Local BTCV groups began to emerge and, six years after my first conservation experience, the Berkshire Conservation Volunteers came into existence. This was much more convenient for me, being a man whose only transport at the time was a bicycle, and I joined the inaugural work party one foggy November day at Hartslock, a newly acquired Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve beside the Thames near Goring. I have worked there many times since then, even up to quite recent years. The main appeal of this chalk grassland site lies in the colonies of orchids, some species being quite rare such as the monkey and lady orchids, but there is much more to it than that, of course. Here there are pyramidal orchids in the foreground with, down below, the Thames being crossed by Brunel's Gatehampton railway bridge (before being adorned with power line gantries). July 2008
Author: C Ormonde