The man above the fireplace

WH Hudson was a pioneering naturalist, writer and campaigner - and his bold ideas about connecting people with the natural world hold true today

- CONOR MARK JAMESON

FOR MOST OF THE 25 YEARS THAT I worked at the RSPB headquarters in Bedfordshire, WH Hudson was just 'the man above the fireplace', peering out at proceedings from an almost life-size portrait in the main meeting room. It was only when researching a book on the goshawk, looking for traces of the species in old texts from Hudson's era, that I came to know him better.

The more I found out, the more intrigued I became. Who was this inscrutable figure who helped to create the RSPB - an organisation that has been such a significant part of my life, and that today has well over a million members and 200 nature reserves? And why is he so seldom mentioned?

Before long I was engrossed in writing a biography to reanimate the man in the painting. Working mainly from his letters, I pieced together the untold story of Hudson and his colleagues' pioneering work in campaigning for conservation and inspiring people to protect nature. Hudson wrote books about nature, and novels, and was revered as an author, but writing was, for him, just a means to an end. "I'm not one of you damned writers!" he once exclaimed at a literary lunch in Soho. "I'm a naturalist from La Plata!"

For me, it was there that the plot thickened. Born and raised in Argentina, Hudson was from both another place and another time. As a fan of spaghetti westerns, I instantly pictured him Clint Eastwood-style, a lone horseman riding out of the hazy horizon, on a noble mission. And in fact, that's really not much of a stretch.