John Talbot White
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John Talbot White | |
|---|---|
| Born | 5 January 1925 Lewisham, London, UK |
| Died | 22 April 1983 (aged 58) Blackheath, London, UK |
| Occupations | Lecturer, naturalist, author |
| Known for | Natural history writing |
John Talbot White (5 January 1925 – 22 April 1983) was a British lecturer, naturalist, and writer. He was known for his contributions to The Guardian's Country Diary and for his books about the topography and natural history of South East England and particularly the county of Kent. He committed suicide after becoming depressed following redundancy, but not before posting his last column to The Guardian.
John Talbot White was born in Lewisham on 5 January 1925,[1] one of three sons of a tobacco sampler.[2] He described his mother Elizabeth as having "green fingers".[3] As a boy he developed a deep interest in the countryside around London that was reinforced when he was evacuated to the Kent/Sussex border during the Second World War.[2]
He served in the Royal Navy as a petty officer for the last two years of the war and saw action in Greece and the Aegean.[2]
Writing
White lived and worked for many years in Northumbria in the north of England[3] and his early published works were of a literary type for the private Tragara Press in Edinburgh.[4] Later he turned to British topographical and natural history subjects of the South East of England and particularly the county of Kent, becoming a stalwart contributor to The Guardian's Country Diary column.[2] His writing included educational works and two volumes for The Regions of Britain series, one on the Scottish borders (1973) and another on the Kent, Surrey and Sussex area (1977).
In 1978, his Countryman's Guide to the South-East was praised in The Observer as the work of a "precise naturalist".[5] George Seddon, reviewing the book for The Guardian, described White as having the ideal qualities of a country diarist of an "observant pair of eyes, infectious enthusiasm, and an unaffected prose style" as he chronicled the Kent marshes in January, the Sussex Downs in March, and the Surrey heaths in August.[6] The cover was by Rowland Hilder.[3]
As well as describing seasonal changes, White was careful to place natural features in their historical contexts, acknowledging, for instance, that the hedgerow was an innovation by man,[7] and that modern farm buildings that jarred with the landscape now would probably become as accepted as the oast house with the passage of time.[8] Similarly with hedgerows, White noted their varieties and historical background; tall, mainly hawthorn, hedges in Kent surrounding hop gardens that date from the introduction of hops in the Tudor period,[9] and others that denoted the boundaries of Saxon parishes and included many different species such as blackthorn, guelder rose, hawthorn, and yew, and a similarly wide range of birds and other wildlife that lived in them or fed off their fruit.[10] He wrote more on the hedgerow in his 1980 book of that title for which Eric Thomas provided the illustrations.[11][12] The book tells the story of the hedgerow from before the Saxons to the twentieth century when it is threatened by modern farming methods.[13]
Employment
He was employed as a lecturer in geography and natural history at Goldsmiths College in London. In 1983, having no family responsibilities himself, he took redundancy from his job in order to save a younger man with a family from losing his job.[14]
Outside work, he sang and spoke Breton, French, Greek, and Italian.[2]
