Even the bad times were good
I've just watched a television documentary about cricketer Ian Botham, who, thirty years ago today, almost single-handedly defeated the Australians in the famous Headingley test. The first half of the programme, that looked at his career between 1974 - 1981, had me drowning in nostalgia - not just for the cricketing performances that I followed so avidly at the time, but also because these same years also neatly dovetailed into my early birding life. Botham's test debut recalls a trip to Abinger Common. His rise to 'first-name on the team sheet' was at the same time that I began my mercifully brief flirtation with twitching. His glorious summer of 81 paralleled my own semi-residence at Dungeness. At first I was at a loss to put a finger on what it was that bestowed upon this period really good reasons to cherish it so much... Viewing any archive news footage from this period is a shock - Britain looked so grimy and downtrodden. The birding was similar. Mo...