‘I thought, okay, well it worked for Lady Godiva, didn’t it? This whole naked stuff? So let me give that a try. I felt like it was the only option.’
Just as it worked for Lady Godiva, so it has for Hannah Bourne-Taylor, the campaigner, naturalist and writer who has spent years fighting for change to help Britain’s bird population — and particularly the swift.
After spending years overseas in places where she was surrounded by birds and nature, Hannah was dismayed on her return to see how little is being done to help preserve wildlife — and particularly with regard to her favourite bird, the swift.
Subscribe to the Country Life Podcast
And after deciding to do something about it, she launched the campaign which has now taken years of her life — and which, as she tells James Fisher on the Country Life Podcast, has seen her enjoy a blaze of publicity by marching up and down Whitehall without a stitch on, in a desperate, yet wildly successful, publicity stunt.
She tells James about the swift, their plight, and how the simple introduction of one or two ‘swift bricks’ added to each new build house could have an enormous impact at negligible cost, by providing safe nesting for birds whose former favourite spots have increasingly disappeared due to modern construction techniques.
Hannah also talks about her love of nature in general and the struggles she’s faced, from battling apathy and indifference to hastily adjusting a stick-on G-string in the House of Lords toilets. She also tells a tale from an earlier time in her life, when a tiny lost fledgling nested in her hair as it recuperated before rejoining its family.
Hannah Bourne-Taylor during one of her naked protests trying to save the swift.
It’s a fascinating glimpse in to the mind of a woman who is in equal measure strong, brave, eccentric and passionate. Once you’ve listened, we’d highly recommend Hannah’s books for more: her latest, Nature Needs You, about her battle to save the swift, and Fledgling, her story that rewrites ‘the conventional boundaries of the relationships people have with animals’.
Episode credits
Host: James Fisher
Guest: Hannah Bourne-Taylor
Editor and producer: Toby Keel
Music: JuliusH via Pixabay
-
'This is how the countryside looked to Gilbert White, to Thomas Hardy, even to Shakespeare and Chaucer': The forgotten corner of the world where King Charles has poured his energy into preserving an all-but-extinct way of lifeThe historic buildings of a Transylvanian settlement have been restored and preserved with the help of several foundations and backed by The King’s personal enthusiasm. Jeremy Musson reports on this remarkable place; photographs by Paul Highnam.
-
‘The perfect hostess, he called her’: A five minute guide to Virgina Woolf’s ‘Mrs Dalloway’To mark its centenary, Lotte Brundle delves into the lauded writer’s strange and poignant classic, set across a single summer’s day in 1920’s London.
-
'It’s not ironic that I really like wasps and that they nearly killed me. It’s simply a coincidence': What to do if you're stung by a waspAfter a close encounter with some wasps put him in hospital, William Kendall sought an unlikely remedy...
-
Hen harriers: The 'marvels of evolutionary adaptation' that are 'ballet and theatre and poetry inscribed on air'The hen harrier is one of the most glorious birds of prey in Britain — yet it provokes fierce debate. Mark Cocker unpicks why this breed is among the most controversial of all British birds.
-
Steve Backshall on sharks, quicksand, and getting his fingertips eaten by piranhasThe adventurer, broadcaster, scientist and writer Steve Backshall joins the Country Life podcast.
-
New vision for old Dartmoor: Prince of Wales leads ambitious plans for nature recovery in CornwallThe Vision outlines a set of guiding principles to inform the future environmental management of the Duchy’s Dartmoor estate.
-
Wakehurst: 500 years of history, 2.4 billion seeds, 500 acres of planting, and scientists who might just save us allCharles Quest-Ritson takes a look at the amazing work that's been done to update Wakehurst, Kew's trailblazing outpost in Sussex.
-
'I spent 84 years living in the countryside, and have just moved to a city. Here's what I've discovered.'Charles Moseley has lived in a small village in Cambridgeshire for decades, but now he’s made the leap with his wife to the cathedral city of Ely, the subject of his latest book.
-
Goshawks: The birds of prey that came back from extinctionBy the late 19th century, the goshawk was indisputably extinct, but their recent restoration to the British isles makes it worth exploring their history. Expert naturalist Mark Cocker tells more about this fascinating bird of prey.
-
'The biggest cavities are in the hearts and skulls of politicians': What hope for the swift?Ahead of World Swift Day and Swift Awareness Week, Octavia Pollock ponders the decision not to mandate the use of swift bricks
