Life at Walnut Tree Farm

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Like many readers, I imagined he would be a dream dinner party guest but, in the end, I never met him – he died, suddenly, aged just 63, in 2006. For years, I enjoyed his writing but also pondered the distinctiveness of his generation and its value – my parents were the same age and, like Roger, had moved at the end of the 60s to seek a new kind of life in the East Anglian countryside.

He left Diss Grammar School in 1978 to join the staff of Friends of the Earth (1978-82) planning campaigns, editing and co-writing publications, and managing press relations and media strategy. The first major campaign he was closely involved in planning from the beginning was the campaign to save whales. In 1980 he successfully campaigned to save Cowpasture Lane, part of an ancient Suffolk droving road, from destruction by agribusiness. The campaign, a key issue relating to the future of hedgerows in the debate on the Wildlife & Countryside Bill, and its success is documented as a chapter in Des Wilson’s “Citizen Action”, and in Common Ground’s “Holding Your Ground”, as well as “Hansard”.

Summary

Roger was one of those rare people whose character and passion is to be found in everything he made, collected, drew or wrote. His notes, written to himself, provide an insight into a beautiful mind and a sweet man. This archive will capture what it was like to be a passionate, engaged, subversive country intellectual living through a time of profound change. It is very appropriate that Roger's papers will remain within his beloved East Anglia. [2] Work [ edit ] In the beginning, I assumed that not having met Roger would bequeath me a crisp, neutral gaze. Later, I craved five minutes in his company. His education taught him how to reason but he chose to live as a romantic – by following his feelings. I wanted to feel that innate sympathy that comes from sharing a space with another living being. At least Roger and I shared the same sky: we loved the same woods, winds and moods. I discovered that he had moved his mum into a cottage in the Suffolk town of Eye in the 1990s, just when my dad moved to another cottage 50 yards away. Roger and I were regular visitors to our parents. Surely we both stood in the queue in Eye greengrocers one Saturday morning. Roger Deakin (1999). Waterlog: A Swimmer's Journey Through Britain. Chatto and Windus. ISBN 0-7011-6652-5. He was a champion of biodiversity and helped save the adjacent ancient right of way from destruction by a local farmer.

Rufus (The Reliable USB Formatting Utility, with Source [4]) is a free and open-source portable application for Microsoft Windows that can be used to format and create bootable USB flash drives or Live USBs. Jeff Barrett, ed. (2009). Caught by the River: a collection of words on water. ISBN 978-1-84403-667-7.

Where it was located was one of the largest common grazing areas in the UK at the time. Deakin slowly changed the landscape, planting trees, draining and clearing the moat, and letting the land be used in a sustainable way. He had the odd run-in with neighbours, in particular over Cowpasture Lane, but this place was to motivate him in many ways. His regular swims in the moat became the book Waterlog, the love of the landscape around was key to the creation of Common Ground and because of his work in the environmental business meant that he had a light touch on the land around his home. East Anglia became the locus of his interests and attachments. His moral and political compass points were set - I well imagine - by the cardinal points of Ronald Blythe's Anglicanism and Colin Ward's anarchism. Both lived close by and were good friends, sharing an interest in the life of small things.

His work as a writer/director/producer of film and television took on a special interest in arts, rural and environmental subjects. He left Diss Grammar School in 1978 to join the staff of Friends of the Earth (1978-82) planning campaigns, editing and co-writing publications, and managing press relations and media strategy. The first major campaign he was closely involved in planning from the beginning was the campaign to save whales. In 1980 he successfully campaigned to save Cowpasture Lane, part of an ancient Suffolk droving road, from destruction by agribusiness. From 1982-1985 RD was a musical advisor to the Aldeburgh Foundation on folk music and jazz, and produced a series of concerts and broadcasts at Snape Maltings by Carole King, the Chieftains, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Loudon Wainwright, Planxty, the Roche Sisters and others, as well as originating and commissioning After Smith's Hotel , a major Arts Council jazz commission, with Mike Westbrook, first performed at Snape Maltings by the Mike Westbrook Orchestra. Life at Walnut Tree Farm became the subject, in 2004, of a Radio 4 programme, The House, which recorded the creaking of the ancient house at night, with mice scurrying behind the wainscotting, owls hooting in the dark beyond, and the rain beating a tattoo on the barrelled tin roofs of the outhouses. A year later came The Garden, while Cigarette On the Waveney dealt with his trip, by canoe, down the Suffolk river.During this period (1983), RD also became a founder-director, with Angela King and Sue Clifford, of Common Ground, the arts/environmental charity whose ideas and initiatives he helped develop, together with Richard Mabey, Robert Hutchison and Robin Grove-White. Working with the designer and illustrator David Holmes, and with a range of artists and writers that included Heathcote Williams, Andy Goldsworthy, Posy Simmonds, Mel Calman, Glen Baxter, Peter Till, Germaine Greer, Ronald Blythe, Colin Ward, and David Nash, he helped create a distinctive “house style” for Common Ground.