On
Saturday 11th May 2013 at 2pm, Ray (Badger) Walker will talk about his
personal friendship with Denys James Watkins-Pitchford.
Badger is a Derbyshire
man and he met BB in the early 1980s. Their shared passion and interest for the
countryside, and of Jefferies’ writing, led to a solid friendship. By
coincidence, Badger’s father was born in Chiseldon opposite the church where
Richard Jefferies married Jessie Baden.
RICHARD JEFFERIES MUSEUM
MARLBOROUGH ROAD
COATE
SWINDON SN3 6AA
FREE ADMISSION
DOORS OPEN 1PM (Opportunity to explore the Museum)
enys James Watkins-Pitchford MBE was a naturalist, an
illustrator and a children’s author writing under the pseudonym ‘BB’ (a name
based on the size of lead shot he used to shoot geese). Born on 25th
July 1905 in Northamptonshire, he was the second son of the Revd Walter
Watkins-Pitchford and his wife, Edith. His elder brother, Engel, died at the
age of thirteen. Denys was himself considered to be delicate as a child, and
because of this he was educated at home, whilst his younger twin, Roger, was
sent away to school. He spent a great deal of time on his own, wandering
through the fields, and developed a love of the outdoors. He enjoyed hunting, fishing
and drawing – all of which were to influence his writing. He left home at the
age of fifteen to study at the Northampton School of Art where he won several prizes
and a travelling scholarship to Paris where he worked at a studio and attended
drawing classes. In the autumn of 1924, he entered London’s Royal College of
Art. In 1930 he became an assistant art master at Rugby School where he
remained for seventeen years. Whilst at Rugby School he began contributing
regularly to the Shooting Times and
started his career as an author and illustrator. He married Cecily in 1939, and
they had two children; Angela and Robin – the latter died at the age of seven from
Bright’s Disease. Cecily died in 1974. By the late 1980s, Watkins-Pitchford
needed regular dialysis treatment. He was awarded an honorary MA by Leicester
University in 1986, and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in
1990. He collapsed suddenly in September of that year, and died while under
anaesthetic in the operating theatre on 8th September 1990.
BB
dedicated his last book (Confessions of a
Coastal Gunner) to Ray Badger
Walker. He accompanied BB on a number of his epic annual trips to the Wash, and
latterly to the Solway Firth and the Northumberland Coast in search of the pink
foot and greylag geese that overwinter in these islands. In his foreword to the
book, Badger writes: ‘It is well known that BB was an old-time hunter-gatherer
and shot for the pot, not the size of the bag. He would never waste anything
edible, and had his own recipes for serving up a meal.’
