Blog: The Frightened Face of Nature (FFON)
Inspired by Maxwell Knight: MI5’s greatest spymaster ('M') & the original 'Nature Detective'.
A message from John E Cooper, Margaret E Cooper and Simon H King: Thank you for your encouragement and support for the Maxwell Knight Symposium (MKS). The day went well and the audience participation and encouragement was fantastic and we hope you enjoyed it. If you couldn't attend the event, you can get a good feel for the … Continue reading Thanks for your encouragement and support for the Maxwell Knight Symposium
On Monday 28 June 1965 at 13:10 on the BBC Home Service, Maxwell Knight was Roy Plomley's castaway on Desert Island Discs and his favourite track was The Waiter, the Porter and the Upstairs Maid by Bing Crosby & Mary Martin. His favourite book: The Cambridge Natural History Luxury: Microscope Unfortunately, this episode is not currently available on BBC … Continue reading Desert Island Discs: Roy Plomley’s castaway is naturalist Maxwell Knight
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 out for nature and that its greatest threat was man's destructive revolution and the reverse of evolution. “By all means let man use his great powers to invent new devices; let him give of his best to see that all shall benefit from his genius in curing, healing, and housing those in want. But do not suggest that this can only be done by destroying what is fine to look at or listen to, whether in the arts or nature. If human brains can find means of defying space, improving means of communication and bouncing pictures off satellites, surely he can also discover ways in which these things can be done without destruction – for destruction first is the cry of mad revolution and is the reverse of evolution.” - Maxwell Knight The manuscript was kept under lock and key and it remained a secret until 2015 when the (hitherto unpublished) manuscript was discovered inside M's personal filing cabinet... Copyright: see acknowledgements
