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The Spy Who Loved Nature: Maxwell Knight’s Legacy Beyond MI5
Inspired by Simon King’s talk at The Maxwell Knight symposium. In the clandestine corridors of MI5, Maxwell Knight, the original ‘M’, was a living legend. His secret intelligence service prowess during the inter-war years and WWII is well-documented, with a flair for counter-subversion that helped infiltrate the British fascist movement and prevent Nazi sympathiser espionage…
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The Nar Valley in Norfolk – A foot safari during the Covid lockdown.
John and Margaret Cooper’s Pentney to King’s Lynn ‘safari’ 13 – 15 July 2020. A report on our walk – and the natural history that we saw – for the FFON Armchair Naturalist website: https://thefrightenedfaceofnature.com/ Part 1. Last month we decided, as a break from our fifteen-week Covid-19 “lockdown”, to explore the River Nar on…
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THE FISHES’ TALE. Part II : RESURGENCE
By Dr Valerie Jeffries FLS If you missed Part I, it’s here. Franz Witte back in Leiden could hardly believe what he was hearing on the crackly phone line from Tanzania: was his research student Ole really claiming there were dozens of Haplochromine (Haps) fish in his net ? Ole Seehausen, (who’s now a Professor…
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‘Over 1 in 10 UK species faces a real risk of extinction’
Written by Oliver Cottis. Spring is the best time of year and we are stuck at home. With such a depressing grind of negativity, I don’t think it’s ever been as important to connect with nature in any way that we can. For most of us, this means in our gardens. More people than ever…
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Tales from the Riverbank
By Helen Jeffries – FFON’s London Correspondent. Having unexpectedly got an extra day off on Easter Monday I set out in the freezing cold for a bracing walk along the Thames – across one bridge, along the Embankment, back across the bridge, and so home. While still on the bridge I saw two male mallards…
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If only we could race for space for nature
Maxwell Knight mentions the space race in his unpublished manuscript The Frightened Face of Nature and here’s a poignant quote from the same document: Knight’s point was that man should explore; however, why can’t we do these things without destroying natural capital? It’s right to celebrate the Moon landing – 50 years ago, Apollo 11…
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Maxwell Knight Symposium coverage in the IAT Bulletin
Thanks for the generous coverage of the MaxwellKnight Symposium in the IAT Bulletin.
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John and Margaret Cooper would like to express their personal thanks to Simon King
“Our friend Simon King has been a constant source of encouragement and support in the recent investigations into the life and work of Maxwell Knight (MK). Simon offered to take, temporarily to store, and then to catalogue, the contents of Maxwell Knight’s filing cabinet. This was an enormous undertaking; the undertaking was greatly expedited by the enthusiastic…
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“The mysterious Mr Knight: spymaster to be celebrated.” – Cage & Aviary Birds magazine July 18.
Thanks, Cage & Aviary Birds for the article “The Mysterious Mr Knight: spymaster to be celebrated” in this week’s publication. Registration for the Maxwell Knight Symposium is via The British Herpetological Society website Organised by the British Herpetological Society (BHS), with support from the British Chelonia Group (BCG), the Amateur Entomologists Society (AES), the Institute…
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Green Brexit: Farm subsidies ‘must be earned’ – Michael Gove
Michael Gove, as environment secretary, has made Greenpeace UK’s day by saying that farming subsidies must be earned and benefit the environment. Looking for a ‘green Brexit,’ Michael Gove may only be prepared to hand out payments when farmers agree to protect the environment and enhance rural life. “Huge news! Michael Gove has just said…
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Should urban developers be forced to contribute to nature’s recovery in the UK?
By Simon H King With one in seven of the UK’s wildlife species at risk of *extinction should property developers be encouraged (or forced) to contribute to nature’s recovery? (*State of Nature report, 2016). ‘The natural world needs our help as never before,’ warns Sir David Attenborough in the forward to the State of Nature…
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‘More than 800,000 songbirds illegally killed’ on British military base in Cyprus – Robins and blackcaps are among the birds being trapped for food…
See The Independent online – The Express – The Guardian – BBC News
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“Is there to be no room for the Arts?”
“This is the age of science”, is the cry from ministries and other authorities, and it is true that science must play a large part in the lives of our future citizens. But do we truly want or need a nation of scientists where each person can claim that he or she has attained some…
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The beginning of something great? “Young people urge UK politicians to help safeguard nature”
“Young people” hit the headlines this week for all the right reasons – to share their 2050 vision for nature (#VisionforNature). Let us applaud these nature-protecting protagonists for making themselves heard above the daily noise of grumpy adults. They have spoken. Now, we must listen… …to what’s in the report written by the A Focus on…
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Chapter IV – goodbye to wildlife?
In this heartfelt chapter of The Frightened Face of Nature, Maxwell Knight drops his guard and invites the reader to consider the unthinkable – “the virtual disappearance of nature”. “Does such a question as that heading this chapter stem from the neurotic imaginings of a fanatic,” he asks, “or is it one that can reasonably be…
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As long as there are two songbirds still singing, the percentage decline can’t get any worse
In just forty years between 1970 and 2010 the global Living Planet Index (LPI), which measures more than “10,000 representative populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, has declined by 52 per cent.” (source: WWF Living Planet Report 2014). The World Wildlife Fund’s and ZSL’s LPI report states that, “Habitat loss and degradation, and…
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Maxwell Knight sang praises of the amateur naturalist
Maxwell Knight played a significant part in a number of fields; herpetology was his particular love and he produced a number of scientific papers on this subject as well as adding to national and local records and, through his books and broadcasts, encouraging an appreciation of reptiles and amphibians amongst the British public. The filing cabinet contains letters…
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Nature: friend or foe?
“Many people think that animals of all kinds can be neatly put into groups and labelled Friend, or Foe; or Harmless, or Harmful. Unfortunately, nature does not work like this, and there are very few creatures in this country that can be described as wholly beneficial or equally destructive… This business of friends and foes…
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Why didn’t Maxwell Knight publish The Frightened Face of Nature?
Maxwell Knight was aware of the furore and criticism from chemical companies and others when Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring in 1962. Indeed, he credits her work in his unpublished manuscript. She wasn’t the only one in those years who drew attention to environmental problems and was criticised for not being “proper scientists”;…
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M’s (Maxwell Knight) Spectre: The Frightened Face of Nature
During the 1960s Maxwell Knight – the real-life “M” – was working on a manuscript entitled The Frightened Face of Nature, snatching brief moments to record his thoughts on how man had treated nature so unfairly for the first fifty years of the twentieth century. The manuscript documented Knight’s greatest fears that, time was running…
