A Wild Childhood

Finding an old photo of me and my sister outside in the garden, my sister in her pram and me (aged about two) sitting at a little table eating my tea, with daisies in the grass around us and our dog keeping us company. It made me think about how much being out in nature daily at an early age, shaped our lives, brought us joy, kept us active and instilled in us a lasting love of the countryside.

Modern life is now so dependent on technology and screens and with it the addictive pull of social media and online gaming for children and young people, it feels as though nature is getting further away from most peoples lives but I was fascinated to read that The People & Nature Survey For England, which collected responses from several thousand children aged 8 to 15 in 2023 found that 88% of them agreed that being in nature made them very happy. 52% of them reported feeling highly connected to nature;

This just reminded me how powerful being outside in nature is for all ages, for our health and well-being.

I went to a little village primary school in rural East Kent and spent the first ten years of my life in a small village at the foot of the famous white chalk cliffs.

Our school was a Church of England school whose rhythms and celebrations moved with the seasons, from gathering bluebells in local woods in spring to walking home in early summer, cutting across the wheat and barley fields spotting all the wildflowers and poppies and in autumn picking up beech nuts from the playground, peeling them from their tiny shells and eating them!

At age eleven we moved house and started a small farm so I had the chance to get to know the feisty Guernsey cows, Gloucester Old spot pigs, Romney sheep and an assortment of chickens, geese, dogs, cats ponies and horses.

When many years later I had my own children, they too grew up in the countryside and got to spend hours outside, enjoying picking blackberries, making bows 1 arrows, picking wildflowers and in my youngest son's case looking for badger toilets! little scooped out holes in the ground where they liked to pooh!

If life is weighing heavy on my shoulders or I just can't get motivated, as soon as I step outside and go for a wander in the field or spot a bumblebee on a flower my spirits lift, my thoughts clear and I can get on with my day.

From youngest to oldest we can all benefit from getting outside wherever we are and seeing what nature we can spot...... as the Ancient Greek philosopher Hippocrates said ' Nature itself is the best physician.'