It's ever so good. Political, passionate & personal.--Robert
Macfarlane (via Twitter), author of Underland
Part nature writing, part memoir, On Gallows Down is an essential,
unforgettable read for fans of Helen Macdonald, Terry Tempest Williams,
and Robin Wall Kimmerer.
I couldn't put it down! A must read!--Dara McAnulty (via Twitter),
author of Diary of a Young Naturalist
Nicola Chester won the BBC Wildlife Magazine's Nature Writer of the
Year Award - this is her first book.
On Gallows Down is a powerful, personal story shaped by a landscape;
one that ripples and undulates with protest, change, hope - and the
search for home.
From the girl catching the eye of the "peace women" of Greenham Common
to the young woman protesting the loss of ancient and beloved trees, and
as a mother raising a family in a farm cottage in the shadow of grand,
country estates, this is the story of how Nicola Chester came to write -
as a means of protest. The story of how she discovered the rich seam of
resistance that runs through her village of Newbury and its people -
from the English Civil War to the Swing Riots and the battle against the
Newbury Bypass. And the story of the hope she finds in the rewilding of
Greenham Common after the military left, the stories told by the
landscapes of Watership Down, the gallows perched high on Inkpen Beacon
and Highclere Castle (the setting of Downtown Abbey).
Nature is indelibly linked to belonging for Nicola. She charts her story
through the walks she takes with her children across the chalk hills of
the North Wessex Downs, though the song of the nightingale and the red
kites, fieldfares, skylarks and lapwings that accompany her; the badger
cubs she watches at night; the velvety mole she discovers in her garden
and the cuckoo, whose return she awaits. On Gallows Down tells of how
Nicola came to realize that it is she who can decide where she
belongs, for home is a place in nature and imagination, which must be
protected through words and actions.
We are writing for our very lives and for those wild lives we share
this one, lonely planet with.--Nicola Chester
