horrified at their findings and predictions. Areas with mountains will suffer less, as
plants and the associated fauna can go up the mountains to cooler regions, but those
already at the top will have nowhere to go. In flatter areas, such as Australia, birds
might fly towards the pole but the plants move much more slowly and will not be there
when the birds arrive, so all will die. It makes most nature conservation seem rather
inadequate and even pointless. We comfort ourselves with the notion that we shall be
pushing daisies long before then, but it does not look good for our children and
grandchildren. Even if greenhouse gas emission slows soon, it is too late to do much
about the spiral of global warming. One thing is clear: the population of humans is far
too large, and the lifestyle to which too many of us have become accustomed is
unsustainable and cannot last much longer. As the African proverb has it: we do not
inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children.
We visited the 12th Century parish church in North Ockendon for a Sunday service in
January. On the wall is a plaque commemorating one of its past parishioners, one William
Coys (b 1560, d 1627). He lived at Stubbers, now an outdoor pursuits centre. Coys was
a well-known botanist, specialising in growing seeds brought to him from distant lands.
He built six walled gardens at Stubbers, of which one remains. He introduced the little
purple-flowered Ivy-leaved Toadflax to grow on the walls, which it still does, but it has
also spread to many other walls all over Britain. Some others of his plants still grow in
the grounds, such as Yellow Figwort. He was the first in Britain to grow a Yucca to
flowering, to grow Tomato plants, and the Flemish cultivated Hop varieties for improving
the beer. He did his own indoor research too, breeding better strains of yeast for the
brewing industry. There is more information about him in the library of the Linnean
Society. Until I went to the church I had never heard of him.
On 28"' January we had snow in the small hours so we woke up to a white world. It was
only 2.5cm deep. The sun came out and it all thawed slowly, but in the afternoon the
clouds returned and we had another 2cm of snow with thunder and lightning, an unusual
event. The large, even snow-laden cloud covered most of Britain in a blanket. Usually
for electric storms there have to be discrete storm clouds to allow charge to build up, but
this was very atypical. It was freezing then, and overnight the temperature went down
as the sky cleared again. There was chaos on the roads for two days. Comments in the
press were along the lines of 'this Arctic weather...', when those of us with longer
memories thought this was what a normal January was meant to be like.
In contrast, summer was on 4th February, exactly one week after said Arctic weather.
Temperatures soared to 17°C. I mowed our lawn for its first cut of the year, the last cut
of 2003 having been in late July since the long drought meant there was nothing but hay
for months.
A few days later news broke of an amazing discovery of a 6"' Century Saxon burial
chamber at Prittlewell, near Southend. But that is not natural history, so I will say no
6 Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 44, May 2004