My son started all this!

Suddenly, he said: "You ought to have a website". I said: "In your dreams." Two hours later he said: "I'm planning it now".

So here it is, with warts and all. Just a number of ramblings about my voluntary work as manager of a nature reserve in Sussex owned by the Sussex Wildlife Trust The ramblings started through a magazine published by my local town's community association which later ceased publication, and I moved on to my church's parish magazine. The articles will reach their fifth anniversary at Christmas 2004.

I suppose my motivation was to carry on writing after retirement. I was a journalist -- just an ordinary hack who had specialised at various times on farming, public relations, charities and politics. I enjoyed the pigs most...

I was brought up in a village in the North Downs in Kent. As a child I remember sunny evenings going to sleep to the repeated call of the yellowhammer. "A-little-bit-of-bread-and-no-che-e-e-se" it sang. And its descendants still sing the tune now on the reserve.

If I lay awake some evenings I could also hear my mother's ancient typewriter clacking away into the night writing her copy for a local newspaper column called "A Countrywoman's Notebook".

So you see, there is ink in my veins and mud on my wellies.

Have a good read!

The author and volunteer manager, John Hall