How Wild Writing Took Flight In Essex

When JA Baker penned a book about the peregrine falcons of the Blackwater estuaries, now 50 years ago, few realised it would be a pioneering piece of literature. Essex Life finds out more

- JA Baker

 

IT WAS 50 years ago that a Chelmsford birdwatcher named John Alec Baker penned a book about the peregrine falcons of the Blackwater estuaries, after spending years walking and cycling the paths in the area. The Peregrine won a prestigious literary prize, highlighted the decline in peregrine numbers caused by pesticide use and influenced a generation of nature writers with its innovative style. The book’s 50th anniversary is being marked with a new edition, the first biography of Baker and a lecture on his legacy by wild writer Dr James Canton, who followed in Baker’s footsteps in his own book Out of Essex.

JA Baker was a private man. He lived in Chelmsford with his wife and was rarely seen socially. After leaving school in 1943 he had about 15 assorted jobs, from cutting down trees and pushing book trolleys at the British Museum, to working for the AA, even though he didn’t drive. He had spent much of his life watching birds and for ten years from the mid-1950s he walked along the river valleys of the Chelmer and the edges of the Blackwater estuaries on the trail of the peregrine. Each autumn a small number, typically two pairs, returned from Scandinavia to winter in Essex. Baker made detailed daily notes on the birds, the landscape and the weather.