Northern forest – Kevin Telfer

It looks at first glance like another environmental good story that follows in the wake of a number of other positive announcements in recent times – the government is to support the planting of 50 million trees in order to make a new northern forest that will spread across an entire swathe of the north, from Liverpool in the west to Hull in the east. There’s a more detailed look at the project here, on the Woodland Trust website. I previously wrote on this blog about how we need more trees in this under-wooded country and so in this respect it seems like a great thing. But as Patrick Barkham points out in the Guardian, there is more than a suggestion of greenwash on the part of the government about the announcement of the new northern forest – at the same time, HS2 and fracking in northern England are destroying valuable existing habitats and trees that have stood for hundreds of years.

Continue reading “The new northern forest”

About me

I am an author and journalist with an interest in all kinds of stories and a special love for the natural world, literature, history, music and wine. I live on the edge of the New Forest.

My book commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, The Summer of ’45: Stories and Voices from VE Day to VJ Day begins with the signing of the German surrender to the Western Allies in Reims on 7 May. The Summer of ’45 is a ‘people’s history’ which gathers voices from all levels of society and from all corners of the globe to explore the four months following that surrender that would dictate the order of the world for decades to come.

My debut novel Indrakhani Pass is available as a Kindle ebook. It is an adventure story set in the Indian Himalayas.

I am the author of a number of non-fiction books including Peter Pan’s First XI, about J. M. Barrie’s cricket team the Allahakbarries, and The Remarkable Story of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

I co-wrote Grand Designs Abroad with television presenter Kevin McCloud and have helped Dame Vera Lynn and her daughter Virginia Lewis-Jones tell the story of Dame Vera’s time singing in Burma during the Second World War.

I have also co-written two books about low-energy buildings called earthships with Mischa Hewitt. The second, and most up-to-date, of these is Earthships in Europe, which you can buy though the Brighton Earthship, which Mischa helps to run.

Using the pseudonym Milton Crawford I wrote The Hungover Cookbook, which has been translated into Dutch, Finnish and German and has sold more than 200,000 copies worldwide. The second book in the series is The Drunken Cookbook and the third is The Lover’s Cookbook.

I have written articles for publications including the Guardian, the Telegraph, The Sunday Times, the Idler, the Architects’ Journal, Green Building Magazine, Grand Designs magazine and BBC Who Do You Think You Are? magazine.

I have also been the news editor for the Media Society, a script consultant for BBC drama Lark Rise to Candleford, and an award-winning digital copywriter, winning the PR Week award for best in social and digital media in 2011 for a groundbreaking project with the RAF Benevolent Fund.