On the wings of love

Once oblivious to butterflies, Robin Page became so entranced by their delicate beauty that he embarked on a year-long safari to tick every British species–as well as some foreign visitors–off his list

- Robin Page

WHEN did I become obsessed with butterflies? The answer is simple—I don’t know. As a child, I quickly became aware of them. There were white ones, ‘cabbage whites’, that father blamed for eating our cabbages as caterpillars; brightly coloured ones in the spring that fluttered against the window panes, trying to get out of the house; and others in the autumn that tried to get in. However, at that stage, that is as far as me and butterflies went.

Then, years later, I met an amazing countryman—well, a Londoner who had moved into the countryside as a child during the Second World War as an evacuee—called Gordon Beningfield. By the time our paths crossed, he had metamorphosed from an urban child at risk from war into a quite extraordinary watercolour artist and conservationist; what a transformation. He was also a man who suffered with dyslexia, yet could hold an audience enthralled with words—as long as they were spoken, as opposed to written words, because ‘spellin’ was beyond ’im’.

With a paintbrush in his hand, he turned butterfly illustration into art, butterflies into conservation allies and his artwork into a countryside crusade. His pictures told the story of changing Britain, warning against the double meaning of the word ‘progress’: a boggy place drained, wildflowers sprayed, an orchard uprooted and a new town— a planner’s dream, a politician’s boast, an environmental insult, a butterfly disaster and a countryside nightmare (‘Dance of the butterflies’, September 5, 2018).

Butterflies became more than wings–they were wings, flowers, plants and seasons