Dear Steve
The mistake that I have made with tonight’s Letter to Steve is that I have not done very much with it, after a rather intense period of conversing with my assistant on Monday.
We had quite a wide-ranging discussion, starting mostly with how I discovered Gilbert White. Summarised: driving north on the A3, the roundabout after Petersfield has a tourist sign for Gilbert White’s house, it took me a while to remember to Google him, and of course, when I did, I found out about his book, the antiquities and natural history of Selborne. It took us a while longer to visit his house.
In the meantime, somewhat arbitrarily, I had become determined not to buy his book until we had visited his house. Which, of course, I did. Ironically, I have only had one opportunity to buy his book in a bookshop, and that was in Rye. Well, after I had already bought it. Of course, I could have bought it at any time on Amazon.
Last week’s letter, Letter XX, was in some respects a bit of an eye-opener, and started a train of thought that could lead to something interesting. I’m not quite ready to talk a lot about it at the moment, but I am sure that I won’t be able to resist dropping hints and tips as time moves on. The one thing I will say is that I did get quite excited at an idea we’d had, only to discover in Letter XX that someone had almost exactly the same idea back in the 1760s. That kind of made a link in a way. It turns out that our idea may not work anyway.
Gilbert’s letter this week was about the Stone-curlew and more bird observations. I can’t help saying that I felt horrified at what the young boys were doing to nests. Whilst it isn’t exactly the same thing, I quite often see children chasing pigeons; they seem to especially love running through a crowd of them, making them flap and fly away. I quite often feel like saying leave them be. They have as much right to be here as you or I. I don’t, of course.
Talking of observations, I had to pop out to the Chemist’s and Morrisons today. I heard the banging and clattering before I got anywhere near Clarence Road and The Tavern. Sad to see that another of Gosport’s institutions appears to be succumbing to the march of the House in Multiple Occupation (HMO). Not entirely, though, as apparently a small part is to be retained as a pub.
All the Best
Bill.
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