The forgotten forest

Wildlife photographer David Bailey shares memories from his childhood and his early inspirations in the New Forest

Childhood shapes us all for the rest of our lives. Mine spent playing on the heaths and in the ancient woods of the New Forest certainly nurtured my love for nature; giving me the understanding of the natural world to capture images working as a wildlife photographer.

My mother’s family came from generations of foresters. Her parents originally lived at Home Farm, Blissford, before her father died, when mother was only five years old. Later gran married Len Witt and moved to Windy Ridge at Frogham. Hence Len was always grandad to me.

Len was a local character. All his life he ran the famous New Forest ponies out on the heaths.

He owned a handful of cows and had fields of strawberries that all the family helped pick during the summer. He would take weekly pony trap rides to Southampton, which was a good 20 miles away, to sell his goods. He would even make Christmas holly wreaths, which he sold in the capital by travelling up by train from Brockenhurst. It must have been an awesome experience for someone who used to travel by horse to sell on the streets of London – a journey he only stopped making after he was robbed one year.

Dolly the cow reflected Len’s character. Gentle, yet occasionally stubborn, she spent nights in an old wooden shed in the yard and was led by Len with a length of binder twine tied round her horns out onto the forest most mornings to graze.