We are very sad to announce that Douglas Botting has died at the age of 83. Author of Wild Britain: A Traveller’s Guide and General Editor of the Wild Guides series, he is a towering figure in the literature of wild places. To him we owe an eternal debt for capturing in beautifully chosen words the harmonies of the natural world of which we are part and on which we depend for our survival.

Douglas Botting, who died on 6th February, was the author of Wild Britain and General Editor of our Wild Guides series. You see him here soon after leaving Oxford, working away at his desk in Ship Alley, Strand-on-the-Green, Chiswick, in London. Starting out as he meant to continue!