The RSPB 'hums with zeal and fights for the things it believes in' insists Haweswater reserve manager

                     

Tough skin required - Lee Schofield's fascinating book 

THE RSPB is "an incredible organisation to work for".

So says Lee Schofield site manager for the society's Haweswater reserve in the Lake District. 

In his book, Wild Fell, he writes: "My colleagues are some of the most dedicated and passionate people I have ever had the privilege to meet.

"The shared zeal for saving species  and restoring habitats is palpable - the organisation hums with it, and our successes are many and varied.

"If it had not been for the campaigning and practical interventions by the RSPB, chances are that we would not have avocets, goldfinches, marsh harriers, bitterns or many other species in anything like the numbers we do today."

He continues: "Sure it doesn't get everything right all the time, no organisation does, but the RSPB fights for the things it believes in and rarely gives up."

Subtitled Fighting for Nature on a Lake District Hill Farm, the book provides a fascinating account of the efforts by Lee and his team to bring back birds and plants long lost to this patch of Cumbria.

But he makes enemies along the way - not least some upland sheep farmers who are fearful that the RSPB's approach may undermine practices they have pursued for generations.

In the aftermath of one of his presentations to a group of farmers, he took so much flak that he felt emotionally "bruised and shaken".

He recalls: "As I sat in the car outside, my wife, Becki, had to talk me down over the phone before I was in a fit state to drive home.

"I was starting to realise that, in order to survive in the job, I would need a thicker skin."

Later, the author describes how, after a promising first encounter, he and Rory Stewart, his MP at the time, fell out.

Miffed at how, in an article, the MP described him as dressing like a "canoe instructor", he hit back by referring to Eton-educated Rory Stewart's "clipped public school accent".

Schofield won't have done any favours to a hotel he stayed at while on a fact-finding visit to Scotland by likening it to the setting of BBC TV comedy series Fawlty Towers.

Happily, snippiness of this sort is rare and not what characterises the book which is full of fascinating insights about what works and what doesn't.

Credit to the author also for the depth of his research both into the history of Haweswater back to earliest times, when it was far more wooded, and into the example set in a not dissimilar habitat in Norway.   

There is a gentle, self-deprecating humour in much of the writing - for instance, in his account of bracken as "probably not on anyone's list of favourite plants - certainly not on mine".

He explains: "Walking through it in the summer, when it can grow to over two metres high, is a nightmare.

"The thick stem seems to grab at the ankles, tripping you with every step.

"It harbours ticks and a day of bracken-bashing necessitates a thorough check in case any of these tiny parasites have found their way into lesser explored bodily regions."   

Wild Fell is published in paperback at £10.99 by Penguin.