On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging (Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2022 for Nature Writing - Highly Commended)

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Evocative and inspiring…environmental protest, family, motherhood and…nature.’ Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground, Costa Novel Award Winner 2021 It is impossible to write with integrity about nature without protesting and resisting and waving a desperate red flag. Isn’t it?’

Change is afoot, however. The local keeper has gone and an outbreak of bird disease has left the shoot silent for the first time in a century.Nicola writes a well-regarded Nature Notes column for the IMG_3102Award-Winning Newbury Weekly News (circ, 20,000) that explores local wildlife, landscape, weather and our relationship with it – and has done so for seventeen years. She is the longest-running female columnist for the RSPB members magazine Nature’s Home (formerly Birds, 1.3 million readers). adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments. Part memoir, part nature writing and entirely impressive. I was completely bowled over by this book and finished it with huge admiration for Nicola Chester. What do you do when you no longer recognise the place you grew up in? When it has been flayed and torn off the surface of the earth; burnt, excavated heaped up and built on with structures you struggle to make sense of. This feeling of grief and disorientation was new, distressing and seemed to permeate everything. Place was everything to me. I had been uprooted before but now, it seemed, the very place I stood upon was torn up by its roots.” I was living alone with an 18-month-old baby in a remote cottage as my husband had been called up to Iraq. I spent all my time walking outdoors and one day when walking through a wood a huge herd of fallow deer came galloping up towards us on a narrow ride.

They were enormous animals with great big antlers. We stood completely still as they stampeded around us. It was incredible to experience but also terrifying at the same time. I remember going home and trying to put into words how exciting and visceral it was. I could smell their breath!” An evocative and inspiring memoir which touches on environmental protest, family, motherhood and most importantly, nature. Her passion for the natural world and especially birds, shines through in this wonderful book. -Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.Chester not only has skin in this place, but her head and heart are also fully invested in her care for the corner of Berkshire she calls home. From the girl catching the eye of the “peace women” of Greenham Common to the young woman protesting the loss of ancient and beloved trees, and as a mother raising a family in a farm cottage in the shadow of grand, country estates, this is the story of how Nicola Chester came to write – as a means of protest. The story of how she discovered the rich seam of resistance that runs through her village of Newbury and its people – from the English Civil War to the Swing Riots and the battle against the Newbury Bypass. And the story of the hope she finds in the rewilding of Greenham Common after the military left, the stories told by the landscapes of Watership Down, the gallows perched high on Inkpen Beacon and Highclere Castle (the setting of Downtown Abbey). The "Combe Gibbet" Race takes in Walbury Hill, Pilot Hill beyond it and Ladle Hill and the edge of Watership Down before entering Overton, the source of the River Test. On leaving school, Chester wanted to study conservation, but this was a course for gamekeepers, and female gamekeepers were unheard of.

As soon as the family arrived in a new place, her mum would take them down the footpaths with the dogs to explore their new home and these early experiences with nature continue to influence her.Content highlighting – users can choose to emphasize important elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only. P.S. My husband and I attended the book launch event for On Gallows Down in Hungerford on Saturday evening. Nicola was interviewed by Claire Fuller, whose Women’s Prize-shortlisted novel Unsettled Ground is set in a fictional version of the village where Nicola lives. I slightly envied that. As a Bristolian who left Bristol to go to university and has never returned to the city, or its environs, to live, I do feel, when I visit, that it is home. And my memories of it are of wildlife seen and places explored with friends and relatives. But I have lived the last 45 years or so in Cambridge, and two separate parts of Northamptonshire, as well as stays in Oxford, Aberdeen and abroad. And my work has taken me very regularly to offices in Sandy and meetings in London and many other places so I’ve not really been embedded in a place for a long time, and I slightly envy those who have and admire those, like in this book, who can put that feeling across so well.

From the girl catching the eye of the ‘peace women’ of Greenham Common to the young woman protesting the loss of ancient and beloved trees, and as a mother raising a family in tied and tenanted farm cottages on grand, country estates, this is the story of how Nicola came to write – as a means of protest. Of how she discovered the rich seam of resistance that runs through Newbury’s people from the English Civil War to the Swing Riots and the battle against the Newbury Bypass, the hope she finds in the rewilding of Greenham Common after the military left, and the stories told by the landscapes of Watership Down, the gibbet perched high on Gallows Down and Highclere Castle. Nature is indelibly linked to belonging for Nicola. It changed everything for me. I learned to critique, not just literature but also film, art and other media, and really write; to see more than one side of a story, to see depths and make my own interpretations. I loved those years. They allowed me the freedom to dream and study and write,” she says. Another move to Greenham felt like a body part was being removed, but she soon felt at home in the natural world again as she discovered what was new around there. But it was also a realisation that not everywhere was accessible. This once common ground had been seized for the use of the RAF and it became the home of the American Nuclear force. It was also the home of the peace camp full of women protesting about the presence of these weapons of mass destruction. In the same way, she became aware of the natural world, Chester realised that land and who owned it and was granted access was a political issue. There's lots of fascinating information about the wildlife she sees and how the changes in areas has impacted on the animals and their habitats, as well as the history of places she lived in, that it made for an absorbing read, and one that has made me more determined to do what I can for local areas and wildlife so that more can be protected and saved for future generations. I knew very little about some of the areas she talks about, but she brings them to life with her writing style and I also found myself googling pictures of the area to get more of a feel for the areas that meant so much to her over the years, and those areas that she fought so passionately to save and protect.The legacy of Newbury and the Greenham Common protests preceding it remain controversial, awkward reminders that when Berkshire’s countryside was threatened, it was locals, oddballs and anarchists who answered the call rather than its titled custodians – many of whom supported the bypass’s construction. Belonging, Chester believes, is earned through love and engagement, not inherited by deed.