Linda Seward

I just finished reading this story about how a boy became a naturalist and a scientist. It is part memoir mixed with a fair quantity of science, seasoned with a dash of philosophy and spiced with a joyous celebration of nature. And all presented with the odd flash of wry humour. Here is a renowned scientist talking about his early working life in his father’s fishing supply store: “The fact remains that my first commercial experience was as a maggot dealer, with hemp on the side.” Professor Fortey’s prodigious recollections run the gamut from creating the most terrible smell in the world in his chemistry lab to solitary fungal forays in the woods around London to death-defying experiences collecting trilobites in Norway to delivering an ammonite fossil to the Museum of Natural History in London, little dreaming he would one day work there. His thoughtful observation on the organisms living in the foetid mud along the banks of the River Thames sums up his approach to his future profession: “Where other living things found life unbearable, for Tubifex it was an opportunity to prosper. I would take that lesson on life’s exuberant opportunism into the rest of my scientific life.” Though written at times with gentle pathos, this book is an exceptional celebration of life and nature. All in all, it’s a remarkable accomplishment covering an even more remarkable life. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.