PERSONAL VIEW - Mr. A. J. Pettifer.
(Mr. Pettifer has been an active member of the Club for,
as he says, more years than he cares to remember. He
maintains a lively interest in all branches of Natural
History, but he is chiefly known for his encyclopaedic
knowledge of the Bryophytes. I put a few questions to him
over the phone, and the following is a transcript of his
taped replies. - WEM)
WEM: Does your interest in natural history have any
relationship with your work?
AJP: Well, when I was working, it was only just a general
interest. I was a school master you see, and it was useful
for teaching purposes. That is, until I came to live in
Essex and had retired. And then they got me to take advanced
biology at the Mid-Essex Technical College, Chelmsford, and
I was doing that for a couple of years. And that's where it
did come in very handy. But maths and physics are my
subjects, and natural history is my pastime.
WRM: What do you think it was that led you to the specialist
study of the Bryophytes?
AJP: Now, why does anybody specialise? You can't say.
Before the first world war I did a course in botany at the
working-men's college in Crown Road. Those were the days of
the amateur naturalist (there's fewer of them nowadays), and
I learned the life-story of the moss, Funaria, and the
liverwort, Pellia, in the course of my studies there. And I
took a great interest, even in those days in those two things,
Funaria and Pellia are still the type subjects for
matriculation, or GCE ordinary level as it is called now.
That really started me off; I saw Funaria and Pellia growing
wild, and in the years that followed, they always interested
me, the bryophytes.
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