Isabella Tree
/In this post, there is a list of the advanced words and phrases from the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs interview with Isabella Tree, a conservationist and writer. Aggie and I have created a podcast about Desert Island Discs called Radio English.
You can listen to the original BBC interview here
Here is the link to my podcast on itunes or just listen to it below:
INTRO
0:44 conservationist
0:58 2002 she and husband made a decision to take their hands off the wheel
Surrender their estate to nature
1:05 despite bitter opposition, castle was transformed
1:16 now boasts a kaleidoscope of habitats
Butterflies, nightingales, turtle doves, nesting falcons, 13 species of bat!
Bestselling book “Wilding”
1:29 described as a landmark work in nature writing
Sense that the very ground beneath your feet is coming to life again
1:50 the land is heaving with life
WHAT DO WE SEE AT PROJECT
2:09 In the spring it’s more like the Serengeti
2:13 thorny scrub
2:20 Big free roaming herbivores
2:42 surround sound birdsong and insects is so loud, can feel it reverberate in your stomach
IS IT CATCHING ON?
2:48 Do you think the idea of re-wilding or wilding is catching on?
People know they’re missing something in the landscape
3:17 they want something wilder
BIO DIVERSITY
3:24 It can increase biodiversity in the soil itself
You have to eat 10 tomatoes to get the same nutrition you’d get from one tomato in the 1950s
3:58 Food nutrition has plummeted
4:12 One of the best tools to combat climate change
Driven by free roaming animals
4:32 Amazing number of dung beetles
4:44 Dung beetle fetish → found 23 species
Pull dung back into soil, enriched with nutrients
FIRST DISC (The Whole of the moon)
Refers to husband
Everyone from Humble to Darwin to Einstein
Different perceptions of the world
2002 LETTER STARTING
6:33 Let the fields lie fallow
Got funding, fenced the whole area so free roaming animals could walk around
6:53 What are the differences between now and conventional conservation
Conventional - save animals that would have gone extinct
7:04 targeted species that would have gone extinct
Wilding - not targeted at all
7:20 Sit back on your hands as a human being
7:31 Allow animals and nature to just do its thing
DIFFICULT LESSONS
7.43 Early on there was a moment when we did begin to lose our nerve
Had creeping thistle
7:55 It can really colonise fast
Woke up one morning to tens of thousands of painted lady butterflies
8:24 Hear the sound of the butterflies around you like a waterfall
Huge migration from Morocco, thistle is the main source of food for butterflies
LONGHORN CATTLE GIVING BIRTH
(Was a farmer before this)
9:07 That was very odd
9:10 You always intervene as a livestock farm
3:31 Introduces it to the herd
9:34 They sniff the calf and welcome it into the herd
If there is a problem we go in with vetinary attention
SECOND DISC (Billie Holiday )
In memory of her Dad
Wonderful background music to our childhood
CHILDHOOD LOVE OF NATURE
11:20 We had a very feral upbringing
11:31 Building dens
ADOPTED
11:39 Unusually, you knew you were adopted from a young age
Think this was very clever of them
Felt very special
12:02 Adopted family was aristocratic
MOTHER
12:19 She was a campaigner wasn’t she?
12:23 Very anti-authoritarian
12:33 particularly lifers
Taught prisoners how to sew
She thought work was so beautiful that they should be paid for it
12:52 Some choice language (in a letter to the Home Office)
FATHER
In art for a bit
Grown up in some beautiful houses
Went through money like a knife through butter
THIRD DISC (T REX)
13:35 Had a checkered school career
Loved parents but hadn’t come to terms with adoption
13:47 A niggling feeling that something wasn’t right
Kicked out of school, boyfriend sent this song
SCHOOL, EXPELLED TWICE
14:50 expelled twice
15:00 I felt it very claustrophobic
15:04 Felt they were trying to stamp out all signs of joy
Didn’t like the idea of having to believe in something no questions asked
Did annoying things, writing the cross upside down etc
15:22 Had a ouija board
15:28 Stuff of the devil to wind the nuns up
15:47 She rang up and said “It’s curtains I’m afraid”
MEETING BIRTH MOTHER
Felt guilty towards her parents
“Don’t worry about meeting your mother, I hope you love her. it doesn’t mean you’ll love us any less. The human heart is an amazing thing, it can just grow and grow and grow”
16:31 It has infinite capacity
When they phoned - The relief was so enormous that we both just laughed
She said “If you’d called any later I would have been abroad”
“Where are you going”
“Papua New Guniea”
“Well that’s where I’m going!”
17:09 I know what people meant by walking on air
17:19 That grit that had been gnawing away at me
Very difficult to strike balance
She died very young, in early 50s.
FOURTH DISC (What’s a telephone bill)
18:52 Arguing about everything under the sun
CLASSICS AT UNI
Asked what I wanted to in the future
20:00 Said, rather shamefacedly in front of this author
Don’t study English, any fool can read a book
Study classics
20:19 I still had this hankering to read English
TRAVEL WRITER
20:31 intrepid I don’t know if that’s quite the right word
Antarctica...
21:05 Gardening in this incredibly sophisticated way
21:07 Amazing symbiotic relationship with pigs!
FIFTH DISC (3 LITTLE BIRDS)
Pregnant with Nancy, tested positive for Toxoplasmosis
21:23 It looked like I’d contracted it there (Iran)
Very nerve wracking
This track came on when they put the radio on in Indonesia
HUSBAND + THE HOUSE
22:39 Your husband inherited Nep (the house)
22:50 Still blackout blinds on the windows (no change until WW2)
No central heating, freezing!
23:03 Felt that he could really turn the farm around
Tried bigger machinery, different crops, more chemicals
Tried diversifying to ice cream until Haagen Daas
LIVING FROM FARMING
23:37 The clay soil was up against us
Out of action for 6 months of the year
23:46 Couldn’t sow spring crops
23:55 Discovered asbestos in all the rooms
24:09 Wasn’t just your family’s future at stake
24:18 Had to make farm manager and 9 other men redundant
PROCESS BEGAN WITH TED GREEN
Brought in to advise on an old oak tree
The other trees were dying because of ploughing up to their trunks
“I can just tell when a friend of mine isn’t well, and this friend isn’t well”
Realised it was their fault due to cutting up the roots
25:33 That was the epiphany
SIXTH DISC (MOZART)
Friend’s recording who introduced her to husband
Reminds of sleepless nights
PEOPLES’ OPINIONS
People horrified
27:31 It’s to do with aesthetic
Not surprising we had the reaction
27:49 Didn’t realise how heated that feeling was going to be
28:10 There is method in their madness
28:12 Question of getting used to it
BETTER FINANCIAL POSITION
Safaris
28:21 glamping on site
It is something that can be scaled down
Eco-tourism
Arable land to scrub halves it value
Financial value on natural environment
29:37 One of the very sobering meditations
ONLY DONE FOR FINANCIAL POSITION
Different mindset
30:10 Important not to denigrate the farmers here
SEVENTH DISC (RECORDING OF NIGHTINGALES)
During the war 1942
Can hear Lancaster bombers overhead
Reminds me of home (the castle)
30:56 Sound of this valiant bird
Gives me hope, whatever human beings do, nature will respond
31:15 Nature will bounce back
1% OF COUNTRY TO BE REWILDED
Moving re-wilding into cities
Important for mental and physical wellbeing
Huge physiological impact
Sense of joy and completeness
WHAT CAN WE, THE LISTENER, DO?
All of us can make a difference
Connect gardens together with neighbours
33:35 have a hedgehog hole cut in fence perhaps
EIGHTH DISC (DANCING IN THE MOONLIGHT)
Both children great at dancing, how to get her dancing, reminds of her children
CASTAWAY
I hope human beings have never stepped there before
35:03 Maybe I can nurse it
Book: War and Peace
35:27 Luxury: Mask and Snorkel
35:30 Hope there will be a coral reef that hasn’t been affected by bleaching
Chosen Disc: Billie Holiday