained at the Museum. We all realised that to keep this service going, we had to justify its existence by providing site based high quality biological records. We worked on the basic premise that with ever better computers coming on the market and ever developing software, the more refined the record at the time of data entry the better because the computer could take care of the client wanting cruder data.
I had qualified as a Pharmacist in 1966 from the Herriot Watt University, Edinburgh. Over the years, I began to see what a fine scientific training this degree course is. What Why When and Who the basic questions we ask our customers is not far removed from What was seen? Where was it seen? How many were seen? Who saw it? of biological recording. My scientific training led me to add an additional question WHY have I seen it there but not somewhere else?
In 1978 I joined the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. Shortly afterwards computers moved into pharmacy and through working as a consultant for a major pharmaceutical wholesaler, I was getting access to some decent hardware but also on my own finding commercial databases to process data. It was not long before I was dragged into YNU administration at first running the membership database, then becoming Treasurer in 1995 and also in 2004 General Secretary. Just before my 70th birthday I have found replacements for these essential tasks but I would like to be relieved of my position on the National Federation of Biological Recording Council as well having being a Council continuously since 1999 as Treasurer, Membership Secretary and now as Secretary.
Whilst doing all this administration, I have always kept my feet on the ground recording, although I had a five-year spell in the mid 1990s when the Pharmacy work became so over whelming recording was virtually confined to mothing on a Friday evening. I retired from full time work in 1998.
The Pharmacy connection had another spinoff. You all may be aware, that every prescription dispensed today is recorded on a pc, which not only produces a label (the bit the public sees), but also generates data. The process was carefully thought through in the 1980s but again the principles could be adapted to data entry for biological recording. Whilst personally, I do not do on line recording, nor use Recorder 6 or Mapmate, I do use Excel. My son (a Management Accountant) has given me basic instructions in some of the advanced techniques in Excel so we use VLookup tables for the species, validation tools for common entries e.g. breeding birds {‘possible’, ‘probable’ or ‘proven’} recorders names etc. He also advised on structuring the order of data entry to use the copy function as much as possible just once. He also gave a small number of YNU members a day’s training on using the data functions area of Excel including Pivot Tables. This really has assisted data analysis allowing me to look critically at a data set of around 1200 plant gall records and their hosts over a four-year period. I do have a plea for the NBN: Please provide an up to date species list of common names and scientific names for all groups on your website.
In 2011, the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union celebrated its 150th anniversary with a number of significant events in which I was able to take part. Professors Alistair Fitter and John Rodwell were the principal speakers at our conference in March. We held a three-day bioblitz based in Scarborough in June, with a particular emphasis on marine biodiversity led by Paula Lightfoot. We also held a number of field meetings in the National Parks visiting Newtondale on the North York Moors, a three day event based at FSC Malham Tarn with over fifty people attending and in August we spent three days surveying under recorded areas in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale based on Reeth. All this resulting in my sending over 2500 records to the York data centre using Excel.
I moved to Dorset in 1999 where I am Field Secretary of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, a trustee of Dorset Environmental Records Centre and a National Trust volunteer ecologist mainly working for the West Dorset team. This is the best job I have ever had. I do not get paid but the privilege of having access to some of the finest properties on the Dorset Jurassic Coast in return for providing ecological data to assist its management is its own reward.
Accompanying photo: Chesil Beach and the Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy – home to the Olympic sailing events 2012.