As a ten-year old, the author contracted TB and was sent to an isolated sanatorium, deep in the Cheshire countryside. On fine days, nurses would push the young patients, in their beds, out onto a large veranda and it was here that his love of birdwatching developed.
Sharing his passion with three schoolmates, over the next seven years, this small band of birders explored wildlife locations on and nearby the Wirral, spending summer days on Bardsey, a remote island off North Wales.
This is a ‘rites of passage’ story of one lad’s journey through those early formative teenage years when birdwatching sits easily in his life alongside football, girls, radical politics and rock bands. It’s the sixties on Merseyside. A passion for nature has stayed with him, throughout his life and on revisiting his teenage wildlife haunts, he looks back to those times with mature perspective and sentiment that add their own colours to the story.
It’s a celebration of nature and its power to humble and heal. It’s also an inspiring call to arms for anyone who values the world outside their door. Paperback published by Whittles £18.99