Nicola Chester explores the parallels and the differences between her life and that of Miss White, a woman who once lived in the author’s village and realised her ambition to become a farmer during the Second World War. Nicola’s research into past and present illuminates her own battles to raise awareness of rural communities, outdoor work and the ongoing loss of farmland birds that were so familiar to Miss White.
Nicola is the author of the award-winning memoir On Gallows Down; Place, Protest and Belonging (Chelsea Green, 2021). One of the early female pioneers of nature writing, she has written a column for the RSPB magazine since 2004 after winning BBC Wildlife Magazine’s Nature Writer of the Year Award. She is a Guardian Country Diarist and writes for BBC Countryfile Magazine as well as other online and print publications. Nicola’s writing also features in several anthologies, including Wild Service, (Bloomsbury, 2024, ed. by Nick Hayes and Jon Moses) Under the Changing Skies, The Best of The Guardian Country Diary, 2018-2024 (Faber, 2024, ed. Paul Fleckney) and Women On Nature (Unbound, 2021, ed. Katharine Norbury). She wrote for the RSPB’s Junior and Youth Magazines for many years, inspiring many of today’s young wildlife campaigners. A former school librarian, she was a judge for the inaugural 2025 Climate Fiction Prize, launched at the Hay Festival, and has been a guest speaker and taught sessions for undergraduate, post-graduate and MA Creative Writing students at Cambridge University, Bournemouth University and Sheffield University, and for the MA in Nature and Travel Writing at Bath Spa.